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Is This Déjà-vu? From 1823 Betrayal To 2012 Betrayal?
Dear Editor,
In life it is always in our interest to have a game plan for the purpose of giving structure to our thoughts. It is through adhering to the tenets of that game plan, and by making adjustments to the game plan when needed, that we are able to arrive upon action that we are able to affect with purpose: act with confidence. All game plans must address first a need. The need must be assessed for relevance, and be prioritised. The next stages would be general acceptance and implementation.
In 1823 Africans in British Guiana (Guyana) attempted a revolutionary change in respect to the relationship to their labour power. Because they chose to express their human rights; and they attempted to do so in a relatively non-violent manner, they were massacred, and their heads displayed on locations along the East Coast Demerara.
In addition to such gruesome display of barbarism by the British forces that were avouched Christians, other Africans who were captured alive were taken to the Militia Parade Ground: an area comprising at that time of the present Promenade Gardens, and the Parade Ground.
At that location a court martial was held and at the conclusion of the proceedings some Africans were deported from British Guiana, and others were executed on the location of the Militia Parade Ground and heads and bodies of Africans were displayed separately on poles along the Militia Parade Ground.
The children of those Africans are yet to demand in a serious and structured manner, compensation and reparation against the barbaric tragic assault upon the human rights of our foreparents.
However, we the “children” of the victims, of those who were commissioned by George IV* to initiate the 1823 Massacre, alone have first and final determination in determining how our Fore-parents will be remembered. Any planning for a monument to the ancestors of an ethnic or racial group can only be cultural specific.
Why is it that the Monument to immortalise the memory of our Africans Fore-parents is prevented from having all the cultural relevancies?
Is this déjà-vu? Our fore-parents thought that petitioning would have given them redress. It gave them betrayal and death. Today the children of those betrayed are facing the same cold entangling net of betrayal. Are we then earmarked to be massacred?
Hadfield Street December 6, 2011, and Linden July 18, 2012 are chilling memories of “mini” massacres: prelude to the hatching of a chilling tragedy ahead.
The Minister of Culture misdirected the people of Guyana in respect to the desire of the family and friends of our artistic hero the late Baba Moore, in respect to the request to have his body put to rest in Seven Ponds. Using the same tactics of “lying like truth,” the Minister set out again “lying like truth”.
He concocted an elaborate plan to mislead the Guyanese public once more. Why would the Minister of culture be lost to find a place to house our Monument to the 1823 Martyrs, when the leader of his party and the then President of the country, Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo pledged to our Fore-parents by the turning of the sod and the burying of coins respectively, that their Souls would be put to rest at the location where their blood was shed?
We would like to make it absolutely clear by reiterating that the turning of the sod, and the burying of the coins respectively were a physical gesture and a Spiritual pledge solemnly made to the Spirit of our Ancestors, that the location where their blood was shed would be held by all as “Sacred Grounds.”
We need to say no more. Historical precedent put our Monument as priority over any persons playing football on the parade ground. We are confident that when the truth is told about the history of the Parade Ground, no African would be prepared to play football again, on the Sacred Shrine of his or her Ancestors.
Cooperatively
Penda Guyan
*In a previous presentation of this communication mention of the reign of Queen Victoria was intended for comparative reasons in respect to 1938. The quote was not used, but the phrase including Queen Victoria’s reign remained in error.
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