Dear Editor,
The month of August is generally deemed to be Emancipation Month, a time for us all in the Commonwealth to reflect on the savagery and inhumanity of human beings against their fellow men. It is a time for us to learn more and share our history so that evil must never again occur. With this knowledge, we have the strength to agitate against wrong-doings and bullyism and not too subtle attempts to take us back to those horrible times. In our context, that agitation must be within the boundaries of the law and non-violent. This should lead us to the next step of liberation, and here I’ve made a distinction between the Acts in the British Parliament making the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade illegal and subsequently, freeing the African slaves from servitude, brutality and indignity. For me, liberation is a total concept – mentally, emotionally and physically free – where men, irrespective of gender, colour or creed are allowed to enjoy the gifts given to us by a kind and generous Creator.
This month, we remember Cuffy, Quamina, Damon, Jack Gladstone and many others; thank the British Abolition-ists William Wilberforce, Fowell Buxton, and John Newton, the latter who traded in transporting Africans from the West Coast of Africa to America and the Caribbean, but later converted and wrote the words of the Hymn “Amazing Grace,” to the tune of a work song sung by African labourers. This month must help us all to avoid those tragic mistakes so that true liberation can be realised, as Bob Marley reminded us ‘to emancipate yourselves from mental slavery.’ This is a herculean task and every paragraph that follows herein, points us to taking up that herculean assignment. Today’s slavery is unlikely to see the use of chains and the whip but rather the emergence of a wicked class system of ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’.
In today’s Guyana, the throttling of total liberation is being engineered by the General Secretary of the PPP, the President and folks who are benefitting financially and would speak for and on behalf of those who are also benefitting from the resources of the country. These persons are not always easy to identify, but in Guyana, they are alive and multiplying. Whenever I pass by Parade Ground, I see the bleeding heads of my ancestors on staves, begging us – the Amerindians, the Africans who were tricked into slavery and the Indentured labourers, who were brought to replace the labour of the freed Africans on the Plantations – begging us to agitate for total liberation.
We’ve had our externally contrived problems in Guyana, before and after Independence, but we must never forget that today the struggle must not be for or against the Amerindians, the Africans, the Chinese, Portuguese, or the East Indians and Mixed races. Our agitation must be against the puppeteers, behind the scenes controlling the local puppets. A mindset by the puppeteers versed in the divide and rule policy, whose main interest is to make huge profits from our God-given resources. This is a recurring problem. When we pass the Indian Monument Gardens, we must never ignore the significance of the two ships that brought Indians, as Indentured Labourers, to replace the Manumitted Africans, with memories of the lynching and beatings they endured on the plantation before the British Parliament passed legislation making such cruelty unlawful. Those ships were provided by the large slave owners.
The attitude of the new plantocracy remains unchanged. For that matter, all of us during Emancipation month, as we aim for authentic liberation, must thank those today in the vanguard exposing the rape of our patrimony. Here, I thank the Editorial columns of the Stabroek News, Kaieteur News, the brave and honourable advocacy of nationalist, Glenn Lall of Kaieteur Radio, Christopher Ram, Vincent Alexander, Melinda Janki, Dr. Vincent Adams, Janet Bulkan, and on foreign policy issues, former President Donald Ramotar. To others who are concerned, I beg of you to speak up and not be guilty of the sin of silence. I repeat my plea, that if the hierarchy of the present Government is truly interested and concerned about the welfare of our country, they will sit around the round table and hammer out a programme and policy that will say to those who are harvesting, and I avoid the word ‘exploiting,’ our gold, diamond, manganese, oil, timber, etc., that we don’t mind you making a profit, but we firmly demand a much larger slice of the cake. So this Emancipation month, if it is to mean anything, we need to tell the duo on the captain’s deck to end the secrecy of the many arrangements. Take re-negotiation out of the dictionary of bad-words. Explain to ordinary folks what with this fastest growing economy, exchange rates for US dollars are still pegged at 200+ Guyana dollars to 1 US dollar.
Editor, we need the truth, why with thousands of dollars of oil per day, our 2024 Budget did not include equipment and training to allow Guyanese technicians to check and monitor the quantity of oil being harvested every day? Why is the Government borrowing money to build bridges and roads, etc., only to discover that we did not budget for training of young Guyanese men and women, at home and abroad, to man these facilities? The key to development is the training of our young people to function in a society that is part of a fast growing scientific and technological world. Editor, could you say what programmes are in place to expand the horizons of pedagogy so that our teachers can provide the foundation for a country where its resources make Guyanese the richest people per capita in the world? Why this bad treatment to teachers? Why this cruelty to our capital – Georgetown? You must have known that Professor Akbar Khan, a renowned Town Planner, spent over a year in Guyana and produced a blueprint to make Georgetown the most attractive City in South America. You must have known that it was the PPP who frustrated that plan causing this President to run around, or forgive me, to dance around Bourda Market. An unnecessary adventure – if the PPP had only allowed that redevelopment plan to be implemented.
Editor, the President needs to be reminded that when the PPP took office in 1992, they so provoked the late Mayor, Compton Young that he resigned in disgust, paving the way for a PPP installed Interim Management Committee, led by Dr. James Rose, carrying out the duties of Mayor. To make the IMC look good, the PPP poured all sorts of resources into the Council and in spite of this, the IMC noticed that to satisfy the needs of a fast, expanding city, it needed to have an additional source of revenue. I led a delegation, that included Philomena Sahoye-Shury (PPP), Robert Williams, (GGG) and others, met with the President and sought permission to have a lottery to muster financial resources for the City. After some consideration, the PPP Government said they could not grant the City such permission because the churches and other religious organisations will be up-in-arms. Within a few months, a lottery was up and running, with the profits going to the Government and not one cent to the M&CC.
The control of the Town Clerk and senior officers by the Minister of Local Government and the Local Government Commission is a fact and cannot be ignored. The President has a Minister responsible for security and a Minister responsible for Local Government, so why does the President deem it necessary, with a PR Team, to dance around Bourda Market and make promises that ought to have been put in place if the Government had respected the concepts of Local Government? One will think that a proper President will be perspicacious and not seem silly, and get his Ministers to do their work, such as the Minister responsible for Culture, Youth and Sport. This week, the media published a letter pointing to that Minister being somewhat of a bully. Last Olympics 2020, the Guyana team turned up in the colours of the PPP – not a medal. This Olympics not a medal. Little Dominica, with a population less than half of Georgetown got a Gold – the reason? Learn that Culture, Youth and Sport must not be used as a political football. We have the resources, the talent, the Ministry must allow the harmony of those two elements, that is money and talent, and Guyana would harvest many golds at the next Olympic.
Sincerely,
Hamilton Green
Elder
