I must add perspective to Desmond Alli’s lamentation

Jan 10, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

June 30, 2019 Kaieteur News, and Dec. 12, 2019 in another newspaper Desmond Alli wrote a letter lamenting that things are getting worse for senior Artists. He also complained that $20 million was allocated for the arts and the culture vultures swallowed it up, then there was the usual finger pointing at the PNC Coalition, etc. The fact is that Desmond Alli is poisoning himself with prejudice and delusions or he is just dishonest. The $20M he is talking about is a Subvention I had lobbied for from 1992 that was in the public arena, and it was an approach to the Finance Minister Winston Jordan in 2015 that it bore fruit in 2016. I had stopped Desmond Alli on Main Street over a year ago and told him as I have told other artists that I had made headway. The only Artist that was willing to prepare submissions with me was Burchmore Simon of Kross Kolor through the lobbying years [the PPP officials both the Finance Minister and the Minister of Culture from 2012 onwards, none ever responded to any correspondences I presented to them]. Desmond shrugged his shoulders then and walked away, as many others did, justifiably, because I was at it over twenty four years, this they knew and viewed it as just my unrealistic optimism at play. I did not lobby for an allotment for Artists, the lobby was a subvention to creative people who are registered and practice Cultural Industries as a means of existing, with business activities, most of my suggestions, including a display at parliament by recipients’ were ignored. Desmond is right in declaring that there are retarding cliques in Guyana’s fragmented Creative world. I have experiences and have published dozens of correspondences that allude to that. I would definitely like a more open and engaging platform on the committees and boards that make decisions on the development or retrogression of the Arts, which they will cause if these people are not themselves experienced in creative fields. Whether senior [I am a senior Artist] or younger Artist our duty to nation and self is to find workable ways, this is a revolution on its own, it is not political parties, but individual enlightenment within those institutions. Forbes Burnham allowed the development of the Burrowes Art School, The National Dance Company, built the National Cultural Centre, allowed local creativity to be exposed as illustrators in the media, through Curriculum Development developed primary school text, The Walter Roth Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, NCN was developed to facilitate local film development. This is a political legacy we cannot deny or denounce. I would like to meet your group, which seems to be a second group that you’re in, to let’s talk about the business of the Arts.
Barrington Braithwaite

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