Questions about freedom or the free dumb

Aug 14, 2016 Countryman, Features / Columnists

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By Dennis Nichols

Many years ago a young Jamaican journalist asked me why we Guyanese accepted or tolerated some of the unpopular ‘moves’ President Burnham and his government made in the nineteen seventies and early eighties. I told her that some of us did oppose them, but for others it wasn’t an easy task to push against the authority and charisma of the man, and the machinery of the state.
Yet others, I suggested, waited and hoped that their faith in humanity and in the innate goodness of individual human beings (like Burnham) would be vindicated sooner or later; in other words, they did little or nothing.
Now looking back further I wonder why Africans and New World natives allowed themselves to be so easily colonized and enslaved by Europeans. Were they too ‘dumb’ to figure out what was really happening, or just overwhelmed by cunning and superior arms? And six centuries later, are some of us in this country still too dumb to understand and realize the concepts of self-actualization and real freedom, or are we just the ‘Free Dumb’? Over the past few days those questions tumbled over in my thoughts as I pondered the notion of Emancipation.
Emancipation! What a wonderful word. To be free from the oppression and repression of slavery must be a great thing – a thing to be remembered, cherished, and protected, lest we forget. And a thought, did our ancestors come here as a lame-spirited, physically and mentally weak people, meekly submitting to the whims, whips, and will of their so-called masters? Or did they come as proud, strong men and women struggling from ‘day one’ to unshackle their bodies and minds from chain and yoke? Were there some of both? Historians have debated these notions, but agree that generally African slaves in the West Indies did not submit tamely to European domination.
What about the East Indian indentured labourers transported across the Kala Pani, and thrown into a life of relative servitude on the B.G. sugar plantations? Did they fight physically or otherwise against injustice and prejudice? Or had they realized the futility of struggle and, with their own brand of cunning, waited for the right moment to strike? And what about our indigenous brothers and sisters? We are told that they were in awe of the ‘god-like’ White men, and in any case felt it was no big thing to share the land with their visitors.
We are told that the White/European massas and misses were so efficient in their divide-and-rule strategies that to this day the perception exists that Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese are still basically distrustful of each other, and dismissive of native Amerindians.  Do the legacies of the Jaganite and the Burnhamite camps (and to a lesser extent the D’Aguiarite faction) from the nineteen fifties and sixties still influence the thoughts and actions of a sizeable number of Guyanese citizens today?
Emancipation in Guyana is almost wholly about Africans, their adjustment to the post-slavery conditions in British Guiana, and assimilation into a growing multicultural society. Those were also the days of establishing villages, reclaiming and taking stock of cultural values and forging a sense of common identity no matter how fractured it had become. In appearance and dress, traditional rites, food, festivals and religion, they strove to preserve and integrate at the same time. And infusing it all was the European model of civilization and Christianity that pushed them towards a new and uncertain future. It must have been a strange mix.
I often wonder what society was like in the latter part of the 19th century in this country, especially for African Guyanese. The few images I have seen from that period show Africans in mostly European-style clothing with hats and umbrellas, on the streets, in the open spaces or the market places, or going to church.
The late Laxhmie Kallicharran showed me faded photographs of East Indians in traditional wear that included saris, dhotis and turbans, often taking part in religious and traditional ceremonies, indicating a fair degree of cultural preservation. Nevertheless there was some amount of intermarriage between Africans and East Indians in addition to the Anglicizing of Indian names which showed just how pervasive the English way of doing things was becoming.
Today many Afro-Guyanese are a typical West Indian mixture of African heritage, Caribbean identity, British influence, and a combination of individualism and a modern multicultural Guyanese persona.  It’s a confusing mélange for some because of the last of those factors, more so for the younger folk.
How exactly do you as a proud, young African, create or contrive to create such a persona? Looking to older Guyanese is apparently not much of an option. So they look at how young Black men and women ‘hang’ in (where else) the United States, and maybe closer to home, in Jamaica. This is my take on the phenomenon.
In appearance, dress, speech, music, recreational activities; even in the way they relate to one another ethnically, many Black youths and some ‘elderly teenagers’ appear to be walking contradictions.
One hundred and seventy-eight years after emancipation, they are bleaching their skin, straightening their hair, replacing healthy locks with synthetic weaves and extensions,  wearing butt-exposing jeans or expensive clothes bearing the name of some rich White guy, and listening to songs with lyrics that barely disguise the sexual objectification of (mostly Black) women. Yet many of them claim to understand the significance of the Black consciousness movement and Marcus Garvey’s/Bob Marley’s counsel to ‘emancipate yourselves from mental slavery’.
Skin–bleaching and hair-straightening are understandable maybe as cosmetic enhancement and a fashion statement, or as a necessity for moving forward in a society that seems to favour light-skinned, straight-haired, conventionally dressed young people. But many of them, especially the naturally light-skinned Blacks and the new skin-bleached ones, make degrading remarks about their dark-skinned, kinky-haired kin, reflecting that same preference in society favouring the former. It’s called colourism. (Google the ‘Paper bag test’)
Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprising, these trends are happening not only in Guyana, the Caribbean, and the United States,  but also in Africa and India, and I wouldn’t be appalled if I discovered it has begun to happen among  some of the darker ethnic groups in other parts of Asia and the South Pacific. But I am a Guyanese, and I like to see my people as ‘natural’ as possible. And as emancipated as possible.
I like, but am not overawed by, the sight of our people commemorating the freedom their ancestors won over slavery on August 1st, with the libations, or the traditional garb and games at the National Park and in the villages along the coast.
I would be happy if, for the rest of the year, more of my people showed that in their appearance and attitude; their thinking, speech, and dress, they truly understand and appreciate the concept of emancipatory freedom, and that they are not just the Free Dumb.

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