Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
Aug 04, 2019 Countryman
By Dennis Nichols
The big day has come and gone – the one that our president aptly termed ‘the single most important day in Guyanese history’.
I cannot begin to fathom what it must have felt like for my enslaved great-great-grand whoever to hear on that day in 1838, the emancipation gospel of chains, whips, soul-destroying labour, and family-rending ploys soon becoming things of the past. But the past has a way of coming back to haunt those who forget, and we humans are prone to that very human trait. Commemorating it once every year, though fitting, isn’t enough.
Last week’s story suggested that ‘lighter measures of injustice’ are still being meted out to the descendants of African slaves in this country. One may find this unavoidably evident on the streets of our capital city. It’s not an uplifting sight.
On Thursday, I stayed home and chose to celebrate the emancipation holiday in reflection – with Miriam Makeba, one of Africa’s proudest and most ‘vocal’ daughters, and in her own inimitable style, a fighter for her country and continent’s liberation.
The internet may not seem the most suitable alternative to the National Park, but it had to suffice. Had I gone out, I would no doubt have seen folks in their kente prints, wraparounds, robes, head ties, dashikis, sandals; natural hairdos, and ethnic accessories.
I would have heard and felt the drum beat of Africa, sampled its transplanted cuisine, and experienced the palpable kinship no Middle Passage trauma could erase. Fine! I love those things. But then isn’t that simply token identification for many of us? A passing nod to a brief season of remembrance?
Furthermore, I guess I would have seen also the North American copycats – the bleachers and weavers, the brand name tops and skinny jeans, the slick fades and fake braids, all amidst the hype and hypocrisy surrounding 181 years of so-called freedom, but in which black skin is still a badge of shame for some.
Maybe I’m growing too cynical, but I chose to stay home and channel the spirit of Mama Africa via the internet, to listen to her songs and speeches, from the overtly political to the gently whimsical. It was a day well-spent, and I didn’t miss the streets of Georgetown.
Maybe I should have gone though, if only to not see (on a holiday) young black men at store fronts toting heavy loads under scorching skies, or sporting huge guns, commando-style, guarding the interests of foreign entrepreneurs on Regent Street and beyond. But still I would have seen around the Bourda Market Square, older men and women sprawled or slouched in various stages of physical or mental debility. It would’ve spoiled the emancipation vibe. So, I forced myself to stay at home.
August 1 is no ordinary day for us here in Guyana.(Additionally for me, on this day 29 years ago, I lost a sister, ‘emancipated’ as it were, from life, and an illness that had all but shattered her vivacity) For all of us, the day should serve as a reminder of what was, what is, and what can be if we learn history’s lessons, especially the one telling us that true freedom; real freedom, is rooted in a willingness to chart our own paths, for our own welfare as individuals, and as a nation. That’s why the day is a national holiday. But back to Miriam Makeba.
Born near Johannesburg, South Africa in 1932, Makeba grew into adulthood as apartheid was being institutionalized there. She overcame breast and cervical cancer before the age of 30, and by then had already established herself as a singer and actress. International fame took her to New York and London where she met the Jamaican-American entertainer and human rights activist, Harry Belafonte, who helped mentor her, and with whom she later recorded several duets.
Many of her performances gradually took on a political, anti-apartheid tone, and when in 1960 following the Sharpeville massacre in which two members of her family were killed, she tried to return home, it was discovered that her South African passport had been cancelled, and she was in exile. However, her fame grew, especially in the US, where by the mid-sixties two of her songs had gained great popularity. Incidentally, both of them, ‘Pata pata’ and ‘Oongqothwane’ (The Click song) were very popular here in Guyana in the late sixties.
So I listened to her songs and her speeches. They included a 1969 interview in Finland when, in response to a speculative question about the future of South African Whites post-apartheid, she said, “It’s something that we don’t worry about; all we are worried about is to fight and liberate ourselves. What will happen after that will depend on the invaders. They could have come to our country and lived side by side with us; we didn’t mind that. In fact, when they came, we said, ‘Come in, sit down’, and they sat down and said, ‘Get out!’, and now it will be up to them …”
I then imagined what the Arawak, Inca, and other New World natives must have originally thought of the Europeans, and wondered at the presumption of it all.
But it was the songs and performances I enjoyed most, including her collaboration with other musician-activists like Harry Belafonte, Hugh Masekela, and Nina Simone. The day being what it was, I was drawn to the more militant ones like ‘Piece of ground’ which reflects on the white man’s usurpation in ‘God’s own country’, the discovery of gold, the exploitation of black labour, and the black man’s demand for his own piece of land. Then it was ‘Soweto blues’ recalling the other notorious massacre following the Soweto Township student demonstration in which hundreds of protesters were reportedly shot and killed by police, including dozens of schoolchildren.
But it wasn’t all morbid as I waxed nostalgic with ‘Pata pata’, ‘The Click song’, and ‘Malaika’, the light-hearted romance of ‘Meet me at the river’, the haunting ‘Suliram’,the bluesy gospel touch a la Mahalia Jackson in ‘When I’ve passed on’, and a dozen others. Then it was ‘A Luta continua’ as she touched on Samora Machel and FRELIMO; Nelson and Winnie Mandela, the ANC, and more.
I closed off the session with a repeat of ‘Piece of Ground’. And I thought about what our foreparents did in pooling their resources to establish the village movement in Guyana. I thought of Victoria and Lichfield; Queenstown and Dartmouth, and how some of the youths in those villages appear to be mocking both their ancestors’ incessant toil and subsequent freedom from it.
I remember thinking how easy it had been for me to identify coastal African villages by the relatively dilapidated condition of their buildings and infrastructure. And I thought again of those black men (and women) on our city streets, toiling for pittance, while others waited on food box handouts, clinging to survival.
Another Emancipation Day is less than 12 months away. Next year promises to be an unforgettable one, as oil and politics either clash or cohere. And when August 1 rolls round in 2020, we may find that emancipation is an even bigger myth than some of us thought, or that it is finally and irrevocably manifesting its true meaning – for all Guyanese.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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