Dear Editor,
May 26 is upon us. Again. Many Guyanese know it to be the date of Guyana’s Independence. However, many Guyanese do not know that May 26 is also the date when there was extraordinary racial violence against some 3,000 Guianese East Indians in Wismar and the upper Demerara area. Guyana was born on May 26, 1966, or precisely two years after these East Indians, colonial subjects of the British Crown but with equal civil rights as all other native-born Guianese, were affected in one way or another including being expelled from their homes to become ‘refugees’ in their country.
The business of independence from colonial powers is almost always, historically speaking, one of violence and mistrust. Guyana’s was no different on May 26, 1966. Violence and mistrust have since characterized the past fifty years of Guyana’s life due to unhealthy race relations.
The time has come to change Guyana’s date of independence because May 26 is a date steeped in violence and mistrust. On each independence anniversary, while some celebrate with flags and fête, others in quietude recall the atrocities and the expulsions.
There are still survivors of Wismar 1964 among us. What transpired is resurrected with each celebrated day of independence, but not in a manner that would invite mutual respect and reconciliation. Instead, there is encouraged silence on the matter. No wreaths are laid, no prayers are offered, no poem is recited, and there is no mention of events in textbooks by successive ministries of education of Wismar. This silence has forced parents to pass the story of expulsion quietly from one generation to another by oral tradition, after which a talk of independence is hardly ever the same.
Such is the case because a song of independence is a song of birth, while a song of expulsion is a song of death. It is difficult to sing them at the same time with the same breath. Yet, for fifty years, this is what some Guyanese have been asked to do.
Many, of course, have been made to feel by Guyana’s political culture that there is nothing disturbing about the date May 26. Its leading politicians today are, arguably, likely to avoid the issue, despite having over 300 days to choose from to celebrate. They may prefer to quarrel about who is the architect who lowered the Union Jack. It is a quarrel one should avoid, as independence is the gift of no one person or party, but the result of efforts of many persons with varying allegiances.
For example, Mr Jai Narine Singh, I believe, brought the first motion for independence, when he was unsupported by Dr Jagan or Mr Forbes Burnham. He was seconded by Mr Anthony Martin Fredericks. Senator Vernon Nunes is believed to have picked the date of May 26, in 1962.
What is more important today is that the PNC and PPP never bothered to change the date, except that after the atrocities at Wismar in 1964, the latter did object to it in a November 1965 press release:
“The Party fails to understand, however, the significance of the date, May 26, unless it is the wish of the of the British and British Guiana Governments to make it symbolic contempt for the Guyanese people and a grim reminder of the unfortunate events of May 25-26, 1964 and their aim to keep the Guyanese people divided.”
Yours faithfully,
Rakesh Rampertab