We are, still, a young nation. We hasten towards our destiny and, like most youngsters, pay scant regard to the past. The past is another province. We want to engage with the present. We tend to leave it to a few scholars to research our past, perhaps mould it to suit the dominant dogmas or a particular agenda, and re-tell it. Recently, though, there have been signs that our priorities are shifting. We are, quite properly, still striving to shape our future, but we have come to realise the value of remembering and we are starting to pay more attention to those among us who seek to tell our story. There are many who try to do this. Some paint. Some sing. Some write fables. Some mount a soap box. Some tell stories about the ‘old days’.
Only a few are born raconteurs. This was the particular and peculiar gift of the late Godfrey Chin. Particular in that social histories (especially those written in the first person) are a relatively rare phenomenon in Guyanese writing. Peculiar because Chin’s prodigious memory and recall allowed him to furnish his vignettes with a level of detail that would require most social historians to take up permanent residence in our national archives.
Godfrey Chin’s Nostalgia series ran for many years in this newspaper and was popular with our readers. Reviews of his book, published in 2007, were largely positive and deservedly so. Ian McDonald, a fellow columnist of Godfrey Chin’s in these pages, called it “a classic of its kind – a recapturing of vivid memories, bringing the past astonishingly to life in a way which will…preserve forever… a whole era in a country’s life.” He praised the pieces as wide-ranging, entertaining and “valuable, priceless material for historians.“ Best of all, Chin had a “wonderful knack for joyous story-telling prose which is robust, carefree, optimistic, racy and memorably written in lovely easy sentences of great impact.“
There were, though, some purists who felt that Godfrey Chin’s writing was not sufficiently learned. He was not, sniffed one reviewer, “a literary man.“ His collection of reminiscences were “unedited and snippety.“ The same reviewer noted that while the collection included a moving tribute to Dr Walter Chin, there was not a word about Dr Walter Rodney. Chin’s writing, it was felt, lacked a political dimension. And yet, for many who have grown up in a country where even the death announcements have a political dimension, this was its saving grace. Chin provided a wealth of detail enlivened with anecdote and referred to familiar scenes, places and characters. For someone familiar with Georgetown in this era, his vignettes are the literary equivalent of a bowl of warm soup, comforting, nourishing and easy to digest.
A few years ago, in the course of reviewing a biography of A R F Webber, editor of the Daily Chronicle in the 1920s and 1930s, Prof Clem Seecharan remarked that biographies have been a relatively rare form of writing in the English speaking Caribbean until recently. The reason, he hypothesised, is that “people need a sense of collective achievement before they feel confident enough to write about their achievers.” Perhaps this helps to explain the bias in the literature in favour of analysing processes and changes and the somewhat myopic focus on political leaders (particularly Forbes Burnham and Cheddi Jagan). Much of what has been written about Guyana and Guyanese to date, has been written through a particular (ideological) lens or to promote a particular agenda. What is refreshing about Chin’s work is that, though he has certain views in this regard, they do not impinge on the bulk of what he writes: this is not, in his words, a “political dissertation“ but a chronicle of random events, places, people.
For a long time, historical writing tended to focus on politics, economics and famous men. Gradually, there came to be a sense that historians should also research and record the lives of ordinary people. This new strand of history was called social history and it is now a well-established field of research. Interestingly, a similar transformation is underway in the social sciences. Where once it was felt imperative to adhere to strictly scientific principles in observing, measuring, tabulating and analysing social phenomena, now there is a greater awareness of the prejudices and interests (the ‘backstory’) of those conducting the research and the ways these influence the text. The narrator, whether historian or social scientist, has always exercised, though not always acknowledged, power over the narrative. The narrative has always been, to some extent, a construct. For example, the boundaries between an ethnography and a memoir have always been blurred, difficult to define. The author always intrudes on the text. The tensions and compromises inherent in this intrusion are now under investigation. It is accepted that a narrator will always shape a narrative.
Much of the academic writing about Guyana, whether by Guyanese or others, has been suffused with its own internal logic or dogma. A random trawl through an academic bibliography throws up titles with words (like dispute, difference, underdevelopment, class conflict, racialism) or phrases (like ‘patterns of struggle and resistance’, ‘cycle of racial oppression’, the ‘impoverishment of Guyana’) that declare a perspective. No doubt, given the level of social and political upheaval we have experienced in the past few generations, the attendant volumes carry within them a solid body of evidence for the cases they seek to make. The problem is that these texts tend to put a great deal of emphasis on a particular argument and rather less emphasis on the evidence. In a country where much recent history, politics and even economics is contested, this immediately places the works in a particular camp and renders their insights partial (and of limited relevance) to most of the populace. We need to invert the balance, to focus on detail rather than dogma. We need more ‘raw material’, a greater insight into ordinary lives, coping strategies and a relentless documenting of the quotidian because the quotidian has changed beyond measure. In time, and as the material accrues, we will, as a nation, be able to marshal our arguments and analyses and to draw our conclusions.
Godfrey Chin chronicled many aspects of life in Georgetown from first-hand experience and for the benefit of those with a similar memory-pool and this, quite simply, was his genius. He had no particular agenda, he had an engaging style and his recollections were read and enjoyed by Guyanese of all ages, all political and social backgrounds and those resident here or elsewhere. His sketches conjure places and scenes that now appear as a mirage in the nation’s psyche; does anyone recall where the Assembly Rooms were situated in Georgetown ? Does anyone remember the air-conditioned Strand Cinema in its heyday, the feel of a gabardine suit or games of ‘gam’ and ‘cush’ as a child ? In a poignant echo, both McDonald’s review and the eulogy offered by Chin’s son at his funeral, referred to Godfrey’s canvas. McDonald wrote, “here we see the art of living in all its variety thrown onto Godfrey’s own special canvas.” Brian Chin, speaking of his father, said “Guyana, this country, that he oh so loved, was his canvas and you, his friends, were his audience.” We need, for the sake of the nation, to enhance and enlarge Godfrey’s canvas.
We have, in this country, pioneered and perfected a variety of unique ways of living and coping. We have made many personal (rather than structural) adjustments to a rapidly changing social, economic and political micro-climate. Remembering how we have lived is a way of reclaiming our history. Reclaiming our history is the key to coming to terms with ourselves, understanding where we are, how we got here and where the nation might go in the future. Let us all pay tribute to the ‘Memory Man’ and may his greatest legacy be that his work inspires others, many others, to follow suit.
