Let the revellery continue

Feb 23, 2014 Features / Columnists, My Column

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Today is the forty-fourth anniversary of Guyana becoming a Republic. It is the day when forty-four years ago many people did not understand what becoming a republic meant. To make matters worse, the political leaders had stated that the country was breaking ties with the Monarchy, that the queen would no longer have anything to do with Guyana.
Imagine the confusion. Here were a people who all their lives had known the Queen of England as their ultimate ruler and now they were being told that this would no longer be the case. There was a fair amount of confusion.
There was even more confusion that we would no longer appeal to the Privy Council, that we would have our own High Court of Appeal. But there were those of us who were young and wanted excitement. We were prepared to welcome our nationhood as it should be.
I was a teacher at Bartica when the day dawned. A group of us, all teachers at the Bartica Government Secondary School planned what we would do. We met with the village council and with the boys who controlled the then Broadway Steel Orchestra.
A member of the Peace Corps, Benjamin Wolfe was there teaching swimming. He organised the picnic that would follow the street tramp that we planned. It coincided with the band, so there we were with no floats as people in the city have now come to accept as an integral part of Mash.
Bartica had never seen anything like that. The village came out and that first Mash Day for me was a moment to remember. We partied well into the night but there was a lot that we had to learn about being a Republic.
Of course, there were the few who believed that we would be able to sling guns on our hips as some believed was the case in Brazil. It is hard to believe that all those things happened forty-four years ago. Since then many things have happened.
I can’t say what happened in the city for the first Mash, but I do know that in those early days Linden came to the city because Mash really grew out of something that the Lindeners did way back when, soon after Guyana became an independent country.
As time wore on the government included such things as the Best Decorated building competition. There was also something for agriculture—the Best Kitchen Garden. But the people were really into revellery.
We did not always raise the flag at Public Buildings. That happened because in the wake of the 1992 elections the people in the city were not enamoured with the People’s Progressive Party. They gave Dr Cheddi Jagan a torrid time when he hosted the Republic anniversary programme in 1993.
The new government changed many things. The PNC would announce the names of national awardees on the eve of the Republic and confer the awards on the anniversary of Independence. The PPP changed that. It announced the names of the national awardees on the anniversary of the country’s Independence and conferred the awards on the anniversary of the PPP coming to office in 1992.
The Republic anniversary has not been without its controversy. In Trinidad, Carnival coincides with the dawn of Lent. It ends at midnight of Shrove Tuesday, at the dawn of Ash Wednesday. In Guyana the Republic anniversary is a date. I remember back in 1977 when the region came out to criticize Guyana for holding the float parade on Ash Wednesday.
In Guyana the churches begged for a postponement but the powers that be said that the anniversary was a date and in any case, Guyana was a secular society. Those who wanted to go to church were free to do so. Then the church leaders came up with the argument that some churches lay along the Mash route. Nothing changed.
Years later Mash coincided with a Muslim holiday. Again there was the petition but nothing changed. This year Mash Day is a Sunday. February 23 fell on a Sunday before this year and I cannot recall any objection.  Not that there was any this year, but I have heard that the religious organization that sponsored a Mash Day float would not be doing so this year.
And there is more. Some of the big names would not be on the streets. They know why. Surely it cannot be a question of money because the people support them all through the year, going overboard at Christmas.
Something else that has me wondering about our morals is the complaints about the gyrations on the streets. A street tramp is not a religious march, so one can expect people to let loose. It is the same in Trinidad, Brazil, London and even New York on Labour Day.
I say let us party and if the dances are suggestive, such is our culture. Someone actually wrote that those who do not want to see the gyrations could always stay home. I have been to queh queh ceremonies and I have heard the lyrics. I have gone to Indian wedding houses and I have seen the suggestive dances by older women. That is what we are. Sex plays an important part in our lives, so I say let us party.

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