History is too important to civilisation to be treated this way

Mar 09, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News- One of the major cultural and intellectual differences between this nation and the rest of countries in the world is how this country treats history and historical materials.
I once wrote an article, the file name for which I cannot remember. It was about what Leonard Craig (former AFC executive) and I saw at the Brickdam police station. We had gone there in 2013 to report a rape case and were told to wait. While there, we walked around and what we saw on the floor of the station in an upper room was vicious philistinism and incredible mental poverty.
Lying on the floor, going to waste were past volumes of station records. These consisted of input the station would have made of complaints over a long period. Hundreds of the pages were blowing out the door unto the passage way.
I remember writing in that column that gone are historical documents relating to people that researchers would need. I distinctly remember mentioning that if you are writing on John Doe, you would never know that there were several complaints made to the station about his behaviour.
This is how we treat the precious value of history. Compare the obliteration of records at the Brickdam Station with the preservation of evidence in the US. The difference is shameful. In the US at the moment, they are identifying killers through a DNC database. Evidence stored 50 years ago is being matched in the database in murder cases that went cold for more than half a century.
I once asked Yesu Persaud if he can erect a large billboard in the compound of the Monument Garden to inform the present generation that it was right on that spot that the source of the Georgetown water supply was located. He agreed but Yesu was such a busy person that he honestly forgot.
I believe 100 percent of the students that graduated from St. Rose’s High School knew that right opposite their school was where countless numbers of their grandparents got their drinking water. It is so, so wrong to let historical memories be erased like this.
The question is how much effort and money it will take either from GWI or the relevant ministry to erect that signboard? How much money will it take yearly to preserve it? The answer is, the state has the funds to do it.
When you travel west on Battery Road as soon as you reach NCERD, history stares you in the face. It was on that location that the indentured citizens were registered. Put a large billboard in front of the building with the words – “Guyana’s indentured servants were registered here on arrival.”
The citizens of Georgetown must have passed the village of Victoria on the East Bank of Demerara millions of times but how many know that it was the first village bought by the emancipated slaves. The youth who live in Victoria need to know that bold fact. A huge signboard painted on both sides should be erected informing west bound and east bound traffic of that piece of Guyanese history.
These are things that do not need a huge outlay of finance or sophisticated planning. After 55 years of Independence, these little but priceless facts, should have been in place. One shameful episode in the post-Independence life of this country is the retention of the names of streets that have no historical importance. East Street is gone, erased by the enlargement of the Georgetown Hospital many years ago.
The other half of East Street should be renamed. It sits right next to the Georgetown Hospital and maybe the name “Hospital Road” should be given to it. There is no reason to retain the current name for South Road and North Road. Years ago, I wrote about North Road being renamed after Desmond Hoyte.
One of the things UG should start doing is what most universities do – name buildings after citizens whose contributions to society were admirable. I can think of the “Andrew Morrison Building” where the Department of Mass Communication is located.
Jesuit Priest, Father Andrew Morrison stood tall in the field of investigative journalism during the era of dark, very dark power in Guyana. At one time in this country, his little newspaper, “The Catholic Standard,” was the only source of news of what was taking place in Guyana where every semblance of democratic governance was gone.
Government should start awarding scholarships in various areas of knowledge that will honour the name of those that made Guyana a better place. For example the Sarah-Ann Lynch scholarship. These things preserve the priceless value of historical knowledge.
(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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