We need to be infused with the pride and dignity of our ancestors

Aug 01, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Emancipation my friends, is not an occasion for Africans to be rejoicing as if somehow a great favour was bestowed upon us.
Emancipation my friends is an occasion for us, as Africans, to be reflecting on the human imposed conditions that threaten to reverse the gains we had made over the past 177 years.
177 years ago we had no control over our communities, no power to tell our story, and we could be punished and brutalized by the oppressor establishmentarian control system.
Today in Guyana we have little control over our communities, are being marginalised from telling our story by covetous monopoly of communication tools that we pay for, and our sons and daughters are being brutalized by an oppressive and corrupt system of governance, in a land built and developed by the blood, sweat and tears of our ancestors.
The fact that this is happening in the year 2010, render us on a comparative level, as captive as were our ancestors 177 plus years ago.
My fellow Guyanese, as we commemorate the occasion when the veil of ignorance was lifted from the eyes of our captors, I ask you, must we walk this journey all over again? I’m afraid that the answer is yes we must!
We must walk this journey all over again and do whatever is legally necessary to force the veil of ignorance from the eyes of those who perceive themselves to be the replacement slave masters.
We must find the courage and determination exhibited by our ancestors, who spent their present struggling for our future, to do the same for our children.
Because if they cared so much for us that they faced down the most awful powers in existence at the time, how can we do less for the generations we are bringing forth into this world in general, and in Guyana in particular.
In the 177th year since the act outlawing slavery was signed, Africans in Guyana are witnessing what amounts to environmental genocide in the human nestings where they are mostly congregated.
Africans are witnessing the hateful expression from the slave master wannabe placed in an administrative power position over them that he wished a health plague upon their living environment. Africans have witnessed vigilante gangs plundering through their communities, kidnapping, torturing and lynching their young men with no response from the establishmentarian system of governance in place.
Africans are witnessing a double standard of justice, where drug barons walk free from prosecution, while the exalted leader exhort a Pavlovian conditioned Law Enforcement agency to go after small time street and bottom house peddlers, and recreational users of marijuana.
Africans are experiencing what happens when people who are culturally and primitively intolerant are given the power to make decisions on the social and economic well being of others they consider ethnically distant. And this experience is no different for Africans, than it was for their brothers and sisters in apartheid South Africa, and Jim Crow Southern USA, during their trying and aversive ordeals.
The African villages on the East Coast, the people of Linden, the people of Ithaca and other environs that are majority black, are experiencing the worse kind of marginalisation and discrimination imaginable.
While the regime spends hundreds of millions on ethnic cultural and religious festivals and observances with which they are associated, they doled out a palfrey US$250 and some Cassava sticks to the first Cooperative Village in Guyana. The anti African racist animus in our nation has become so utterly vicious, so dastardly mischievous, that as we observe the occasion of Emancipation, the Statute of our ancestral hero has been defaced in a manner that left no doubt about the message encouched in the defacement.
How much more of this will we endure? What manner of leaders do we have that this kind of “eye pass” continues to be so pervasive?
My fellow Africans I take this opportunity to wish God’s grace on our people as we observe the anniversary of the abolishment of slavery.
The removal of the shackles and chains from the legs and necks of our ancestors might have spelled an end to the physical restraint of their freedom, but it by no means signified an end to the quest to enslave and control our minds.
To paraphrase Bantu Stephen Biko, a martyr in the struggles of indigenous South Africans against the ignoble and morally reprehensible apartheid system, “…It has become absolutely necessary for Africans to see the truth as it is, and realise that the only vehicle for change lies within us and within our personalities.
The first step therefore is for us to come to our senses, to pump courage and determination back into the shells that host our souls.
We need to be infused with the pride and dignity of our ancestors, and to refuse to be complicit in the crime of self oppression, in the crime of being abused, in the sinful and abhorrent tolerance of allowing evil to reign supreme in the land of our birth”. Happy Emancipation Day. Amanda
Mark A. Benschop
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Some straight talk…An open letter to the AFC

Dear Sir,
It seems that some within the National Executive Committee of the Alliance For Change (AFC) just don’t get it. As reported in the SN of July 27, “…the AFC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) took a decision that would rule out alliances or partnerships with either the main opposition PNCR or the PPP/C for the 2011 general elections.”
Well, someone has to have the courage to give you the bad news: There is absolutely no way the AFC will even retain the 8.4% of the electorate you’ve enjoyed in 2006, if you run alone in 2011, much less to form the new government. Most of your votes were taken from the PNCR, and they still ended up with a majority 34% among the opposition parties. It seems convenient for people to judge the PNC on mistakes made when Burnham ruled supreme, completely ignoring the fact that the PPP has been the party in power for over 18 years, making Burnham look like an alter-boy with their dismal record of corruption, joblessness, misuse of taxpayers’ money, and lack of accountability and transparency. Although I strongly believe that Robert Corbin should step down as Political Leader of the PNCR, his Party is still the most formidable force to defeat the PPP/C in any general election. They have more brains than the AFC, better organisation to get out the vote, better name recognition, and more loyal supporters nationwide. Over the years, the PNCR have made tremendous progress in reaching out to other groups and individuals, and have been leading the effort to unite a common opposition against the corrupted Jagdeo regime. The PNCR, if elected are experienced and knowledgeable enough to run this government from day one, without having to go through any form of “on the job training”.
The AFC has a choice: You can play a meaningful role in nation building, or you can run alone and be a spoiler, betraying the hope of so many who are longing for a new dawn… a new era!
In his letter in the newspapers, Mr. Rickford Burke very eloquently explained the monolithic blunder and political suicide the Alliance For Change would make, should you choose this unfortunate course of action. I strongly urge those who are so offended by Mr. Burke’s views, to objectively read his letter again. You’ll be wise to take his advice. You may see yourself as the ‘party of the future’, and maybe you’ll get there one day…but not next year.
You talk about the AFC being unable to maintain its identity and core principles if you were to ally with the PNCR. How about demonstrating that you’re matured enough to help create that “alliance for change” that you so proudly wear as your name, for it seems your position is clearly contradictory.
It also appears that the real reason you so adamantly opposed any alliance with the PNCR or PPP/C is because you want to be the one calling the shots; and in any collation, you will be the minority partner. Somehow, I believe you feel that an alliance with one of the bigger guns will make you subservient to them, and your ego will not permit this. But if you truly have the best interest of all Guyanese at heart, you will find common ground and the respect of a grateful nation.
I am pleased that Mr. Raphael Trotman has not closed the door to such an alliance, and he has demonstrated tremendous leadership qualities by doing so. It has been said that politics makes strange bedfellows, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend. But it is also true what Rickford Burke wrote in his letter: Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Harry Gill

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