Dear Editor,
I am not surprised at the silence coming from the Ministry of Culture, as well as the Head of the Literary Committee of the organizing body for the Inter-Guianas Cultural Festival, Alim Hosein, with regard to my letter accusing the ministry in general and the Minister in particular of perpetuating a campaign of discrimination.
I am aware that there are several charges that have been levelled by the ministry’s machinery against me whenever independent queries arise about my claims. The most prominent, and this is the PPP’s go-to label for critics that they cannot concoct a plausible public response to, is that I am “bitter and negative.”
The logic behind this presupposes an injustice carried out against me, and there is surely a clear-cut case that can be made for one. The thing is, however, I’ve spent nine years dealing with this idiocy, throughout which I have repeatedly engaged with the ministry in the interest of creating a better local environment for emerging Guyanese writers.
For example, last May, I was among a handful of people in receipt of an e-mail, sent on behalf of the Ministry of Culture, inviting submissions for “an anthology of contemporary poetry.”
“Timely submission will ensure Prof. David Dabydeen gets a chance to examine our work before we meet with him any time after May 24, 2011.
“Further, you must be prepared to meet with Dabydeen for additional discussion on the composition of the anthology. The anthology will be published by THE CARIBBEAN PRESS.”
I not too politely pointed out the timing of the scramble to publish months before the election and the continued lack of developmental mechanisms. I was immediately chastised by two people on the list for not grasping the opportunity immediately and without reservation “however haphazard, however infinitesimal, however political” because “half a loaf was better than no Bread,” and that there was “no need for you to denigrate the efforts of others that will no doubt benefit writers less fortunate than yourself.”
In my response, I stated clearly:
“I haven’t ruled out engagement – what I have done is conditioned my engagement, as a matter of personal moral policy, upon a process which sees as wide as possible a casting of the net to include poets who are out of the present network and who are awaiting discovery, and a mechanism which allows for the development of their work. This would ensure that any anthology coming out of this effort would not only have the best of contemporary poets, but also their best possible work.”
I was contacted and encouraged by David Dabydeen to attend the meeting and to offer some constructive criticism and to work with those gathered on the way forward – and I went. Those gathered were promised a dedicated space for writers in what I perhaps misconstrued to be the Carifesta Secretariat on Middle Street, and which would be the venue for the follow-up meeting.
A few days before the planned meet, we were informed that the Carifesta sports club had an event scheduled and so we could not meet there.
Anticipating the disingenuousness of the Minister’s offer, I had already reserved the back room in Oasis Café and that is where the meeting was held. For brevity’s sake, I’ll skip the particulars but suffice it to say that to this day not so much as a pamphlet of Guyanese poetry has been produced.
So, no, this is not about personal bitterness or negativity – this is about seriously working to create an environment of fairness, openness and the provision of the tools that can aid talented young writers to achieve their best, without fear or favour. This is not what currently obtains at the ministry level, and it has not been part of PPP policy for the past twenty years; and it needs to change immediately.
In his always insightful, ‘So it Go‘ column of last Sunday, the renowned Dave Martins laments the lack of good creative writing talent among young people in Guyana today. Writing, and writing well, as he correctly surmises, takes both talent and hard work – it is often a long and tedious process and the young writer in Guyana, as I can personally testify, often has to choose between earning a living and starving to write. Mr Martins may wish to enquire of the good Minister or his Director of Culture, why it is that Guyana last year spent millions and millions of taxpayer dollars on the Guyana Prize Awards (including an expanded Caribbean component) yet not a single cent was spent on a workshop for aspiring young writers. He may also wish to enquire why not a single contemporary writer has had so much as a comma published by the Caribbean Press.
In closing, I’ve received subtle chastisement from various people, some currently cooperating with the ministry, about the tone of my correspondence, along with the weak rationalization that my tone is somehow the basis for a policy of discrimination that has spanned nine years.
That is the voice of fear and of opportunism, parading as reason and it is, as it ever was, resoundingly hollow. Let me share, with those people and those of their ilk, Barry Goldwater’s aphorism – “moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
The ministry’s perennial silence on this is not – as they are, notably secretly, peddling – a principled disengagement based on some sense of decorum.
It is based on the fear of being challenged in the open light, simple as that.
I, again, invite Drs Anthony and Rose, and now Mr Hosein, to make the case that their stewardship of the literary aspect of cultural policy in Guyana has been one of competence, fairness and objectivity and they can start by releasing the names and qualifications of those who have been chosen to represent Guyana as literary ambassador, using taxpayer dollars.
Yours faithfully
Ruel Johnson