From time to time in our local press, we are reminded of the rich diverse strains that make up what we refer to as Guyanese culture, and in most of those reminders we are asked to rightly reflect on the fact that right alongside that attractive span we see the disturbing signs of ethnic division among our people. It is as if we are somehow made blind – some say by politics, some say by twisted human nature – to the wonderful array of what we have within our grasp; that instead of embracing and celebrating the array we seem bent only on rejecting it, sometimes in vile ways; it is a pitiful aspect of who we are, both for its intensity and for its perseverance.
This week one of those reminders came. I did not see it in its original appearance, but Alan Fenty in his ‘Frankly Speaking’ column quotes some lines from a poem by Ryhaan Shah which I can only describe as riveting. I reproduce those words here, hopefully faithfully, because of the powerful point they make.
She wrote: “I did not begin anew but am the blood and bone of ages past and centuries of time. I did not begin anew but I am the present from a past that was never abandoned on this distant shore. I am no shard of history, no broken vase.”