The Culture Minister should get his house in order before he seeks to comment on who has nothing to offer to literary development

Dear Editor,

I am happy to see that, justifiably following the Minister of Culture’s red herring lamentations on funding and the Caribbean Press, the parliamentary opposition has decided to focus greater scrutiny on Dr Frank Anthony’s stewardship of public expenditure under his control, the Press in particular.

Now I want to take the chance to focus on another aspect of the Minister’s recent press conference, the point where he states, “And some of the local people who have been criticising have nothing to contribute to the development of the literary art forms or the publications.”

As one of the people who has been criticizing his mismanagement of the Press, I can personally attest to the fact that neither the Minister nor his government, has absolutely any interest in working with willing stakeholders towards the development of the literary arts in Guyana.

The Minister might want to explain, for example, what happened to the Carifesta X (2008) Anthology of Poetry for which work was solicited in the lead-up to Guyana’s hosting of the event under his watch. He might also want to explain why there were no writers on the literary arts contingent for the Inter-Guianas Cultural Festival held in French Guiana last year. As for the Carifesta contingent, I was the only representative Guyanese writer there and I went on my own – it was only after I reminded organisers of an initial engagement for representation that I was, after arrival in Suriname, given a badge and space was provided for me to set up my books.  Interestingly enough, I was (having registered independently) the only Guyanese presenter at the Book Business workshops, the precise sort of session where one would expect that a representative of the Caribbean Press would have been happy to showcase Guyana’s supposed successes.

Unable to adequately defend his failure to stick to his promises to establish an editorial board for the Press, the Minister snidely asserts that local critics “have nothing to contribute to the development of the literary art forms or the publications.”

As the most vocal of said critics, I feel obliged to rebut this characteristic petulance and attempt at misdirection.  Firstly, I can remind the Minister that when he put out an extremely limited solicitation for submissions for a “national anthology of poetry” to be published by the Caribbean Press three years ago, I was the one who insisted as a prerequisite for my contribution that a national call for submissions be widely publicized and those selected be given workshop training, which I volunteered in meetings to undertake in order to ensure that what was published by the Press represented the best quality of what the country had to offer.  When the Ministry reneged on a promise to provide venues for further meetings to discuss the way forward, I arranged the venue at which the final meeting was held, subsequent to which the Ministry disengaged completely.

When the Guyana Prize held workshops early last year in a lead-up to the most recent awards, I voluntarily conducted the workshops on poetry and short fiction, and that is after the Minister tried to silence my criticism on the Caribbean Press by threatening to sue me for libel via a lawyer’s letter.  The participants in those sessions have asked for follow-up workshops, and I have long indicated my willingness to collaborate with the University of Guyana to voluntarily conduct these, but so far I have received no indication that there is any interest on the part of the university or the Guyana Prize Committee itself to move forward. I have since held several free private sessions with emerging writers, as well as a poetry workshop funded by a private entity.

While the University of Guyana has shown no indication of engaging either myself or any of the other Guyana Prize winners in post-Prize activities, I am currently in Germany where I three weeks ago conducted a workshop/discussion on “Locating Guyanese Literature” at the University of Heidelberg, during which I spoke about the emerging talent that exists in Guyana although hidden from the rest of the world or even the region due to the poor literary development infrastructure.  I have a reading/presentation at the university on the 17th where I will both speak on the work of Martin Carter and about the emerging literary talent that is available in Guyana.  I will do the same at a poetry festival in Amsterdam on the 30th. Subsequent to my presentation in Suriname during Carifesta, I was approached by a European arts group to co-curate their literary festival in Amsterdam later this year, and out of my six emerging talent recommendations from the Caribbean, two are resident Guyanese.

I’ve repeatedly volunteered my engagement with the Caribbean Press, both in terms of helping to develop a sustainable operational framework as well as actively participating in the development of emerging talent to be published by the Press, to no avail.

It is therefore not that critics of the Minister’s mismanagement have nothing to offer – it is that the Minister in particular and the government in general have consistently found ways of evading actual progress on a literary development environment while funnelling millions of dollars into mechanisms that have a great deal of fanfare and nothing of substance in this regard.  Consider, for example, their refusal to move forward on as basic an issue as adequate copyright legislation, and the state sanctioned and sponsored textbook piracy fiasco of 2012.

Then there is the issue of the complete lack of respect shown to people who still insist on engaging in literary activity despite the negative environment established by the government.  I publicly queried months ago the absence of official Guyana Prize certificates for the winners of the last awards (boycotted by the entire cabinet including Dr Anthony), and neither the Guyana Prize Committee nor the government had the decency to respond privately or publicly.

A month ago, the Minister of Culture was featured smiling for the cameras handing out trophies at the award ceremonies for the National Drama Festival; however, to date many of the persons involved, from playwrights to actors to service providers have not been paid, reminiscent of a similar situation after Carifesta in 2008, the difference being that the festival is privately sponsored by Digicel.  The only reason that this situation hasn’t erupted is due to the environment of fear that the PPP has infused this society with, so that while anger at the nonpayment has flared on social media, those affected are hesitant to publicise as basic a thing as their right to remuneration from the ministry.

While the Minister is hopefully cooperating with a parliamentary probe into the operations of the Caribbean Press, he might also use the opportunity to get the rest of his house in order before he seeks to comment on who has nothing to offer to literary development in Guyana.

 Yours faithfully,

Ruel Johnson