Dear Editor,
After abstaining for an extended period from submitting letters to the press, I decided to write this letter because, in my view, President David Granger, in his speech to the forum on the state of the African Guyanese, as reported in the Stabroek News, August, 10, ‘Granger calls for revival of village economies,’ has addressed honestly a matter of great sensitivity and utmost importance to all Guyanese.
The timeliness of his talk can be gauged from the title of Freddie Kissoon’s column ‘What about a Black entrepreneurial class?’ in the Kaieteur News of August 1. In his article, Mr Kissoon refers to the “ethnic security dilemma” of African Guyanese and notes that “East Indians dominate the economy ninety five percent to one percent for African with other races making up the other four percent.” I fully agree with Mr Kissoon that “if we are to save Guyana we must examine the dilemmas all our ethnic communities have.” Unfortunately, Mr Kissoon has not looked at how the imbalance in the economy came about and has offered no solution to improve the economic condition of African Guyanese.
In a piece on Buxton-Friendship, published in the ‘In The Diaspora’ column, Stabroek News, November 16, 2009, and which is quite relevant, I wrote “During my childhood in the 1950s, I traversed every street and cross street in the combined village in the company of my grandparents and uncles who sold feed to the many self-employed villagers who farmed the back-lands and raised chicken and pigs in their yards… With independence coming shortly thereafter and government jobs becoming readily available, many African villagers deserted the self-sufficiency of independent occupations – carpentry, cabinet making, blacksmith, guttersmith, farming and the raising of livestock, opting instead for the apparent security of salaried occupations. As the village tax base deteriorated, critical infrastructural work on roads, drainage and irrigation was neglected, and by the time the oil crisis and world-wide economic downturn hit us, both citizens and the village as a whole found it difficult to cope which resulted in the serious political repercussions of later years.”
I am now pleased to note Pesident Granger’s position at the forum: “salaried employment is very seductive … You can spend out your whole salary because you know next month you will get another salary. If you are a farmer you need to save money for fertilizer, seed, equipment, if there is a drought or a flood you need savings to tide you over but if you are a policeman and there’s a flood you still get paid. Some people do not like to take risks but …unless you change the economy, unless we create people who are entrepreneurs, manufacturers, we will always be victims of people who make decisions for us.”
In a piece titled, ‘Indian Guyanese Attitude to Education,’ I wrote for a magazine in Toronto on the occasion of the 175th anniversary of Indian Arrival and republished in the online ‘Guyana Journal,’ I concluded by stating “as a result of historical and cultural factors they [Indian Guyanese] have dominance (in terms of net worth and corporate control) in the private sector (in Guyana) where risks and rewards go hand-in-hand but are under-represented in the public service where job security is more valued.” Now that the new President has spoken, I hope his
call will be heeded and we will see more African Guyanese becoming risk-takers and succeeding as entrepreneurs.
Yours faithfully,
Harry Hergash