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Sports, arts and music sell your country, not the politicians

Oct 08, 2012 Letters

Dear Sir,
Our Golden Jaguars football team had brought international recognition to our country after the world cup game against El Salvador in that country. It was given a standing ovation by the spectators, amounting to some forty thousand, according to reports.
The players and technical personnel have become ambassadors for our country. What better way to sell the message for tourism? They will be sought after wherever they go to furnish information on difference aspects of the life in their country.
My pitch here is that your sports fraternity, your culture – the arts and music, sell your country, not the politicians. The politicians are there to facilitate, not patronize these areas of endeavours. These are assets of any country and must be given priority in financing and legal protection.
I would like to make music my main focus in this letter. In April of 2011, I participated at the Guyana Music Festival where the attendance was very, very poor, both from patrons and participants alike. Why? Limited advertisement!
The Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Mr. Anthony said, in part, a school of music will be set up, which was done, and there will be no teaching of this discipline in public schools.
When these folks would have finished their stint at the School of Music, what next? You cannot have commodities to sell and don’t, it will lose its value and you would have to dump it. We do not have a music industry in Guyana because there is no relevant law to protect it in this the 21st century.
These people will eventually leave for some other country where they may be able to pursue their dream. Perhaps you may want to utilize them to entertain the diplomatic circle and other visitors whenever they visit these shores, and they will need to have recorded music of Guyanese culture to take back with them when they are going home.
What do you do in this instance, pay some musicians to do some recording to give away to these folks and then they sit and wait until a next time?
People need to live off of their God given talent. There were visiting musicians from America who performed at this festival; they come from a country that has protection for intellectual property.
I had a chat with some fellow musicians who said to me that on appealing to the former Head-of-state about the copyrights law, they were told that if it was enacted, many people will not be able to send their children to school. If that was said, that cannot be fair.
The government is suppose to put systems (legal) in place to help the citizens of this country; not to take away someone else’s right to give it to somebody else.
The spirit of the people of this lovely native land is shedding tears on a daily basis because it is locked away in some dark place, fighting to get out. The people entered into a social contract with the politician to facilitate ways that we can pursue our talents.
Mr. Minister, you were able to get some chutney singers of Guyana to participate in Trinidad; if you can enact the copy rights law, we the musicians and promoters can do that for that is our business to do.
Let us nurture our Bob Marleys, our Montanos, our Gabbys right here in Guyana. Let us nurture our Usain Bolts and Blake right here in Guyana and we together will sell our country Guyana to the world.
So, Mr. Minister, do the right thing by the people and put those things into place and let us, the people, do what we have to do and display this country like it has never been seen before.
Rudolph Marshall

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