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Feeling proud to be drinking Guinness

Aug 25, 2015 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
African History Month is celebrated internationally during February of each year, and it seems black or African people place very little emphasis on what slavery was all about and if we do discuss slavery, it’s only the chains, beatings and the hostility meted out to our ancestors that we remember…but what about slaves’ input into the development of people and things?
For example, Guinness the stout that makes people strong and healthy and vigorous.
I drink Guinness Stout quite frequently. It is said to have been developed inside Ireland.  Its advertisement indicates that it is brewed with hops and roasted barley for a natural bite, bitter and sweet, refreshingly crisp – always rewarding, pure beauty, pure Guinness. Those remarks have caused many people to drink more and more of it.
A few weeks ago, I was given a Guinness jersey.  Before I dressed with that jersey, I checked for writings as I do with all clothes that have writings.  To my amazement, I recognised these bold words “Guinness Est. 1759”.  I said to myself, what Christopher Columbus said when he accidentally arrived in this area.  “What a discovery!”
Slavery existed in the year 1759.  In British Guiana, slavery was abolished in the year 1838.  It was 79 years after Guinness was established, America became Independent in 1776.
My questions are, “How could Guinness have been produced without slave labour?” “Who did the manual labour while slavery existed all over the world?”  “Am I to understand the Europeans went to Africa where they collected men, women and children, packed them in ships as cargo, bound for their homeland to play a game of chess?”
The owners of Guinness were no different from the others.  African slaves planted and reaped cotton, sugar cane, hops and barley, which is still a main ingredient in Guinness Stout that so many people still enjoy today.
Guinness is one of the many things African Slaves were involved in its production.  In my opinion, African people should feel proud every time they drink a Guinness Stout knowing our ancestors have made a meaningful contribution towards its initial production.
I take a quote from the late President Forbes Burnham’s Independence Speech, “After 150 odd years of British rule and in some cases misrule, we are now Independent but we harbour no bitterness”.
B. Winslow Parris

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