Dear Editor,
I am not superstitious but this week’s media reports of the sudden ‘inexplicable crash’ of the foundation being built at Palmyra to accommodate the replica of the ship which brought the first set of our forefathers from India to the Highbury sugar plantation is portentous of ‘cosmic justice’ against those who are bent on desecrating the sacred memory which Highbury represents. Indeed, I am now inclined to warn future visitors to the site at Palmyra to be extremely careful lest they become victims of any other form of ‘cosmic justice’!
It is indeed difficult to reconcile the apparently peremptory decision (made by whom?) to have the site of the arrival of the first batch of Indian immigrants ‘shifted’ from Highbury on the East Bank of Berbice to Palmyra on the Canje/Corentyne coast! To me it is almost sacrilegious to attempt re-writing our history for any reason whatsoever let alone the contrived one being peddled that ‘Highbury is too far or difficult to access’….. “Too far or too difficult for whom?” is a logical question….and if the answer is “for the politicians”, then surely they have the power and resources to fix the road (now reduced to a continuous stretch of potholes!). In any event there are thousands of residents who live and work along the East Bank of Berbice who are forced to use this solitary road which connects with Highbury and beyond. Alternatively, those ‘city-wallahs’ who are unable to go the small extra distance to Highbury can indulge their sentiments by attending celebrations at the Indian Monument site at the corner of Camp & Church streets in Georgetown.
The feigned or ‘manufactured’ reason for shifting the location of the memorial marking the arrival of our forefathers actually insults our collective intelligence; it is obviously insensitive to the true sentiments of the descendants of the original Indian immigrants to Guyana; it is tantamount to celebrating the ‘Berbice Slave Rebellion’ in Essequibo or observing the ‘Enmore Martyrs Day’ in Blairmont or Skeldon!
I take this opportunity to urge all like-minded Guyanese to continue to visit the Highbury site on the 5th May as they have been continually doing in the past years.
Yours faithfully
Nowrang Persaud
