Colin Croft volunteered to be South Africa’s ‘golliwog’

Jan 20, 2012 Letters

Dear Editor,
I have known Colin Croft for most of my life. even before he was famous, and I cannot summarize how he arrived at the mental and cultural state to have voiced the utterances he presented in his Kaieteur News article on January 8, 2012. In that article he defined Forbes Burnham, Caribbean peoples and African leadership in the most derogatory terms fitting to the syndrome attached to Franz Fanons’ famous theme ” Black Skin White Masks” which I have termed the ‘Colonial Jumble’.
Like Colin, our formative years were spent in an environment of church and education with Church influence having a predominant role. God, his angels, the prophets, the Israelites and Egyptians were all Europeans according to the movies, prints framed in the church and the attractive children’s books we read.
I am not a Cricket fan so I am oblivious to Colin’s Cricket arguments. What I am aware of is that he, during the Anti-apartheid struggle, inherited the ignoble title of an ‘Honorary White Man’ by ignoring a worldwide ban on South Africa and volunteering to be their ‘Golliwog’ for his personal benefit.
I am the least to defend the Forbes Burnham regime because unlike numerous others I did not get a Government scholarship. Instead I was accosted by PNC activist Burchell at GRB where I worked, who on recognizing that I hadn’t voted for the 1978 referendum that created the loathsome Executive President status, promised that I would no longer work there. I was among the first five names redeployed.
But I quickly realized that many of these actions were not Burnham’s because, with my portfolio, I was then encouraged by my late friend ‘Fat Archer’ to visit the office of Denis Williams where I found employment and entered another phase of my life.
I have never seen Burnham on a lily white horse down Water Street or any street. I’ve witnessed Burnham riding a horse and sharing cassava plants to residents in the Ruimveldt scheme where I lived, encouraging us to supplement our diet and save money.
Burnham in 1966 became Prime Minister of a colonial nation that was full of self contempt and superficial class prejudices. Much of that self contempt came out in Colin’s narrative. How is Mugabe a dictator? Because he advocated for the return of tribal lands bequeathed to the descendants of the colonizing nations?
Of course his methods need tempering but his grounds are sound. Colin was featured in the most revitalizing sports documentary ever made, that fuses the politics of cricket with the social evolution of the modern Caribbean ‘ Fire in Babylon’ and then he now refers to Caribbean people as ” proverbial crabs in barrels.”
This is a complete Jekyll and Hyde phenomenon worse than Freddie’s ‘Norman Bates’ article “The youths of Guyana: Who should they respect” (Kaieteur News 17, Jan 2012) which referred to the very Colonial race hate/self hate in the undercurrents of our society. A most relevant and insightful observation.
Burnham was human, thus he made human errors. Colin referred to voting / rigged elections in 1973. You have to remember, Colin, what the PPP had put this country through less than ten years before. The PPP was fortunate that it was never held accountable for leading this country into an ethnic civil war, much less allowed to participate in an election eight years later. So much for Burnham as a dictator.
When Burnham took this country, it was a Colony with severe unemployment, and a not very quiet caste system. He proceeded to empty the numerous ‘Nigger Yards’ spread across Georgetown through, first Festival City then other housing schemes.
His regime developed Cultural institutions. He had thousands of artisans trained in the GYC, GNS and Pioneer projects like the Kuru Kuru Agro Young Settlers Co-op, with which I was involved.
As a Guyanese artist I benefitted from top American artist Tom Feelings when Burnham brought those professionals here to instruct us. Lots of bad people evolved in the system but they didn’t need Burnham to be that way.
To close I will declare that in respect to Governance of pure wickedness and a Caligula nature in the context of Guyana, none before have outdone Bharrat Jagdeo’s PPP. The classic problem with the proverbial colonial is that when the colonizer evolves the colonial remains fossilized.
Barrington Braithwaite

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Colin Croft volunteered to be South Africa’s ‘golliwog’

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