This is the voice of a rabid rabble-rouser or a bitter, dissatisfied person

Feb 22, 2015 Letters

---

DEAR EDITOR,
In an article captioned “An exception to the general rule” (Wed 18 Feb) Peeping Tom becomes very defensive and claims that I (Tues 17 Feb) had either misrepresented or misunderstood the “gravamen” (whatever that means) of the article.
What is there to misrepresent or misunderstand? It is a clear-cut case: there are two opposing views on the table for debate. In plain English:
1.      To scrap the Prize and use the funds to produce more Journals, and
2.      To suspend the Prize indefinitely and use the funds to train writers.
In any civilized country this would have generated a debate on the issues on perfectly amicable terms. But Peeping Tom (PT), under the cloak of anonymity, saw it as an opportunity to make it personal, and to launch an attack on me. That is a sign of how poisoned this society has become and PT seems to be the perfect representative of it.
PT next seized the opportunity to make vulgar comparisons between The Arts Journal and the now defunct Kyk Over Al.
I would like to say that The Arts Journal is an independent, peer-reviewed Journal. When it was launched in 2004, Kyk Over Al had long folded up. The Arts Journal was founded to fill a void in Guyana and its objectives are: to provide critical perspectives on the arts and to foster critical thinking. Guyanese and regional academics and researchers welcomed a place to be published as many critical views were neglected in mainstream criticism.
All those who think the Journal is cheese or chalk or whatever, can go to the Responses on the Journal’s website (www.theartsjournal.org.gy) and see the reception it has been receiving since its launch and the academics, writers and artists associated with it.
The Arts Journal is not in competition with any other publication. It has not caused the demise of any publication nor can it prevent any from seeing the light of day.
No one makes those mean-spirited and vicious comparisons in the academic community as PT has done. This is the voice of a rabid rabble-rouser or a bitter, dissatisfied person.
Furthermore, I know all the erstwhile editors of Kyk Over Al beginning with A J Seymour and I doubt that any of them would think of asking for the Guyana Prize funds to be diverted to reviving a magazine. They are all well-connected persons and by no means short of ideas how to revive Kyk if they so intend. So who is Peeping Tom holding a brief for?
It appears that PT is also baiting me to create a rift between The Arts Journal and the Caribbean Press. This is wholly unwarranted. PT has moved away from the original issue of the Guyana Prize and devoted 95% of the reply to making odious comparisons about Journals and the Caribbean Press. Nowhere have I said anything adverse about Kyk Over Al or The Caribbean Press so PT’s suppositions are ridiculous, mischievous if not downright malicious.
PT states that “one journal can never be enough in any society”. Does PT have any idea what publishing in Guyana involves? Where in a society of three quarters of a million people, half of whom do not read, would you find more than one academic Journal of the Arts? Show me the corporations that are eager to sponsor the publication of Journals and then go right ahead.
In most other countries, an Arts Journal usually comes out of a university where funding and staff are available to undertake such a production. The fact that the University of Guyana has not managed to produce an academic Journal of the arts in fifty years is perhaps evidence that publishing is hard work.
PT states: “the literary arts form part of and affirm the bourgeoisie culture within the superstructure of society”. This statement makes no sense to me but one of our Caribbean subscribers wrote in response: “Are people still into the ‘bourgeoise’ type of comments? Good lord! Have they seen Putin wearing all the Ralph Lauren suits? It is so old, 1960’s stuff. These people need to move on”.
Many countries have writing classes at University level. Others have writing retreats (e.g., Calabash and Cropper Foundation). A few years ago Trinidad launched the Bocas Prize. Recently CODE launched the Burt award for writing in the Juvenile category. The OAS has a writing Prize. Cuba has a writing prize. A Prize is not the reason that writers write; rather, it is an incentive. And why should the Guyana Prize not exist along transparent lines of management? Our young writers do not deserve guidance and incentives? Their parents pay taxes.
Of course, in the first world countries and more affluent Caribbean islands, there is much more publicity surrounding their Prizes. Guyana seems to be a lack luster place where the arts are concerned. Everything is contained in small impenetrable circles. But what kind of society looks to throw out its arts? The poorer you are the more you need the arts because often poverty has less to do with a lack of money than with a lack of the literate/creative imagination, our capacity for self-reflection, and hence the choices we make. Education in the arts must make us wiser, more compassionate. Not more tribalistic.
In Guyana today there is just a handful of persons sufficiently interested in the arts to enter into a newspaper debate. You can count them on your ten fingers. Peeping Tom has made a Freudian slip.  You have unwittingly unmasked yourself.
Ameena Gafoor

---

---