Burnham, Rodney, Caroline and the State of the Black African in Guyana

A man came out and asked me if I was on one of the committees dealing with women. He wanted to know why I never took up the Alesie advertisement in which Joel Gansham mocks a woman for her size. He said that it was sickening that one of "them "would mock a real woman. I asked him whether he had done anything about it and he said no.

The room at Akwaba was packed the Sunday morning. I missed part of the first panel presentation. The Ghana Day Committee had organised a one day conference on Sunday 4 August, 2013 about "The State of the Black African in Guyana" . It seems the Guyana had always had a Ghana Day celebration but it had wavered over the years.. Ghana being the first African country to gain independence.

I went because I was curious.. and because I also wish that there could be a conversation about the status of the coolie in Guyana right now.. given all the ideas that coolies are doing well. The last time there was a public coolie conversation was when some young coolies murdered a taxi driver. Since then, other coolies have killed their wives, killed people on the roads and killed themselves..but no conversations any more.

I looked at the panellists. Only two women.. Dr Melissa Ifill and Andaiye and nuff man talking.   Women asked questions from the floor and were at the back organising the food.

I asked one of my favourite women who was at the back.. where only women were organising the refreshments and so on.. agonising about the late delivery.. and she said .. yep.. she vex too, but volunteers were needed .

The audience were mostly older than me. I felt sad about that.. and I asked a man how to find a way to link Jamzone into this. (Jamzone is as multiracial as the PPP and the PNC). He told me that people should have pulled their children with them here.. but then I thought, it might have been boring for them.

What did I take away..

• Melissa's observations that the controversy over the 1823 monument had galvanised persons who were not ordinarily active, and that there were conversations about history happening in different places and requests to learn more. I personally had not heard about the 1823 rebellion before the controversy around the monument

• Mr Granger looked tired. He responded to a challenge about African leadership. His response was along the line that leadership is often lonely, remembering that Kofi committed suicide, and that many others are deemed 'failures' . It occured to me in the Guyana context.. how do we define leadership.. and what can be deemed successful and failed leadership.. of any kind. And in the conversation outside the room, I heard that the ANC had contributed to Steve Biko's death.

Sharma Solomon was brilliant in naming Rodney as his hero.. and in his asking that the memories of Rodney and Burnham be reconciled. I remembered the day Burnham died and feeling as, another young black man told me a year later.. it was as though a cloud was lifted from Guyana. Thanks to Burnham.. I do not own a tie and  refuse to own one. I also do not buy Soldanza plantain chips. Thanks to Burnham too.. I walk this Caribbean as though I am part and parcel of it and I will look at any immigration officer as my equal.  

• Rodney though.. is awesome. Brave.  Sharma talked about Grounding with his brothers and I wonder about how many of those who wear their suits and fancy clothes and drive their fancy vehicles actually go and ground with those who they claim to represent.  Rodney though..thanked by the two Trinidadian scholars.. Prof Brinsley Samaroo and Dr Kusha Haracksingh   who came to deliver the Indian Immigration lectures in Guyana... and the young Kenyan who told me how the controversy over the Tambo awared was reported in the Kenyan press as Rodney is remembered. But is good that Sharma speaks what is not spoken. 
• Dr David Hinds repeated his calls for a return to Village movement. Given that it was Burnham who 'reformed' local government and created this NDC/RDC framework, I wondered how this would go. My parents also talk about the village council days.. as perhaps many from that generation.  Unfortunately, many persons alive now do not know what real local government looks like.

What was missing for me..

• I wish the group could have met Quincy McEwan and the other litigants in the cross dressing case.. black africans who are challenging the colonial legislation as part of emancipation.  That is what action looks like.. and when the beating children laws and the sodomy laws come up for discussion in parliament, I hope that the black africans who are there will understand that the emancipation from mental slavery continues.
• I wish Andaiye had talked about beating children more and also said that emancipation also meant some emancipation from the idea that beating children is good for the children.
• I wish that the Entreneurship panel had included some of the entrepreneurs who are in Guyana talking about their experiences. Is Hits and Jams an example of successful entrepreneurship (including offering loans to persons so they could attend the event?)
• A woman from the floor asked about the culture and the music (not made by 'straight haired people' she said..(she probably does not know that it is marketed by straight haired people) but there was no discussion about resisting the ongoing efforts to transform the culture of violence.  
• A man from the floor talked about being part of the Guyana Apostolic Mystical Council and being told they are working obeah. The conference missed discussion on how traditional faiths are now deemed 'evil' and 'demonic'  and that the ancestors were not 'saved' . One of the things which I recognise every time I sit down and sing from that Ramayana is that I am linking and paying tribute to hundreds of years of people struggling .  

 I am glad I went. I left before the ending and hearing the actions. I understand that there was a declaration about shared governance at the same time the PPP  was endorsing no such thing and hoping that some of their members would go and walk around house to house next elections (as opposed to driving in their nice vehicles and get mud on them?)  and get more votes to get the majority.

There was talk about  'disunity' among black africans.. I personally like disunity given the experience that Unity often translates into struggles for control and a silencing of dissent. 

However, the disunited were talking in a room. And many people left their houses on a Sunday to come and join that conversation.

I learnt from a retired nurse who was there.. that Caroline Vaughn, the woman who at death was discovered with undeveloped male genitals, was a good weaver of hammocks. Caroline, like Burnham and Rodney was also a black african. Her story has to be part of the history which is told.