Guyana Observer News

Independent Party feels that Jagdeo wants to destroy all Afro-Guyanese

Saturday, 31 July 2010

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My fellow Guyanese, 177 years ago the abolition of slavery legislation was signed, which decreed that it was unlawful for others to own, buy and sell our ancestors like articles of common property. After centuries of an enduring holocaust of African peoples, the signing of this act was akin to some light at the end of a tunnel of suffering that had no parallel in the history of human kind. As we look back with grief and sorrow at the tribulation our ancestors had to endure throughout the centuries of their captivity, we need to find space in our hearts for pride in recognition of the dignity and courage with which they comported themselves, confronted their situation. A dignity and courage that they handed down to us, but which, sadly, seem to be rapidly dissipating as we face our own tribulation in an era in Guyana rank with racial hostility, hatred, and revenge driven discriminatory policies and attitudes.

Emancipation my friends, is not an occasion for Africans to be rejoicing as if somehow a great favor was bestowed upon us. Emancipation my friends is an occasion for us, as Africans, to be reflecting on the human imposed conditions that threaten to reverse the gains we had made over the past 177 years. 177 years ago we had no control over our communities, no power to tell our story, and we could be punished and brutalized by the oppressor establishmentarian control system. Today in Guyana we have little control over our communities, are being marginalized from telling our story by covetous monopoly of communication tools that we pay for, and our sons and daughters are being brutalized by an oppressive and corrupt system of governance, in a land built and developed by the blood, sweat and tears of our ancestors. The fact that this is happening in the year 2010 render us, on a comparative level, as captive as were our ancestors 177 plus years ago.
My fellow Guyanese, as we commemorate the occasion when the veil of ignorance was lifted from the eyes of our captors, I ask you, must we walk this journey all over again? I’m afraid that the answer is yes we must! We must walk this journey all over again and do whatever is legally necessary to force the veil of ignorance from the eyes of those who perceive themselves to be the replacement slave masters. We must find the courage and determination exhibited by our ancestors, who spent their present struggling for our future, to do the same for our children. Because if they cared so much for us that they faced down the most awful powers in existence at the time, how can we do less for the generations we are bringing forth into this world in general, and in Guyana in particular.
In the 177th year since the act outlawing slavery was signed, Africans in Guyana are witnessing what amounts to environmental genocide in the human nestings where they are mostly congregated. Africans are witnessing the hateful expression from the slave master wannbe placed in an administrative power position over them, that he wished a health plague upon their living environment. Africans have witnessed vigilante gangs plundering through their communities, kidnapping, torturing and lynching their young men with no response from the establishmentarian system of governance in place. Africans are witnessing a double standard of justice, where drug barons walk free from prosecution, while the exalted leader exhort a Pavlovian conditioned Law Enforcement agency to go after small time street and bottom house peddlers, and recreational users of marijuana. Africans are experiencing what happens when people who are culturally and primitively intolerant are given the power to make decisions on the social and economic well being of others they consider ethnically distant. And this experience is no different for Africans, than it was for their brothers and sisters in apartheid South Africa, and Jim Crow Southern USA, during their trying and aversive ordeals.
The African villages on the East Coast, the People of Linden, the people of Ithaca and other environs that are majority black,are experiencing the worse kind of marginalization and discrimination imaginable. While the regime spends hundreds of millions on ethnic cultural and religious festivals and observances with which they are associated, they doled out a palfrey US$250 and some Cassava sticks to the first Cooperative Village in Guyana. The anti African racist animus in our nation has become so utterly vicious, so dastardly mischievous, that as we observe the occasion of Emancipation, the Statute of our ancestral hero has been defaced in a manner that left no doubt about the message encouched in the defacement. How much more of this will we endure? What manner of leaders do we have that this kind of “eye pass” continues to be so pervasive?
My fellow Africans I take this opportunity to wish God’s grace on our people as we observe the anniversary of the abolishment of slavery. The removal of the shackles and chains from the legs and necks of our ancestors might have spelled an end to the physical restraint of their freedom, but it by no means signified an end to the quest to enslave and control our minds. To paraphrase Bantu Stephen Biko, a martyr in the struggles of indigenous South Africans against the ignoble and morally reprehensible apartheid system, “…It has become absolutely necessary for Africans to see the truth as it is, and realize that the only vehicle for change lies within us and within our personalities. The first step therefore is for us to come to our senses, to pump courage and determination back into the shells that host our souls. We need to be infused with the pride and dignity of our ancestors, and to refuse to be complicit in the crime of self oppression, in the crime of being abused, in the sinful and abhorrent tolerance of allowing evil to reign supreme in the land of our birth”. Happy Emancipation Day. Amanda

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