The latter-day Chinese have fashioned a gem of wisdom which advises that “women hold up half the sky”.
It is supposed to be their tribute to the status and role of women in China and I expect, universally. Tomorrow is the United Nations-designated International Women’s Day. Even as I now mention here the names of a few stalwart women-warriors straight out of Guyana’s rebel-slave history – Susanna, Phato, Annemary, Comba, Nellie, Amba – I’ll leave it to today’s generation of writers and journalists to research the names and deed of the bold women on whose shoulders of history we now stand. I suspect that supplements and features tomorrow will highlight famous Guyanese women, as well as the foundation role of today’s working-class and professional women.
But this is the month of March. Every month has significance for somebody or some group. The Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), the largest workers’ Bargaining Agent in the Region attaches extra importance to every March month. Its ideological guide and Honorary President for years, the late Cheddi Jagan, was born and buried in March. The Union’s lasting heroine, Kowsilla, was murdered in March and GAWU also remembers J.H. Pollydore, the late trade union “fox”, in this month. As my mild tribute to tomorrow’s Women’s Day, a few sentences on Kowsilla.
Kowsilla, her politics and protest
Kowsilla, called Alice, was a humble yet militant sugar worker at the Leonora Estate, WCD. She worshipped Cheddi and Janet Jagan and was a member of the PPP’s Women’s Progressive Organisation (WPO)
Two years before political Independence the British had imposed a then strange elections system, Proportional Representation, upon the still-colonial electorate of British Guiana. The PPP mobilized their supporters, including thousands of sugar workers, to protest this imposition. The Estate Managers, including expatriate British, apparently resented their workers’ participation in that political demonstration, repeated intermittently.
So when the Leonora workers went on a prolonged strike for better pay and conditions the expatriate manager, in March of ’64, was determined to punish and to make “examples” of defiance and insolence, as he saw it. He employed scab workers willing to break the legitimate strike. The majority of the estate’s workers stayed off and mounted vigorous protests against the few strike breakers. Estate manager Ryder was furious as Leonora’s field and factory could not produce.
When Kowsilla led her weeding gang on a squatting exercise to block a tractor’s access across a main bridge, the driver was instructed to charge towards the women. Kowsilla was crushed to death. Fourteen other females were seriously injured.
Kowsilla’s passing inspired two major developments: the Sugar Bosses began accepting workers’ delegations when sugar workers rejected the company-favourite, the union MPCA; this led to the eventual recognition of GAWU, ten years later with that union sweeping 98% of the industry’s workforce. This week marks the fiftieth anniversary of Kowsila’s martyrdom. She remains a real working-class heroine.
Cheddi, endless struggle?
Also in tribute to Cheddi Jagan’s memory and his contribution, life-long, to this country, I quote two excerpts from his famous political auto-biography.
“My support came from the working-class, except those who voted for Palmer because of the racist appeal of the league of coloured people (LCP), or for Jacob because of the labour party tag. One of my protégés, school-teacher Sydney King of Buxton, was of great help to me in the villages”.
“I regarded my victory at the 1947 General Election as the people’s victory. In a brief post-ballot speech I said: We the People have won. Now the struggle will begin…”
But how well I recall that when Ranji Chandisingh defected from the PPP to Burnham’s PNC his first remarks included his opinion that Cheddi and his PPP behaved as if “they had taken out a patent on socialism – – and struggle”.
Cheddi loved to use that word “struggle”. Much later, in power, the PNC-ites liked to say the Portuguese – “A Luta Continua” – the struggle continues. How – prescient they were! Next time I’ll tell you why I feel Guyana has been “struggling” to backwardness or standstill since 1962! Discuss…
The Visa, The Drugs, The Jail
The unrelenting frequency with which Guyanese are being caught at Timehri and New York airports with illegal drugs and substances has set me thinking once again.
As usual, I fume at the fact that foreign immigration and customs people now suspect my innocent tamarind balls, pepper sauce and casareep I used to take to America for my daughters and friends. What an image Guyana now projects. Why do the little courier-mules persist? Because some do get through!
Here is another “strange” take: since 2012 I’ve noticed an Obama-like “relaxation” at the Consular Section of the American Embassy in Kingston, Georgetown. “Ah get a ten-year visitors!” is the triumphant cry these days.
Could it be that the Drug Barons, sensing the American Embassy’s generosity, now know there could be an expanded pool of potential cocaine couriers? The needy or greedy readily agree to “try a ting”. Their ten-year visa could result in ten-year sentences in Queens or Brooklyn, New York, N.Y. Consider…
Ponder…
*1) Some persons find causes to protest over publicly, merely to draw attention to themselves.
*2) Rent-a-crowd picketers always have a standard placard on standby – with the word “Shame!”
*3) A quote from commentator Henry Jeffrey – in case you missed it: “However, our sovereign people have retained an important level of authority for themselves. By Article 164 Parliament can only alter certain aspects of the Constitution by way of a referendum. So, for example, the people have not delegated to parliament, the president, the national assembly or anyone else the right to change the name of our country without its authority.”
*4) A quote from the Caribbean Fox, late trade unionist J.H Pollydore: “It is illogical that the TUC could be considered as being fully representative when the GAWU with its 15,000 members in the sugar industry is not represented on the executive council and the bauxite unions only partially representative…while unions with a few hundred members are represented on the council”. Discuss.
*5) Name three old-time union leaders who received motor-vehicles from company bosses who employed those leaders’ members.
*6) Quote from Sunday Stabroek: “The AG, of course, has acknowledged he is in talks with Mr Hira and Ms Sewcharan about an “amicable settlement”, but this cannot be in lieu of any police case; it is something entirely separate”.
*7) The late President Desmond Hoyte also enjoyed a birthday in March
‘Til next week!
(Comments? allanafenty@yahoo.com)
