Dear Editor,
I am responding to the news story ‘Educator MT Lowe passes on’ (SN, Nov 30). I don’t dispute the accolades showered on the late Mr Lowe by several prominent personalities. But I and many other victims of Mr Lowe’s decisions remember him differently.
It is not nice to speak ill of the dead. But the historical record on Mr Lowe won’t be accurate unless it includes something about how he handled the student and staff strikes in 1976 and 1977. Mr Lowe victimized students and dismissed several teachers for standing up for their rights during the oppressive era.
Whatever Mr Lowe might have been in the eyes of some who praised his teaching ability, he must also be remembered as Burnham’s man at the time of his appointment to the Ministry of Education as Chief Education Officer.
In October 1976, students at the Corentyne High School (Chandisingh) formed several societies and a student council after obtaining approval from its then principal Mr JC Chandisingh. I was elected President of the Council and Mr Thejram Raghubir was elected President of the Hindu Society. A few days later, Mr Chandisingh dissolved all the societies and the council for inexplicable reasons. The student council, of which I was elected President, called a strike boycotting classes and holding picketing exercises. The principal quickly backed down and caved in to our demands allowing the functioning of the societies and student council. But he warned us that higher authorities from Georgetown objected to the formation of student organizations and that our teacher mentors would be disciplined. True to his word, in January, three of our favourite and most popular teachers and advisors, Chaitram Singh, Indradat Jagnandan, and Vijaya Poonwasie Tewari, were victimized. MT Lowe ordered the disciplining of the teachers and it is believed he took orders from Burnham. Jagnandan and Tewari were transferred to far away schools and Mr Singh was dismissed from the job altogether. Mr Singh was trained at the US military academy at West Point under a US Government scholarship and briefly served in the Guyana army, resigning because he refused to swear loyalty to an illegally elected regime. Readers can form their own conclusion as to why Burnham may not have wanted a military officer to serve as advisor to student organizations. Mr Singh taught me Physics.
The day after we found our physics. The day after we found out our teachers had been victimized, we called a students’ strike and sought support from neighbouring schools to boycott classes. Soon the strike spread throughout the Corentyne and even spread across the Berbice River. Teachers from virtually all the schools also walked off the job demanding the restoration of the disciplined teachers to their original positions. Mr Lowe refused to yield to our demands. The strike lasted for about six weeks and we were on the picket line daily. Dr Rodney, Mr Eusi Kwayana, Father Malcolm Rodrigues, Dr Omowale, and others provided support, joining in picketing exercises on the Corentyne and participating in planning and strategy sessions, some of which were held at the Port Mourant Shivala. Rodney was the featured speaker at one public rally condemning Burnham, Lowe and others.
Mr Lowe travelled to the Corentyne and held a meeting at the Roman Catholic Primary School in Rose Hall with striking teachers from dozens of schools threatening them with dismissal unless they ended their support for fired staff members Singh, Jagnandan, and Tewarie. But the teachers held tough.
In February 1977, there was a picketing demonstration outside of the Ministry of Education, in sympathy with the striking students and teachers from the Corentyne. Students from Georgetown’s secondary schools, including St Stanislaus, were joined by members of the WPA and CLAC in protesting against Mr Lowe’s decision against the three teachers at Corentyne High School. Among the demonstrators were Dr Walter Rodney, Fr Malcolm Rodrigues, Mr Eusi Kwayana, and Dr Josh Ramsammy. I believe Drs Rupert Roopnaraine and Omowale were also there and can shed more light on the incident. The most eye-catching sign, and the most prescient read, “Down with Empty and Lowe Tactics!”
Corentyne High School was a testing ground for excising the anti-Burnham intelligentsia of some of its best and brightest. Shortly after the protest, Sister Hazel Campayne, who was sympathetic to striking students and staff on the Corentyne, was removed from St Rose’s, and shortly after that there were other reprisals. Mr Lowe was part of the structure Burnham used to purge the Guyanese educational system of quality teachers. Editor, as your news item reveals, some Burnhamites might want to write nostalgically about MT Lowe’s tenure at the Ministry of Education but, for many of the Guyanese-born intellectuals living overseas and students like me who still have scars from Burnham’s police chasing and whipping us, MT Lowe was an integral part of an oppressive structure, a loyal apparatchik in the service of a nefarious regime.
MT Lowe had a chance to clear his name and disassociate himself from the evils of Burnhamism. But he did not do so during the 25 years after Burnham’s death. He expressed no remorse.
A final note: Chaitram Singh is now a distinguished professor at a college in Georgia and has written three books, including the novel, The Flour Convoy which accurately captures smuggling of banned foods from Suriname. His next novel is due out in May 2011. Dr Indradat Jagnandan is a research scientist with a pharmaceutical giant in Jersey, and Vijaya Tewari is settled in Texas.
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram
Editor’s note
While the late Mr Lowe did play a part in relation to the three teachers of Corentyne High School mentioned above, some of Mr Bisram’s other facts are in question. According to Fr Morrison’s work Justice… the demonstrations in the Georgetown education system did not begin until after August 15, 1978, over the NIS issue, when teachers held sickouts and protests. Students of the capital’s senior secondary schools became fully involved in 1979 – including St Stanislaus – more particularly following the killing of Father Darke in July of that year. He was a Mathematics teacher at the college who was stabbed by a member of the House of Israel while photographing for the Catholic Standard.
According to a 150th anniversary publication, celebrating the work of the Ursuline nuns in Guyana and St Rose’s (Together celebrating 150 years… 1847-1997) Sister Hazel Campayne was interdicted from duty on June 18, 1980. She had earlier received a letter from the Teaching Service Commission transferring her to North Ruimveldt.
The late Mr Lowe would not have had power over teaching appointments following the setting up of the Teaching Service Commission, which we understand came into being in April 1977. It was subsequently made one of the constitutional commissions.
