Dear Editor,
I started travelling in Africa around 1979 then extensively in 1980. By 1986 I had visited over 30 African countries, many several times. Many Africans did not readily understand where I was from and sometimes confused Guyana with Ghana. Trying to place Guyana in South America often led to the francophones in particular labelling me an American.
In those days African knowledge of the West Indies and West Indians was limited to a clutch of distinguished persons.
In some of the most remote parts of the Upper Volta (now called Burkino Faso) as well as the poorest sections of Ougadougou the capital, walls were festooned with Bob Marley posters and banners and reggae sounds blasted through the air night and day. I did not emphasize that Marley and I were not from the same country and often used the term “neighbouring” loosely.
Professional classes from the Lusophone island of Cape Verde to bi-lingual Cameroon along Africa’s West Coast knew and admired Walter Rodney. A few, mainly from Sierra Leone and Ghana, had a tendency to refer to him as Sir Walter Rodney obviously confusing him with Sir Walter Raleigh who served Queen Elizabeth 1. I had never met Rodney but was able to legitimately claim him as a compatriot which won me many instant friends as well as acrimonious debate.
My job as an executive of a major American firm put me in the bosom of some very powerful and influential African families – many the sons and daughters of existing or past Presidents.
In this milieu the name Dr W. Herbert (Bertie) Allsopp was/is revered. Dr Allsopp was and still is a fisheries expert with over 55 years of fishery research and practice across more than 110 countries. Sons of the late President of Togo were mere boys when Bertie visited Togo to advise on their fisheries sector.
At the time he was Regional Fishery Officer for Africa. To this day one of Sylvanus Olympio’s sons refers to Dr Allsopp as “The Allsopp man who fed five thousand Togolese with one fish” in an obvious reference to the Bible.
Bertie Allsopp is a legend among fisherfolk in parts of West Africa where from 1968 to 1972 he was General Secretary in charge of organizing the International Commissions for West Africa involving some 38 countries. To this day when introduced to Guyanese of a certain age the Olympio family member, wherever in the world he/she might be, is likely to ask. “Do you know Dr Bertie Allsopp?” It is the same with many Ghanaian first families. Ghana’s reliance on imported Canadian cod, Portuguese sardines and herring ended with the so-called Allsopp Intervention and it soon become a net exporter of fish and seafood.
Guyana should recognize the sterling contribution that Dr Bertie Allsopp made to international fishery. That many African countries today are self-sufficient in fish and fish product is largely down to a single Guyanese fisheries expert who won a government scholarship in 1946 which took him to the University of Wisconsin to gain his Masters degree at 21.
In Brazil Dr Allsopp studied their method of breeding fish (developed in 1934) with hormonal extracts, then demonstrated his procedure in Thailand in 1954 at the Indo-Pacific Fisheries Conference. This breeding system was then applied by Indian, Thai, Malay and Indonesian fishery scientists with tremendous success.
In the USA his pioneering work led to changes in legislation protecting endangered manatees in the waterways of the Mississippi, Georgia, down to Florida. He joined the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) at the UN in 1961, went to Togo in W. Africa and became Regional Fishery Officer for Africa. He managed the initial US Peace Corps fishery team for Togo, where he met famed Peace Corps Chief Sargent Schriver. It was probably around the same time that he befriended Sylvanus Olympio, first President of Togo after independence from the French.
Dr Allsopp should be honoured for his outstanding contributions to the development of sustainable fisheries internationally and for demonstrating to the world that little known Guyana despite its undeveloped status is rich in talent and can produce individuals of world leader ability and achievement, people of global impact.
To recover our fortunes and regenerate our country, we must begin by recongnizing our very own across ethnic boundaries. Somewhere deep down we really have to build up our self-confidence, to restore the belief that people can fashion their own destinies and Guyanese people can hold their own and excel anywhere in the world. The task is to re-introduce the annual honour role in a way that the national award system establishes that government really is by, for and of the people, that you can pull yourself up, that privates really do carry field marshals’ batons in their knapsacks, that setbacks are not irreversible, that not only politicians deserve recognition but also ordinary Guyanese people who by dint of talent, hard work and vision are able to lift Guyana out of its settled mediocrity and unto the world stage as high achievers.
Yours faithfully,
F. Hamley Case
