Dear Editor,
June 5th was a day of perfect spring weather in New York, a day to go out in shirtsleeves. It was also the day when the Jubilee Independence Committee (50 award-winning members) brought the Jubilee Symposia Series to York College located in the heart of a Guyanese village ‒ in Queens, New York.
It was one of the largest assemblies of Guyanese ever gathered for a one-day symposium in the New York area, probably numbering 250. It was also probably the largest gathering of Guyanese academics from various universities around the United States. Another characteristic was that African-Guyanese accounted for at least 80 per cent of the participants, Indians only 16%, others 4%. This statistical breakdown speaks to a larger problem in the Guyanese nation: it is fractured by race, and all aspects of national life are affected by it. President Granger may be more than a little cognizant of this fact, hence the reason for the Ministry of Social Cohesion.
The symposium comprised five workshops with loaded titles: (1) Who Are We? (Who is a Guyanese? What is a Guyanese identity?); (2) What has been our journey these past 50-years? (3) What can we become in the next 50 years – economic? (4) What can we become in the next 50 years – social, cultural, art? (5) How can we get there?
Some of the distinguished academics who addressed these workshops were Kimani Nehusi (Temple U), Nicole Burrowes (Brown U), Joy Carew (Kentucky U), Aliyah Khan (U of Michigan), Godfrey Brandt (Okeye U), Lear Matthews (SUNY), Regina Bernard-Carreno (CUNY), Lorraine Emeghebo (Molloy College), Leyland Lucas (Morgan State). There were some thirty others who hold doctorates listed on the agenda handouts.
Mr Sase Singh (columnist for a Guyanese newspaper) gave a 10-minute presentation on transforming the sugar industry. He identified five challenges facing GuySuCo (manpower – manual labour instead of mechanized; marketing ‒ exporting raw v value-added packaged sugar); poor quality cane due to bad husbandry; factory efficiency and financial leadership. Mr Singh said: “Any turnaround plan has to focus on improving productivity and securing better value for money by using out-of-the-box ideas driven by turnaround professionals”. Mr Singh clearly believes sugar estates should not be closed or sugar phased out at this time. He called on GuySuCo to stop “exporting the wrong product [raw sugar]”, and start exporting packaged sugar. His presentation was aided with a power-point package and hand-outs. He seemed to have roused the packed room. One lady said the previous presenter had put her to sleep and she was suddenly brought alive by Sase’s ringing voice in the classroom; another asked, why isn’t he on the GuySuCo board?
There were two sessions, so several of the workshops were held simultaneously. I was able to attend two sessions. One was chaired by colourful Plaisance-born Guyanese radio broadcaster, Hugh Hamilton (‘Me ask me momma . . .’), at which Damion Trent spoke on ‘Guyana: A farce of Independence’. He gave an excellent analysis of Guyana’s turbulent struggle leading up to Independence and why it was handed over to Burnham as head of government and not Jagan – “because America wanted PNC-UF in power”. He did an excellent job in a 12-minute time slot. Why did he think our Independence was a farce? Was it because it was negotiated and had to be given, and was not won in a revolutionary war? I did not get a clear explanation. The Q and A segment was cancelled due to time constraints.
Dr Aliyah Khan who looked too young to hold a doctorate gave a presentation titled ‘Sugar Estate and Exile’. She traced the roots of colonization (slavery) and Indian indentureship and referenced several themes of alienation – women’s liberation, Indian wife murder, unrequited love ‒ as reasons for Guyana’s high suicide rate. She cited Gaiutra Bahadur’s Coolie Woman; one of the themes of this book was that “women of loose morals” were recruited for the kalapani passage alright, but that gave them the opportunity for empowerment and liberation. She began her presentation by citing the blockbuster story of Maharani who was raped and died as a result of complications on the Allimshah vessel transporting indentured recruits to British Guiana in 1885. Despite several trials no one was found guilty. Aliyah traced this troubled history of alienation and seemed to suggest that’s why “so many young people drink malathion in Guyana and weed-killer gramoxone in Trinidad” to put an end to their confused lives. It is amazing how much detail she was able to pack into her 12-minute presentation.
One presenter, Dr Lorraine Emeghebo wants to partner with the government to enhance nursing education. She told her workshop participants, “Some groups helicopter in, conduct nurse training for a few days, then helicopter out with no follow-ups”. She emphasized continual training. She told a story of 255 nurse trainees registering for one programme, but only 19 had the stamina to stay on long enough to graduate. She has a fully-planned programme. This lady definitely has something to offer Guyana.
One of the presentations that I missed and that got rave reviews was by Dr Terrence Blackman: How can we use science and technology to develop our economy? His paper should be made available for publication.
I have a few comments:
It was a celebration of sorts – it certainly felt like a special event – in spite of the fact that Indians did not attend this event in their proportional numbers (Indians are 43 per cent of the population but less than 20 per cent showed up). I am told the Indian participation was worse inside Guyana. At the flag-raising event, you would think Indians did not exist in Guyana. The Ministry of Social Cohesion has its work cut out. They are duty bound to explore the reasons for national alienation and to institute some social engineering to address this problem.
The themes of the five workshops seemed to lack coherence and purpose. It looked more to me like a talk shop, and there will be no profit from it. Guyana lacks economic development. It’s a shame that we are such a resource-rich country but our per capita income is standing still at US$3,400. So several of the workshops should be on how science and technology can be harnessed to provide skills to develop the country.
We need a policy at the national university to produce more science and technology graduates. Singapore with no natural resources announced to the entrepreneurs and investors of the world in 1965, ‘Come, come, set-up manufacturing plants here, we will provide the best-trained engineering graduates, make your product and export to the world’. Soon Singapore was exporting high-tech goods: computer chips, hard drives and mother boards by the millions. Thirty years later, the country became known as one of the four tigers; super developed, the per capita income today is $56,000.
We need to conduct workshops to teach Guyanese how to cooperate to raise finance capital. I firmly believe 50,000 Guyanese abroad would gladly invest $10,000 each to purchase ten 20-year bonds, each guaranteeing 6% annual interest, raising a total of $500 million to build a hydropower plant. And, they would be doing it not because of love of country but because it is a sound investment opportunity. Currently, and for the last 10-years, savings in US banks have been earning less than 3 per cent annual interest. We need to recruit good investment banking specialists, economic planners and management professionals.
The concept of raising finance capital from three or four merchants to build the Berbice Bridge was not in itself a bad one, but the government should know there are alternatives. Also the financial architecture (mix of financial instruments) and amortization scheme in the BB was designed to make a select few rich investors fabulously rich. Also investors in bonds and stocks can sell their investments in the trading market any time they want without losing their original capital. These concepts and ideas should be the subject of workshops.
My Jubilee symposium day ended at an Atlantic diner with 15 old-time pals. It was a wrap session that went on for almost 3 hours, and it covered the entire spectrum of 50 years of Independence – what went wrong, hardly anything was right, obsessions with crazy ideologies, the flaws of the various actors that screwed up the modern history of this country. As always Guyanese love to argue, slamming the tables with the palm of their hands and raising their voices with every additional drink they imbibe. I suddenly realize there was no alcohol; only cappuchino and espresso and light sandwiches and munchy stuff. But there was a lot of intellectual passion and energy. If only all this energy could be channelled to help develop Guyanese industry and make the nation developed and rich.
Yours faithfully,
Mike Persaud
