Culture and Arts … Cultural development and the need for a policy: Is it Govt’s priority?

Jul 11, 2016 News

By: Kiana Wilburg

With proper direction and a policy to safeguard its creations, culture can be a powerful, inspiring and independent force in any nation’s development. And even though this truth has been often acknowledged for years, little has been done to allow most if not all forms of Guyana’s culture to truly blossom and take a prominent place on the platforms of power in the global context.

However, with a new administration in place, it is hoped that the promise of a strong and comprehensive cultural policy will be fulfilled. Assisting the Department of Culture and Arts as an advisor in this regard is Ruel Johnson, a controversial award winning writer.

With an unbridled mind, this two-time winner of the Guyana Prize for Literature is no stranger to the media.

Known for his somewhat, “stirring letters,” in the daily newspapers from time to time, what can be easily detected is that he is not afraid to explore social issues to the depths of which some would categorize as being forbidden.

With his new title, Johnson hopes to help develop a cultural policy for Guyana that provides conditions to enable everyone to participate in cultural life regardless of whether the aim is education, to experience culture or to engage in creative activities which aid in the advancement of the nation’s socio-economic standing.

In a detailed interview with this publication, Johnson shares some of the challenges he has encountered with the development of the policy, the demands of his new post and the priorities of the new administration when it comes to cultural preservation and promotion. Here is Part One of that dialogue.

Kaieteur News (KN): What are the Ministry’s priority areas when it comes to cultural development in Guyana?

Ruel Johnson (RJ): The government of Guyana’s plans for cultural development is a work in progress, and one that begins with developing and implementing a national cultural policy. There is the need to reform and develop capacity within institutions responsible for cultural heritage protection, the need to create sustainable mechanisms for cultural industries development, and to mainstream culture in development. Much of the work on that agenda has been integrated from the Prince Claus Fund-supported Janus Cultural Policy Initiative that I started in 2014 and which now informs the framework for policy being developed.

KN: What mechanisms have been developed thus far for the preservation of Guyana’s cultural heritage?

RJ: There are standing mechanisms that have done good work over the years, particularly with regard to tangible cultural heritage – there is the National Museum, the Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology and several other smaller, themed museums, as well as the National Archives and the National Trust.

However, what we’ve had over the past 10 years or so is a breakdown of governance systems as well as a failure to adequately allocate resources for cultural heritage preservation policy. There is no museum policy for example, and the National Museum does not have a board, the result being poor systems for the preservation of artifacts.

The National Archives of Guyana has been doing very good work, but needs more capacity development and technical assistance programmes to expand its work, while the National Trust, also under-resourced, has been doing excellent work on built heritage preservation, winning a recent Green Apple award for its efforts. The real weakness, however, is in intangible cultural heritage and thought has been given to expand the role of the National Trust to include support for things like indigenous language preservation, and recording of traditional forms of music and dance. Before any work can be done in intangible cultural heritage however, we need to urgently map and assess what remains.

KN: International projects are often regarded as one of the key ways to strengthening cultural ties between countries. With this in mind, what cultural projects are planned for Guyana in this regard?

RJ: It would be fairer to say that international frameworks for cultural cooperation offer opportunities for deepening ties overall as well as opportunities for engaging in specific projects. Guyana is in a unique position in that we are the only country that sort of straddles two important regional bodies UNASUR/MERCOSUR and CARICOM/CARIFORUM, although Suriname technically is in the same position. Current initiatives under both frameworks focus on potentially exciting regional projects, for example the UNASUR Biennale of Contemporary Art and CARIFESTA within CARICOM.

What I’ve also been doing is mapping possible bilateral areas of cultural cooperation and the major bilateral project in the pipeline is a government of Mexico-funded Institute of the Creative Arts which I have current planning responsibility for. Then of course there is the larger UNESCO framework and while we’ve failed to access funding and technical support as well as we could in the past, there is opportunity for some excellent projects in the upcoming two years. What is important is that we map both our weaknesses as well as our strengths and develop a strategy plan for respectively addressing and leveraging those through bilateral, regional and international collaboration.

KN: What challenges have you faced since your appointment and which ones were the most difficult for you to solve?

RJ: My major challenges have been institutional. The political will is there, I have great latitude in the conceptual component of what I have to do, but I am dealing with an institutional framework that I frankly spent significant time in the past six years deconstructing both privately and publicly. Poor governance and capacity remain the main constraints in policy implementation because the machinery, particularly under Former Culture Minister, Frank Anthony, was shaped to have one person making key decisions in critical areas. We have what purports to be the Institute of Creative Arts, for example, that has the Director of Culture as “Principal” but there are no other administrative or policy personnel and absolutely no oversight mechanism.

This is an endemic situation and it has to be corrected. When there is no oversight, that is when you don’t get value for money or where the capacity for misappropriation of allocations increases dramatically. I am still in the process of developing solutions to the governance and capacity conundrum since the very first obligation we are committed to under the UNESCO 2005 Convention is to “Support Sustainable Systems for Governance in Culture”. Of course, I face a slight chicken-egg dilemma in that regard since my own office suffers from that institutional incapacity. I only have a secretary when what I need is a research team. My Caribbean counterparts in contrast have entire divisions or directorates that focus on cultural policy development and implementation.

That said, at this stage I have had to deal with two Ministers, Senior Minister Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine and Junior Minister Ms. Nicolette Henry who have relied on my expertise and that sort of trust in my professionalism and competence has been invaluable up to this point.

To be continued…