Many of us on the spot saw things from both sides

Jun 17, 2013 Letters

Dear Editor,
Amazing, the capacity of human beings for self-delusion. When I read the article about the month of June being significant on Guyana’s political calendar, as perceived by the writer, I wondered “What is this chap on”? A good case of two men looking out through prison bars and one seeing mud, the other stars. Or perhaps a case of none being so blind as he who won’t see.
First of all, we read that “five sugar workers were brutally shot to death by colonial police for having dared to stand up for their rights”.
While fully in sympathy with the families deprived of their breadwinner, I think the full truth may never be known. Many of us on the spot saw things from both sides. Let us not forget that the angry, baying, marching sugar workers, virtually the whole workforce, by far outnumbered the police and were armed with, and brandishing, the tools of their trade – cutlasses, pitchforks, shovels, sticks, weapons of every description. They meant business.
I have already written about my experience, just out of high school and in my first job as a pupil teacher at the Government school on the Enmore Estate. I cannot recall ever being so scared in my life for such a long time, as having to walk the distance from the train station to the school premises through lines of surly, muttering men.
On one occasion, when I quickened my pace, and one of them commented on it, his companion replied along the lines “Don’ mind how fast she walk, if I want to catch she, I can always catch she”. Blood curdling. Eventually their womenfolk saved the day by some of them sitting among them.
The men then betook themselves to the backdam and shortly afterwards, the ‘martyrdom’ happened. The incident was related to us by the estate hospital’s medical staff who were eyewitnesses, and had to take care of the casualties. It paints a different picture.
Admittedly, during the first years of the PNC rule, things were tough, very tough. In London, we heard about the repression, the suppression of civil liberties, the food restrictions similar to those of the WWII years. I well remember my colleagues in London sending, among other things, three-pound parcels of flour to their kith and kin in Guyana.
However, when Desmond Hoyte took charge, he tried to change things by easing the lot of the poor. The same colleagues lauded his efforts, because they no longer needed to send food parcels. I am absolutely convinced he did it out of complete empathy with this section of the community. A decent man.
Finally, “…… Guyana is today a free and democratic country…………finally restored …………… on October 5, 1992”. ‘Tell it to the marines’. No, Sir, in some respects, it is just as bad as the first wife’s time – but in a covert way.
Geralda Dennison

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Many of us on the spot saw things from both sides

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