GUYANA celebrates its 41st Independence anniversary this Saturday under a government in its fourth consecutive term and committed, as it affirms, to healing the ethnic/political divisions that predate the end of British colonial rule on May 16, 1966.
For this year's anniversary, the government will posthumously confer the singular honour of "The Order of Liberation" (OL) on the late President Cheddi Jagan, the esteemed political leader generally regarded as the most consistent and courageous fighter for Guyana's freedom from colonialism.
This one-time award, first announced by President Bharrat Jagdeo at the March death anniversary of the founder-leader of the ruling People's Progressive Party (PPP), is to be effected by a Presidential proclamation.
The unique OL would be outside the provisions of the Orders of Guyana with its highest award being the Order of Excellence (OE).
The first recipient of the OE was the nation's first Executive President, the late Forbes Burnham, who was instrumental in its creation.
As I recall as a journalist of the then Guyana Graphic, Burnham wanted that both he and Jagan be conferred at the same time with the OE. But Jagan declined, stating that he could not properly accept such an honour from a regime headed by Burnham and based on questionable legitimacy. However, he would have no problems with Burnham being conferred with the OE award. Jagan was to later decline also the offer of a state award by the Cuban government of President Fidel Castro.
I am not familiar with the functioning of Guyana's national honours committee and the criteria for making its various awards to deserving individuals, both national and non-nationals -- as in the case, for example, of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
But I think that objective consideration should be given for a most appropriate national award to be conferred, posthumously on Sir Jock Campbell.
It is a name that may mean little if anything to a current young generation of Guyanese, but which has been for many years synonymous with sugar, "bitter sugar", the huge Bookers enterprise with its enormous influence in colonial British Guiana.
Campbell's admiration of, disagreements with and support for Cheddi Jagan constitute a fascinating aspect of this country's struggle for social justice, economic development and political freedom.
Much of the intriguing, enlightening relationship between Campbell, the liberal "Booker reformer" and the Marxist Jagan that had created problems for local opponents of the PPP leader while he was in and out governments, as well as for "BG" (Booker of Guyana), the British Colonial Office and the U.S. State Department, are brilliantly analysed in a unique biographical work on the life and times of Sir Jock by Dr. Clem Seecharan.
Titled "Sweetening Bitter Sugar", this scholarly work by Seecharan, the Guyana-born historian and Professor of Caribbean History and Head of Caribbean Studies at London Metropolitan University, has been 10 years in preparation. It became available in the region last year following its publication by Ian Randle Publishers of Jamaica.
Seecharan, who had outstanding academics of the University of the West Indies among readers of his manuscript, was encouraged to undertake the project by the writer, social commentator and business executive Ian McDonald, to whom the book is appropriately dedicated.
In my humble view if there is a non-Guyanese who looms large in our social/political history and whose own admirable courage and commitment to "sweetening" the "bitter sugar" as exposed by the anti-colonial hero Cheddi Jagan, it would be Sir Jock Campbell.
His was not a one-episode contribution but a sustained involvement over many years, with passionate commitment in an extraordinary attitude towards Cheddi Jagan that highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of both warriors for socio-economic and political change in colonial British Guiana.
Seecharan's research is most informative and illuminating on the relationship between the liberal 'Booker reformer' and the Marxist Cheddi Jagan, the latter now to be the posthumous recipient of what is intended to be the only "Order of Liberation" award. I look forward to learning of the citation.
I hope it is not too much to expect objective research and intellectual deliberation to result in the posthumous conferment of, possibly, the Order of Excellence on Sir Jock Campbell by the time Guyana celebrates its 42nd independence anniversary.
That initiative would require a certain level of cultural/political sophistication that would not be beyond the capacity of the powers that be and the national honours body.
Stabroek News/PPP
** In the meanwhile, there remains an important issue for resolution, but which has been surprisingly delayed for too long -- the restoration of government advertisements that were withdrawn from the Stabroek News over the past five months.
Instead of prolonging the perceived self-serving, contradictory arguments about "economic" consideration; threats to "press freedom" and alleged "vindictiveness" that have been surfacing from the government, private sector and the affected newspaper, the time for resolution is clearly long overdue.
The ruling PPP, which is on record as having nothing to do with the decision to cut the flow of advertisements to the Stabroek News, but which has been constantly misrepresented by regional and international media interests, owes it to its own history and future to speedily work for an end to the current problem. In the public perception this apparent dichotomy is puzzling.
The initiative for a resolution may not translate immediately into full restoration of the quantity of advertisements from ministries and state corporations as originally flowed to the Stabroek News.
There, however, needs to be some movement of significance in that direction, rather than sustaining the current situation with a whopping estimated eighty per cent cut in advertisements to that newspaper.
As a regional journalist who was involved with colleagues in efforts to promote a resolution, I remain baffled why this problem continues to fester when President Jagdeo and his cabinet colleagues seem so commendably focused on continuing to advance social and economic developments across the nation.
The Stabroek News may be, as the government claims, hostile in both its editorial and news columns. I think that paper would have had ample time to reflect on the validity or otherwise on some of these claims.
In my own assessment, the Stabroek News is by no means an enemy of the governing party or the Jagdeo administration. Nor is it an agent of any foreign interest.
Rather, it is, fundamentally, a Guyanese media enterprise that has won its place and secured its reputation in a long struggle for press freedom and freedom of expression that had perished under the heinous doctrine of "party paramountcy" under governments of the People's National Congress.
I have, at times, my own professional disagreements with the Stabroek News, as, I guess, it may have with me. That's no problem for me.
For one thing, I have long ceased to be excited by foreign-generated anger and anguish over claimed "threats to press freedom" in some CARICOM states, often based on half-truths, when the problem is more one of "abuse" of press freedom. In Guyana the PPP has undoubtedly been the primary victim, among political parties, of gross abuses of media freedom.
As I see it, the government has an obligation to reconcile its differences with the Stabroek News and not to expand the row to now abusing representative organisations, however, ill-considered may be some of their claims in press releases.
For his part, President Jagdeo should demonstrate his capacity for compromise instead of allowing some of his myopic advisers to perpetuate animosity and, specifically, for GINA to assume a function that could not have resulted from any properly formulated public information/communication policy at the time of its inauguration.
The President's coming nation-wide address on Guyana's 41st independence anniversary may be a good time to reveal some new and welcome initiatives. A statement by the ruling party on the Stabroek News advertisement dispute is also overdue.
An early 'Happy 41st Independence Anniversary' from me to all readers!