Osaze and the plight of working class activists

Jul 23, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Osaze, who died recently, was a militant working class activist of the Working People’s Alliance. He was also known in cultural circles as an artist and an exponent of African drumming.
Some persons pronounced his name as O-sas-say. He was particularly active during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s when the WPA was in its heyday.
Osaze used his musical and artistic talents to promote multicultural respect. He had an amazing ability to synchronize African rhythms to other genres, including Christian and Hindu music. Whatever the genre, he could seamlessly interpolate his African drumming into these genres, creating ‘sweet, sweet’ music. He demonstrated how African rhythms could transcend race and religion.
But while his music was able to transcend boundaries, he himself was never able to hurdle class prejudices inside and outside of his party. Osaze, like so many of the WPA’s outstanding working class activists, died in poverty. This is the price which working class persons have paid for their support of middle-class political leadership.
Many working class youths, like Osaze, were mesmerized by Walter Rodney. Walter had a big following among working class youths. Kwayana too once had a following of street followers, drawn mainly from Buxton. These working class youth joined the WPA in the hope of contributing to a working class liberation from the Burnham dictatorship.
These activists were not men and women without ability. They had skills and they had know-how. They may have not been all certified but they were not without the means to earn a decent living in a fair society.
Their misfortune was that they became victims of the middle class leadership within and outside of their party. Having taken up the struggle against the Burnham dictatorship, they were to pay a huge price. They were ostracized by their families, their friends and their own people.
Once you were associated with the WPA during the days of “Civil Rebellion”, you were designated as an enemy of the state. You were liable to be arrested on sight, beaten by thugs or placed under surveillance. The PNC had a recognition handbook which was given to policemen so that they could easily identify and harass opposition activists.
If you worked for the government, you could be liable to be dismissed or transferred to a remote location for any act which displeased the PNC government. A headmistress of St. Roses High School and teachers from Corentyne were issued with letters of transfers in retaliation for their support for strike action.
Because of the high-level of political repression, even your own family and friends distanced themselves from you. They too were fearful of political victimization because of them associating or merely being seen in the company of WPA activists. The PNC was so repressive that they would plant spies in the classrooms at the University of Guyana to see who was being critical of the government. These spies were often exposed when it came to final examinations. They were not registered as students and so they could not – nor were they interested – in writing examinations. Their sole purpose was to be in classroom to see who were critical of the PNC and to report this to their political masters.
Nobody wanted to have anything to do with you if you were associated with the WPA. It would have been almost impossible for you to secure a job in either the public or private sector – the latter being fearful of being victimized. The working-class cadres of the WPA were therefore left on their own and forced to huddle behind leaders who after the death of Walter Rodney, could do little to assist these working class activists.
The WPA barely survived through donations from overseas friends and organizations. But when dictatorship ended, the donations dried up, and with it any chance of the party being able to help the party’s working class activists who had carried the party’s torch under Walter Rodney.
Those, like Osaze were forced to eke out an existence. There were so many others who were left with no support, no prospects except to try to earn a living from their artistic skills. Cultural industries are however underdeveloped and unsupported in Guyana. And so it was difficult for Osaze to make a living from his drumming and art work. But he tried.
Another activist, known as ‘Bun Beef’ suffered the same fate. Working class activists paid a huge price for opposing the Burnham dictatorship and for blindly following a middle-class leadership.
The PNC would usually send thugs to assault and terrorize opposition activists. One of those thugs was a man called Blue. He ended up being a minibus driver. He used to openly boast about breaking-up WPA meetings and physically assaulting activists on behalf of the PNC.
For all the dirty work he did for the PNC, he ended-up a pauper. He was forced to beg for money on Regent Street. The middle class leadership of the PNC had no time for him after he became too old to beat-up people.
A few years ago, he was homeless and found dead on a parapet outside of the Georgetown Hospital. That is how the middle class political leadership in Guyana treat their working class activists. They use them and then dump them.
Working class activists have paid a huge price for their opposition to dictatorship. Osaze was one of them. He is now reunited with the ancestors but he must be looking down, with a rueful smile on some of his former comrades, who are now comfortably in bed with the would-be dictators and, sadly, using his name to justify their selfish and divisive agenda.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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