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Breaking a lance with Ivor Thom

Jan 16, 2013 Letters

 

Dear Editor,
I was intrigued to read Mr. Thom’s letter, in Kaieteur News of Friday 11th February, 2013, in which he focused on an earlier letter coming from the pen of Mr. Mark Archer. I would not try to come to Mr Archer’s help, for from his earlier letter, I am sure that he has the potential to deal with anything coming from this clearly misinformed and may I say devious individual.
My issue is with his attempt to smear a group within The Coalition of the 1823 Parade Ground Monument, in a very underhand way.
Mr Thom informs in his letter that “In 2007 a group approached me to design a monument to depict the story of slavery with the proposed site being a plot of land they acquired near the seawall. What I find intriguing is that some members of this very group who are in the forefront of the call for Parade Ground to be the site the 1823 monument, did not see it fit then to erect their intended monument at Parade Ground even though the emotional attachment and historical significance of Parade Ground was the same then as it is now.”
That statement is very misleading, and I would even say Mr Thom is not being honest when he says that the group engaged him to do a monument on the story of slavery. This, from all appearances, is an attempt by him on behalf of those he has been trying to cover for, to present groups in the African Collective as existing in a world of double standards.
My recollections of the engagements with Mr Thom is one in which he was fully aware that the proposed monument was to memorialise the African Holocaust, which some of us feel is continuing today.
The African Holocaust which was initiated when Columbus set sail in 1492 and stumbled on the Americas, in our view is linked to the Atlantic in many ways. It was the ocean over which our ancestors were exiled into slavery. It was where the rebellious sacrificed themselves and the sick were thrown overboard. The seas became the burial ground of a significant portion of those who walked through the Doors Of No Return.
It is that barrier across which most of all they could not see themselves reuniting with their families on its eastern shores. In view of the aforesaid, I would like to reiterate to Mr Thom that the Atlantic is indeed a very significant element in the African Holocaust. It is with that singular thought that a decision was made to erect a memorial at the Georgetown Sea Walls which is bounded on the North by the Atlantic.
Granted there was disengagement in the collaboration with Mr. Thom on that monument, I would take this opportunity to inform that it would be built. Based on recent happenings, I was beginning to have some doubts as to whether or not this renowned sculptor should be re-engaged.
Initially his recent posturing had me wondering, if his is case of the manifestations of the words of Martin Carter; – “a mouth is always muzzled by the food it eats….” However his letter says
that he is somewhat of a mercenary. Thus I for one when it is time to make a decision would be opposing his candidature to be the Sculptor of the monument to memorialise the African Holocaust.
I believe Mr. Thom when he said that he was the one who chose the site (definitely a usurpation of authority), thought in Friday’s letter that he meekly tries to indicate that his preference was Bachelor’s Adventure. The rationale for my conclusive position is I do not think that anyone else in the so called (non-existent) committee would have chosen that site, all and sundry in a rational and logical fashion would have focused on a site of relevance save Mr. Thom who was focused on a location of high visibility.
In his mind, the memorial to the Demerara Martyrs is also a monument to depict the story of slavery, so as ole people seh “six ah wan an haf ah dozen ah de adda ah same thing”. The location for the African Holocaust memorial is in the same general area as the one Mr Thom chooses to place his master piece. What’s new?
Elton McRae

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