Khawuleza after five people killed in shoot out

The man said that the radio coverage was piss poor. The only person good was the one in the radio room. The other two he said did not know anything.  He had been listening to live coverage of the gun battle between a city businessman and others.
The fear was in their voices he said and as far as he was concerned the radio people were supposed to keep the fear to themselves and just recount what was happening.


We were at Moray House Trust for a Celebration of the Life of Jessica Huntley.

I had been asked to read. Like a few others in the audience, we did not really know about Jessica Huntley until she was dead.We were here though because the people who knew her asked us to join in the tributes.

Her obituary in the UK Guardian describes her as an activist and publisher who co-founded Bogle L'Ouverture Publications BLP.  She was a founding member of the WPO and of the PPP.



In my middle age, I have stopped mourning and grieving for the dead. I tend to believe we should interconnect and celebrate lives when people are living.  But I was intrigued though as to how others remembered the time.


The first tribute was from a man who does not live in Guyana and full of memory of Buxton and the glory days before the man left Guyana.

Mrs Indra Chandrapal spoke interestingly of  Ms Huntley's birth and her childhood and the formation of the Women's Progressive Organisation. Mrs Chandrapal's commentary itself reminded me of the old time PPP people I knew, not the cussbirds, who were articulate about idealogy and who could link their idealogy (even if controversial ) to international progressive movements. 

The Michael Forde Bookshop no longer exists at Freedom House on Robb Street. Jessica Huntley and her family though also had a bookshop.



BLP's first book was Groundings with My Brothers by Walter Rodney.

A lot of Guyanese also do not really know or care about Walter Rodney. A woman told me of her surprise when she heard from a Tanzanian student colleague that Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa was required reading in his college.

We don't really have the Rodney books available here in the Library or so for people to borrow or read.  Like Jessica Huntley , Walter Rodney is one of those Guyanese whose names would be remembered outside of Guyana.

The excerpts I could not say no to reading were about Black Power. I remembered reading one time Audre Lorde 'I am a black lesbian..' and that kind of irony stuck with me thinking that what the rass does Black Power have to do with me..but Rodney.. talking like how none of our current leaders talk..

"I shall anticipate certain questions on who are the blacks in the West Indies
since they are in fact questions which have been posed to me elsewhere.
I maintain that it is the white world which has defined who are blacks
– if you are not white then you are black. However it is obvious that the
West Indian situation is complicated by factors such as the variety of racial
types and racial mixtures and by the process of class formation. We have,
therefore, to note not simply what the white worlds says but also how
individuals perceive each other. Nevertheless, we can talk of the mass of
the West Indian populations as being black – either African or Indian. There
seems to have been some doubts on the last point, and some fear that
Black Power is aimed against the Indian. This would be a flagrant denial
of both the historical experience of the West Indies and the reality of the
contemporary scene.

When the Indian was brought to the West Indies, he met the same racial
contempt which whites applied to Africans. The Indian, too, was reduced
to a single stereotype – the coolie or labourer. He too was a hewer of wood
and a bringer of water. The revolt in the West Indies in 1938 involved
Africans in Jamaica, Africans and Indians in Trinidad and Guyana. The
uprisings in Guyana were actually led by Indian sugar workers. Today,
some Indians (like some Africans) have joined the white power structure
in terms of economic activity and culture; but the underlying reality is that
poverty resides among Africans and Indians in the West Indies and that
power is denied them.

Black Power in the West Indies, therefore, refers primarily to people
who are recognizably African or Indian.

Black Power is not racially intolerant. It is the hope of the black man that
he should have power over his own destinies. This is not incompatible with
a multi-racial society where each individual counts equally. Because the
moment that power is equitably distributed among several ethnic groups
then the very relevance of making the distinction between groups will be
lost.

No wonder they killed him and ensured/ensure his books could not be read in Guyana.

The other tributes spoke to different parts. Some were read from people who were not in Guyana. There was a kind of strangeness of looking in on other people's grief or memory. Ras Michael talked about publishing his poetry and how Walter Rodney took the papers to the UK to have them read. Deo Persaud talked about being in her garden.

We learned that Miriam Makeba stayed with Jessica Huntley and her husband. There was a beautiful song tribute from Ms Whaul - Khawuleza.

A poem was read from Eusi Kwayana, also not in Guyana. 

There was drumming . The drummers are from Buxton. The leader's mother had celebrated Diwali. 

So the celebration concluded and we ate phulourie and talked about the shooting and Guyana. Middle Street had been closed off so more persons probably did not want to come out.

So this was a celebration of another person born in Guyana and who left.

 While the event was a celebration of the life of Ms Huntley, I felt it was also a requiem for all that Guyana could have been if all those people were able to stay.