"Dirty" people standing up for human rights in Guyana..

Shame
I felt ashamed and powerless when I came home from the human rights event on the night of the 70th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Ashamed and powerless because I could not do anything for the child with the visual impairment who had been excluded the public school in her area.

The child had sat through the human rights film festival. The event though,  was not designed for the the child to share her story or for her to get resolution.

Human Rights Film Festival

The University of Guyana organised a Human Rights Film Festival to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The films were  -

E-Wasteland by David Fedele

and

Machine Man by Roser Corella and  Alfonso Moral.



The Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Planning and International Engagement , Dr Barbara Reynolds,  invited me to be a part of a discussion panel after the films. The other persons on the panel were Ms Diana Swan-Lawrence, Ms Annette Arjoon and Mr Nigel Hughes.

The film E-wasteland is about the people who are stripping electronic waste in Agbogbloshie, Ghana to get to recyclable materials. Machine Man  shows Bangladeshi workers who are doing low waged, intense 'dirty' labour, including sorting trash to get recycling.



"Dirty people.."

"We are dirty people" one woman said, as people talked about the problems of litter, trash and garbage in Guyana and elsewhere. Another woman shared an anecdote about someone who refused to clean her mess in a public place "that is the cleaner's jobs". I had heard a similar story from a man who worked at the National Park.
Apparently, many Guyanese believe that they can litter so as to give work to the 'cleaners'.

The teachers who refuse to teach children with special needs or to access the resources probably feel that it is not their job either.  In August 2016, Karen Hall and Marcia Nichole Smith told me of the treatment of children with disabilities in Guyana's education system.

NCERD in the Ministry of Education  provides technical support for teachers. The officer at NCERD told me to ask the child's parent to get in touch.  The mother knows that love and respect cannot be legislated or mandated in the teachers and students who harassed her child.


nd it seems from the 2016 interview, the teachers who want to provide the safe and nuturing environment the resources are given a hard time to get those resources.

"We are 'dirty people" is not only about littering.

#Stand4HumanRights
Ms Anette Arjoon said that in addition to banning styrofoam, we have to do something about the PET which also are damaging the environment.   Plastic bottles everywhere, and more of it to come.

When Oil money comes to Guyana, more plastic bottles will probably be used and discarded.

There were plastic bottles of water on the table for us. There was a time when water would have been served in covered glass pitchers.. one pitcher for everyone.

I had asked one of the Government workers in Environment that maybe the public service should say that no plastic bottled water at their workshops and seminars and so, use glass pitchers of water. And use glasses and cups which could be washed.


I have been trying to refuse plastic bags in the market "nah worry wid de bag" as I get all fruits and vegetables mixed up in the salt bags I fetch around. A few other people have started doing this too. There are some conversations which happen. The conversations are okay, nice.

It is not so easy though, when dealing with human rights. 

Two men at the film festival told me that they the United Nations laws are not Biblical, so their laws can't work. Human rights it seems was not for them.

Beating children
For many parents and teachers, children have no right to a life free from violence.


Teachers beat children in Guyana's schools. This Government like the previous one has not changed the law.  I pass a private school and see and hear when a teacher thumps a boy in the back. I hear the thump. I want to go and shout at her from the road. But an untidily dressed man on the road shouting at a woman teacher in the school is not a good thing.

The school is affiliated with an organisation which won a human rights award. I send an email to the leaders of the organisation about the incident. They assure me that the school has a no beating and no hitting policy, and they will investigate.  I am sure the teacher will say that it was not a 'hard' knock.



Juking (stabbing) women
The barber is skillful. He understands that I am not too fussy about my hairstyle, so he shapes my hair for me.
His talk though is of taking his sword and juking women and making children all over the place. I want to get up and say 'I want to juk you now".
 I ask him - what if you get juk back? I dread going to the barber shop as I am not always ready to deal with this madness. He says nah nah. It is casual, this trash talk about women.
A man asks about the recent case in Guyana of a woman and man who are dead from stab wounds. The barber leaves my head and goes to pick up the newspaper. He comes back quieter.

In Jamaica, a soldier stabbed and killed his wife. But there is music about juking women and so on, it plays loudly in the minibus.

In the minibus, a conversation starts up between a Spanish speaking passenger and the conductor. Loud conversation for everyone to hear. The conductor is asking for Spanish words to harass Spanish women.

The passenger tells him the words - Te amo bebe, Te queiro.
It gets more sickening,  tell her you want her bamzie the Spanish speaker tells the conductor 'to tell her  you want to push it in there'..  Rape talk. Rape culture. Conductor and driver and so laughing.
My head hurting and I think let me get out of this bus soon. We are nearing Church Road.

I shout at the conductor if that is how he talks to his mother and sister, and if as a Guyanese he can't talk properly to women.  We are dirty people apparently.

 The passenger goes.. but what if dey like it.. and I say.. but maybe is you like it..


The conductor tells me, 'is nah hey you coming off'? 

My head  does not stop  hurting.  Normal male behaviour, heterosexual behaviour. No aberration or distortion here.

I feel the same way as I felt the night at the film festival when I heard the experience of the visually child's experience with the public school. Anger is not always a good thing
 
The absence of anger
The people in the films did not display any anger. There were some people singing and laughing - "triumph of the human spirit' as the moderator noted.
I talked about  this absence of anger to the audience. A woman suggested that people probably accepted or were resigned to their situation because they did not know their rights, and that education was needed.

On 13 November, 2018, transgender Guyanese Gulliver (Quincy) McEwan, Isabella (Seyon) Persaud, Angel (Seon) Clarke and Pheches (Joseph) Fraser won their fight to challenge the constitutionality of the cross-dressing laws.   



It took eight years to get to this judgement. 

 Isabella talked about being treated like trash by the public.



A nice upstanding Christian woman referred to transgenderism as an "aberration" in a letter to the editor . Coded language to treat the nice clean people to treat the  aberrant as trash.  The language which is used to reject children with disabilities in schools.

Gabrielle Hosein of Trinidad & Tobago wrote in a reflection on the ruling on the cross-dressing case "..Justice, however, isn’t only won in the courts. It’s also won in our nod to each other’s humanity in the streets.."


Standing for human rights on Main Street

Gulliver McEwan and other members of Guyana Trans United took to Main Street, Georgetown on 10 December, 2018.   They had placards about human rights. They had 'won' their case, gotten their justice.

The people who the public wanted to treat like 'trash' , who some Christians want to love as  'aberrants' reached out to passersby on the avenue. The nod to each other's humanity. Shaking hands, hugging, and talking with people. 
 .
There were no hashtags of word clouds or banners. The pictures where shared privately on social media.

In one picture, Gulliver is not wearing gloves as she shakes the hands of a homeless man who appears to have mental health problems. Nice people offer charity to the homeless and mentally ill who are on the streets, but they wear gloves and masks sometimes when they are giving this charity to avoid getting dirty.


This nod to each other's humanity , the Namaste which means I bow to the divine in you, which is not about wanting to hit or rape or harass or to discriminate against any person regardless of their ability,  race, ethnicity, gender identity, gender expression, religious belief or any other aspect of their humanity which causes no harm.

Thank you to the 'dirty people' who go outside the 'normal'.