African Guyanese after 200 years of freedom
Freddie Kissoon column
Kaieteur News
March 25, 2007
Today marks 200 years of emancipation from slavery for the African people who were brought to this country in what is certainly the second ugliest blot in the history of civilisation after the Holocaust.
Every time the anniversary of Emancipation comes around, Bob Marley's “Redemption Song” rings in my ear with that penetratingly haunting appeal to African people to “emancipate yourself from mental slavery.”
After 2000 years of freedom, every African Guyanese needs to light up a candle in his/her soul and search for that pathway that would lead to psychic liberation.
I understand African Guyanese on two levels. I was born into an African-dominated ward in Georgetown where I still live, Wortmanville. Secondly, my occupation as a university lecturer in the social sciences compels me to study the politics and society of African Guyanese. Growing up among African people in Wortmanville, and seeing three of my siblings marry African Guyanese, and having quite a number of them as my very, warm and personal friends, I got to know African people in ways the average East Indian will never experience.
The stereotyping of African people by Indian Guyanese can be an overbearing and appalling moment in the life of an urban Indian like me. Sometimes, an Indian carpenter or mason from the countryside would come to Wortmanville to do a job for us and the first thing they would ask is how come an Indian like me can live in South Georgetown. I would tell them that after you have lived among people and understand their essential being, you appreciate them for what they are.
The tragic, really tragic thing about Guyana's historical evolution is that East Indians and Africans grew up living in separate communities. Our history would have turned out differently if my Indian friends at UG had their origins in South Georgetown, and my African friends originated from Berbice.
One of the mechanisms that may lessen mutual stereotyping in the two major ethic communities is the reversion to first-past-the-post in our electoral system. In a Sunday letter almost two years ago in this newspaper, I made the bold statement for which I make no apologies and will gladly repeat it, and I am doing so now; it is that the best group this country has produced is the African middle class.
If the African middle class could have seen the destructive instinct in Burnham, if they could have propelled Walter Rodney to power, and if after Rodney's assassination, they had remained in Guyana and helped to expand Desmond Hoyte's power base, Guyana would not have had the cultural, political and sociological miasma that currently envelopes it.
As an East Indian that grew up in South Georgetown, as an East Indian that was taught the values of life by the African Guyanese middle class, as an East Indian that has many African members in my extended family, as an East Indian that has some humane and warm-hearted, African friends, I have come to have a deep, passionate and philosophical respect and admiration for the people of African race in Guyana.
Before I proceed with an intellectual analysis of the failure of African political leadership, a relevant note about a tragedy three nights ago that took place about 25 yards across the road from where I live.
Some robbers went into the Chinese restaurant across the street from my home and shot the proprietor (he died the following morning). Wortmanville is 99 percent African. People came from nowhere and blocked the street insisting that one of the passing taxis pick up that Chinese man and take him to the hospital. The drivers had no choice. Those Wortmanville folks would not have let any vehicle refuse their demand.
During post-election violence in the nineties, Indian folks made all types of derogatory remarks about African people. But many Indian citizens who read what they wanted to read in the newspaper didn't know that many African Guyanese in downtown Georgetown showed courage and bravery and protected Indian people who were under attack.
For a race of people that made this country into a great Caribbean land, African Guyanese after 200 years of post-emancipation life, stand at the crossroads with uncertainly and optimism taking over their lives. I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that of the major ethnic communities in this land, African people are the most nationalistically oriented.
This of course entails a long journey into Guyana's history and space will not provide for an elaboration. Suffice it to say that the freed African slave had nowhere to go. British Guiana was his/her home.
Out of that reality which had to be faced, a deep feeling of belonging developed. The East Indian race in British Guiana never cultivated the instinct of attachment to the territory they work in. The reason for this was because at the conscious level, they knew they were just passing through. They had the exit route to India which was part of their contract of indentureship.
This simple fact explains many, many of the differences that exist in the philosophical conceptualisations of East Indians and Africans in this land. Just a passing note - now that the US Embassy here is tightening up on the visitor's visa, looks like Guyanese East Indians will have to spend a longer time in this land.
The dilemma of the African Guyanese has been the failure of its political leadership. I saw an Emancipation advertisement yesterday in the newspapers where great African Guyanese were featured and next to Forbes Burnham was Walter Rodney. Now that is an unbelievable contradiction. If Rodney was allowed to live he would have freed African Guyanese from mental slavery. But Rodney was murdered by an African Guyanese that African Guyanese see as a hero.
Herein lies the danger that may hurt the future of African Guyanese.
There was a great start in August last year when African Guyanese voted for an alternative leadership in the Alliance for Change. But the historical fact is that African Guyanese did seek other types of leadership in the seventies in the form of the WPA. I have lived in this country and have seen how the leadership of the African Guyanese has remained silent on some of the crucial issues that impact adversely on the lives of African people in this nation.
Two of these are the tax evasion culture and the low retirement age. Both of these social morbidities are impediments to the social well-being of African Guyanese. How sad that more fraudulent demagogues are going to come forward to claim rulership of the African Guyanese people. And Bob Marley will continue to sing from his grave urging his people to free themselves from mental slavery.