Dear Editor,
During the Mashramani celebrations 2011, I was at home when an NCN reporter spoke to some people in the PPP contingent who declared that they had travelled from Berbice to participate in the party group. What did they think of Mashramani? They responded by saying that the celebration represented, “the coming together of the races of Guyana to celebrate after work done.” This was not the right answer but I attributed this shortcoming to the wave of ignorance that seems to be thriving in Guyana today, from the responses to a Radio DJ asking for the right spelling of Mashramani to some years ago when a Miss Guyana contestant replied that her favourite author was “Arthur Chung,” to a new breed of politician who could not distinguish Dominica from Dominican Republic, to the daily tragedies of scandals, etc. But it was on reading parts of our (by protocol) national newspaper, the Guyana Chronicle that I realized that the wrong answer given was by no means an individual lack of knowledge, but the result of a contrived effort to rewrite Guyana’s history and misguide future generations.
In the Chronicle was a supplement by Parvati Persaud-Edwards titled ‘Harbingers of Guyana’s Independence and Republican status.’ This is a person I thought I knew. The picture essay was a documentary of the PPP pre-Independence era without the ‘Why?’ to every caption. It had neither in the context of its narrative or pictorial anything to do with Mashramani; it was a miserable attempt at political mesmerism. There was also an accurate article titled ‘The Origin of Mashramani.’ This article should be extracted and placed in a scrapbook for further reference; the one little touch the article lacked was to inform us that Mashramani celebrated our Republic status and the Revolution of 1763 and that Kofi, our national hero is inseparable from Mash.
The revolution of 1763 is one of the four most important revolutions carried out in the Americas. Its intent was to win nation status; this was the first attempt by an ancestor of the Guyanese nation to institute nationhood. It began on Feb 23, 1763. [Ed note: It is now thought it began on February 27, 1763]. In honour of this revolution we became a Republic on the February 23, 1970, the Kofi (Cuffy) Dollar was issued, as well as writings, etc. Mashramani was the celebration that commemorated the 207 years of work, resistance, perseverance and struggle from revolution to republic, and no Guyanese is separate from this heritage, nor must any seek to desecrate it.
Yours faithfully,
Barrington Braithwaite
