Enriching our cultural heritage
Editorial
Guyana Chronicle
February 21, 2004
GUYANA'S Republican anniversary celebrations reach their apex in another two to three days. That's when more than 2,000 visitors join thousands of revelers in Georgetown and rural and hinterland communities, picnic style, watching floats parade through the streets depicting an array of themes in an extravaganza of color and design in an atmosphere filled with irresistible music.
This year Guyanese have more reasons than ever to celebrate: debt relief that allows Guyana to retain US$30 million a year to boost socioeconomic development, Guyana being accorded "middle-income country" status, Amerindians receiving the single largest quantity of titles to lands they've long occupied, and more low-income earners owning homes over the past 12 months than ever before in the history of housing development in Guyana.
Not least, of course, is the country's citizenry breathing a deep sigh of relief at the regaining of control of our society by law enforcement, after a security vacuum saw criminals murdering, kidnapping, robbing, raping, torching and beating people and engaging in other crimes such as car jackings, drive-by shootings and arson.
But although celebration this time of year comes naturally to what, thankfully, is still a tropical paradise, Mashramani 2004 must do more than underscore multi-faceted participation in Guyana's grand birthday party. At the center of our celebration must be the enriching of our cultural heritage.
We readily acknowledge that the term "cultural heritage" doesn't command universal connotation. In Brazil, according to José Carlos Ribeiro de Almeida, buildings are the clearest expression of a people at a given historical period. De Almeida sees buildings as exemplifying a people's way of living, their available technology and their artistic ideals. "Being more durable than other cultural manifestations, often sheltering or incorporating other arts, such as sculpture, painting, furniture and popular art and artifacts, buildings make up the great majority of listed items, even those which are listed simply because of their historical significance."
In Iraq, the looting of museums, libraries, and other cultural sites that occurred during the U.S.-led takeover of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities left many Iraqis in despair. Why? For the Iraqi people, the pilfered National Museum was the jewel in the crown of their country's cultural heritage.
So what does the term "cultural heritage" mean for Guyana?
American E. B. Tylor defined 'culture' back in 1871 as including "knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society."
The Encyclopedia Britannica's definition is: "The integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior." So what then should we consider cultural heritage to be, if not culture itself?
Our notion of the term from a Guyanese perspective includes an accumulation of physical performances such as traditional dances and the displays that characterize Mashramani competitions.
But "cultural heritage" to us denotes not only the means through which cultural knowledge is transmitted. It also refers to the system in which one lives and the transmission of a peculiar type of behavior from one generation to another.
For us, enriching our cultural heritage must mean the way we ultimately relate to one another as Guyanese, not just as one ethnic group of people to another.
"Cultural heritage" must mean for us a structure of living that dictates that we work, live and achieve fulfilling lives on the basis of unity, so that future generations of Guyanese will inherit from us a structure of living that manifests our national motto: one people, one nation, one destiny.