To the People’s National Congress: Pivot, find new direction, balance

Dec 16, 2021 Letters

---

Dear Editor,

Kaieteur News – “The sons of Adam are limbs of each other having been created of one essence. When the calamity of time affects one limb the other limbs cannot remain at rest. If thou hast no sympathy for the troubles of others thou are unworthy to be called by the name of a human.”
Written some eight centuries ago by the Persian poet Sa’adi, this now adorns the entrance of the United Nations Building in New York. World leaders pass by those words as they confer on world matters, mainly the human rights of the peoples of the planet. My country, Guyana, is not unknown for its breaches of human values, its calamity of time is about sixty-five years. Almost seven decades. Certainly, enough time to awake towards progress and prosperity. The upcoming Congress of the People’s National Congress is a moment in time for a new direction for Guyana. A Paradigm Shift – An advancement in knowledge that has large scale impact.
In my country, life is not easy. Foreigners willing to usher peaceful co-existence find themselves departing with, ‘Guyana is not for the faint of heart.’ It is a Prison House of Nations and Nationalities, because that’s what we are. Freedom is not given to all citizens universally, each nation and nationality feels freedom must be taken. There has been fifty-six years of attempts at it. Respect and tolerance is nonexistent in our political systems, one is an alien to the other. A change must come. There must be an attempt to align the People’s National Congress on a trajectory of economic governance. Whatever is taking place today will be questioned in the future by the children of today, who are now witnesses right across the country. Much is being said on social media, as are the political commentators.
It is like a norm among generations and ethnicities, PNC is Afro-Guyanese. Likewise, the PPP is Indo-Guyanese. For those ethnics, who find themselves in these organisations are considered tokenisms. There must be integral participation, those ethnicities must be listened to.
In the creation of the People’s National Congress, both ‘Afros’ and ‘Indos’ were involved. It was separation of moderates of the 1953 confrontational political system. In the entire history of the PNC, Indians were members of the party. Over the years, they became only faces with no voices. That must change. Many have tried to be the Third Force or the Alternative, but citizens have preferred to maintain the PNC and the PPP. As a citizen, it is expected to have a worthy and worthwhile alternative. The PPP will never bring in a government that is respectful of the Opposition. They need to be shown the way. Their rise to power makes them unreasonable.
As it stands, the current PNC allows the government a free hand without any attempts of being the respectful Opposition, one that is capable of speaking to the citizens. There are enough swing votes to add to the PNC secured seats. The 2015 elections proved that. Those voters were betrayed by the visionless leadership in the People’s National Congress. The PNC needs to be the political organisation that recognises the path to governance lies with the voters. It is a competition for the citizen’s basic and only right, their single vote in the hope that their inheritance will be well-managed. I cannot see how the PNC can increase their seats in parliament to the majority, unless they give some serious attention to the Indian voters. This must be a serious consideration for the new leader. A plan must be designed as guarantees to the Indian votes. If norm is adhered to, possibly a PNC victory may have an Indo Prime Minister. Hopefully, not one as the PNC dictated to Moses Nagamoottoo. Instead, a Prime Minister with enough responsibilities to be regarded with great respect.
The task ahead is to shed the image of the PNC years as the government, those years, was terrible for the nation. Unless the PNC remakes itself as viable option, then we will inherit the PPP years, when analysed will be terrible years as well for the lack of a credible alternative. I wish to make the case for the possibility of the Indian vote.
Both main ethnic groups do not care to know much of each other. Very few would know of Guyanese history, which encompasses all nations and nationalities. I suspect, the main groups prefer their own separate accounts. For Afro-Guyanese, no nation can experience their pains during slavery and as such, no one, other than an Afro-Guyanese has the authority to speak of it. For the Indo-Guyanese, they wish to tell of their sufferings as if sufferings have different levels. There has been this competition for punishment. Side-tracked by distrust and division, both of these groups lose out on prosperity. Their actions dominate the lives of Amerindians and the other three nations of people that came to British Guiana. The Emancipated African of the British Colony was involved in all aspects of the colony. They were teachers, midwives, stevedores, shopkeepers, tradesmen, farmers and much more – they were everything to the colony. They alone sustained a country.
As the ‘Indentureds’ left the Sugar Plantations, the African found himself in competition. When competition becomes noticeable, it breathes contempt. It began with the Portuguese, they took over the stalls at Stabroek Market, then the Indians took over from them. As the economy grew, indentureds rose up the ladder and everything became very competitive. For the decades that followed, contempt was in the land. It was fertile for men with destructive points of view. Fortunately, today, we have wealth. Enough to grow our economy for a better life with more than enough jobs. Unless the PNC of this moment sustains this country, we would have surrendered the dreams and aspirations of an entire nation to poverty. When men make decisions with no contemplations, corruption prevails, like nations with wealth as ours.
An incident took place sometime around the latter part of 1838. I have always considered it to be very significant for Guyana as a young developing country. As the poet wrote, “When the calamity of time affects one limb the other limbs cannot remain at rest.” Emancipated Africans in their testimonies spoke of the sufferings of the 1838 group of Indians. The poor diet, hours’ work, unhealthy living conditions, leg irons for escaping and the whip. It was the Emancipated African nurses that tended to wounds of the whip lash. An African headmaster who documented the harsh treatment to the Anti-Slavery Society. It was the actions of the Emancipated Africans who made a difference in our establishment in Guyana – they were responsible for the humane system we were indentured to. One they never had for centuries for themselves. Did the Emancipated African see Indians? I doubt it. He saw a fellow impoverished human, being treated horribly – a treatment that was repeated in their ordeals. Some six centuries after the poet’s words, the Emancipated African, just freed from slavery would express his humanity as written by Sa’adi, “When the calamity of time affects one limb the other limbs cannot remain at rest.” They did not remain at rest.
The heart is capable of much compassion and hate. My appeal to the People’s National Congress, allow compassion to prevail and choose a system that pacifies the extremists among you. May the moderate voices be thunderous. The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in the human meekness and human responsibility. The Persian poet expressed these sentiments in the thirteenth century. But, it was the Christ, who would record for humanity the relationship of brothers, as rightly stated by the poet-the sons of Adam. The Scriptures tells us, “And just as you desire people to do for you, do also for them.”
We must discover and claim the God-given worth as people who have great potential for good. Among the many quotes of Vaclav Havel, there is, “We must live in truth.” History records truth, it has already happened, it is the past. The future is ours to design in reflection of our past. Our past is rich in diversity and our land is abundant. We must find the tolerance, not quick to judge one another in malice.
Indentureship, gave Guyana its uniqueness among the nations of the modern world. The Free African from America, Africa and Caribbean Islands, the Portuguese, the Chinese, the East Indians of 1838 are all part of the Guyanese landscape. During indentureship these people of humble nature departed from their shores in search of a better life. From all those races of people, along with the Natives who were here way before, the gift of life made the Mixed Races. A country of Six Peoples we are proud to proclaim.
The system of Indentureship is an old one among the European nations. John Gladstone would draw from the system where Englishmen, Scotsmen, Irishmen and Welshmen provided the labour for the lands in the New World of the British West Indies. In exchange for the right to live in economic freedom. Soon, the landless of the British Isles became landowners in the New World. Cultivation needed a labour force, not enough indentures from the homeland, enslavement assured a labour force. The West African Coast was not unfamiliar to the Spaniards, Portuguese and the Dutch. Trading of commodities quickly switched to human cargo.
For the 1838 group of East Indians to British Guiana, they would open up the colony to a stream of East Indian indenture(rs) until 1917. People of humble nature departed from the shores of Calcutta. Broken physically, yet urged forward for the sake of survival. Tenacity of their spirit would place their footprints in 1838 upon the fertile lands of British Guiana, its counties of Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice. Forbidden in beliefs of their ancient religion to venture beyond the sacred rivers of the Brahmaputra, Indus and Ganges. A civilisation that marveled Alexander the Great, one that had no slaves. A system that categorises people in castes lived and died for generations past, and all the future generations yet to be born. They would surrender old customs and traditions. Indo-Guyanese historians have concluded, many indentureds were from the lower castes including the Untouchables.
In the freedom of British Guiana, they developed, owned land, property and had their children educated. In India, never the possibility of such freedoms. In British Guiana, their children educated by African teachers. On the Plantations, the oppressive ways of the planters were slightly modified due to the testimony of the Emancipated African on the 1838 immigrants. When the time came to move off the plantations, the Indians would live among the established towns and villages of the Africans.
Quamina, his son Jack, Plantation Success, Plantation Le Resouvernir, Rev. John Smith and John Gladstone. The names and places associated with a significant change in British Guiana – the journey towards the end of slavery in the British Empire. In 1807, Wilberforce was only able to get the British House of Commons to stop African Slavery by Britain. The struggles were to continue in the British Parliament. The campaign for better working conditions and education for slaves still on the plantations of the British Empire. Rev. John Smith familiar with enacted laws pertaining to slaves on Plantations arrived at Plantation Resouvernir and began his work at the Chapel. No sooner, consultations with the Governor revealed Rev. Smith’s familiarity of the few rights permitted to slaves on the plantations. And he began. Each attempt at education was curtailed with complaints to the Governor. Eventually, teaching and reading was restricted to Biblical contents. His congregation grew beyond Plantation Le Resouvenir with worship services attended by slaves of every plantation on the East Coast of Demerara. Among the worshippers was Quamina, a slave of Plantation Success owned by John Gladstone. Some men have natural understanding of the scriptures. Quamina was such a person, and he became a deacon in the church.
On every plantation on the East Coast of Demerara, there was talk of Emancipation. There was excitement back in 1807, but emancipation never came. In 1823, there was excitement again, now delivered by Jack, son of Quamina. Favoured on Plantation Success for his trade of making barrels, he was free to move around the plantations plying the trade. From Jack, the word would travel from House Slaves to Field Slaves on the plantations. Knowledgeable in words and sentences, house slaves read the correspondences from Britain. The raging debates in the House of Commons. Impatient, the slave insurrection took place. The punishment was horrendous. The British public appalled at the barbarism of it, mounted a campaign assisted by the anti-slavery society of a boycott of West Indian sugar and commodities. The British Parliament was pressured to end slavery in the British Empire. The great debate of property came into question, investments, sugar, and the existence of the colony of British Guiana after slavery.
John Gladstone for his business survival and the survival of other Planters would follow the path of Indentureds from the Azores, Maderia, Africa, America, Caribbean, China, and India. The commodities market took away the guarantees from Britain to its Plantation Owners in the British Empire. Competition meant cheaper labour costs, the only negotiable variable in any production.
Overwhelming circumstances in India of devious higher castes, zamindars, British Raj, pursuit of Recruiters and famine would make available a few hundred thousand East Indians to the Plantations in the British West Indies. The masses would come to Demerara, directed by “DEMERARA” a sign on the loading dock at the Port of Calcutta, Garden Reach. Months of sailing upon the waters of the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean, around the Horn of Africa and its turbulence as the two great seas merge. And, there upon the Atlantic Ocean, laden ships of human cargo ferry in haste to the Middle Passage for winds to the West Indies.
Upon entering the mouth of the muddy Demerara River, they would be documented by numbers on tin plates or simply a number, depending on the recruiter. As a number, this human cargo would build his life in British Guiana. All citizens, home and abroad, have found ourselves to be Guyanese. There must be meaning in our minds. We must do better, we have to do better for the future.
Converging on Congress Place in masses is necessary, for those who choose to speak for Guyanese must know the meaning of our minds. In the words of MLK ,”if you can’t fly, run, if you can’t run, walk, if you can’t walk, crawl but by all means keep moving. I add, to an assembly at Congress Place. Stay Safe.

Velutha Kuttapen

---

---