Dear Editor,
The hype of festivals raises expectations as well as a virile optimism, especially in the young, who are promised that a practical and collaborative approach will follow the speeches and the spectacles. From Carifesta to the Inter-Guiana Cultural Festival to the Amerindian craft makers there lies a common problem, an official disconnect from the responsibility to embrace the holistic development of cultural industries. From the revelations of Thursday’s Stabroek News there is now more clarity about official indifference and deception in Guyana, as these relate to the rights and progress of our creative citizens.
From the presentations made on August 25 at the Umana Yana on Artistic Industries in the Guianas it would seem according to the Surinamese writer Ismene Krishnadah that only Suriname has made official progress in the relationship of broad-based inter-media collaboration towards a national position on Cultural Industries. French Guiana is still a colony and writer Andre Paradis painted the scene of a grim landscape in relation to publishing in French Guiana at this time, and possibly in the near future. We in Guyana across the Arts have been at a loss as to how to access the state funds budgeted over the last nineteen years and said to be for the development of the Arts.
But clarity has presented itself in the admission by Dr Roger Luncheon on September 12, 2012 that the PPP’s Cabinet has endorsed the piracy of textbooks applying the most romantic but repugnant logic to justify the illegal collaboration between the state and printing operations devoted to piracy. Thus it is clear that the Government of Guyana is culpable, and by this admission has endorsed the illegality against IPRS. Creative people should collect the September 13 edition of the Stabroek News; this admission and the logic that attempts to justify the disdain for the legal protection of our gifts and skills are all significant.
I must conclude my comments on the August 25 symposium. I proceeded in my presentation to discuss my experiences in administrating a creative industry using material that is home grown, and I warned that government should not be the initiators of policies on Arts-related enterprises. (I made a distinction between the ‘suspect’ frequent promotion of foreign artistes in Guyana, so as not to confuse this hustle with cultural industries.) Then I proceeded to tell the story of the ‘The Creative Arts Association’ back in 1992. (These facts were previously related in issue #12 of the Guyana Review, May 2008.). This group consisted of some of the top resident artists in Guyana at the time: Angold Thomson, Kenton Wyatt, Peter ‘Ita’ Chester, Merlene Ellis, the late Omawale ‘Yank’ Moonasar, the late Mervin Wilson and others. I had approached Prof Denis Williams who was still the Director of Art on behalf of the group to have the Castellanni House, then vacant, as an art centre, explaining the grand ideas we had. He agreed with the obvious arrangement that the then Department of Culture would have oversight and direct authority. We planned an exhibition to launch it; we aimed for November, as in September/October I was involved in the scripting for a stage production of the graphic magazine I had self published, The Shadow of the Jaguar. The play was produced by Archie Poole, and featured Norman Beaton.
The PPP came into power while the play was to be staged; we proceeded as planned. As we approached exhibition time Omawale (Yank) insisted that we invite Mrs Janet Jagan. I said no on the grounds that we had not invited Desmond Hoyte and that I had spoken to senior artists who knew her and declared that she saw art through political eyes. She had also mentioned that Norman Beaton had returned to Guyana because of the ‘Return of Democracy’ − the political slogan of the day. I knew this not to be true. I had also met Cheddi Jagan for the first time during the El Dorado competition sponsored by the National Bank for Industry and Commerce a few years prior to 92. Not realizing who he was, I asked him what he thought of the exhibition; he responded by dismissing it as “fantasy and not socialist art.” I reminded him that neither were the Sphinx nor the temples of Angkor socialist art. He brushed the response aside and we parted. I did not tell this entire story at the symposium, but it did irk Ms Bissember, the other speaker at the symposium, and she had her say. I have been asked to state this matter for the public record, which I will now conclude.
I eventually gave in to Yank and Mrs Jagan came to the exhibition. What followed very swiftly was that Castellani House became the home of the National Collection and as we had envisaged, a centre for the arts. The Creative Arts Association was not notified or invited to participate. On the tenth anniversary of Castellani House we were omitted from its history. I approached Ms Bissember on this anomaly; she said she didn’t know. 2011 was announced by the UN as the year of the African. Though the PPP government did not acknowledge this UN declaration in its budgetary allocations, many of us proceeded to celebrate ourselves within the parameters of self dignity. Brigadier (rtd) David Granger has been the foremost magazine publisher of Afro-Guyanese and Guyanese history. I have illustrated most of his work over an eighteen-year period; it is the largest collection of artwork pertaining to the history of Afro-Guyanese, so I proceeded to have the Castellani House display this exhibition. This process started in early June 2011; excuses followed excuses, and finally, in September 2011 I called Ms Bissember and she blurted out on the phone, “You people want to just come and get an exhibition.” Her response spoke volumes and we recognized that there would be no exhibition.
To conclude this I must say that the years (1993-2011) when I have participated as a judge of competitions, a source person and a loyal presence at Castellani House valuing the arts, I have also recognized the disdain for the arts held by the PPP in that they neutralized the expansion of Castellani House by inserting a centre for spying on members of the political opposition and government critics in the compound where the National Art Collection is held.
Dr Luncheon has clarified beyond the shores of this country this government’s policy of IPR theft and its inability to understand, much less comply with international agreements it signs. Locally the government has confirmed the marginalizing of creative citizens, and it is no wonder a document I submitted on creative industries to the offices of Dr Frank Anthony and Dr Ashni Singh prior to the sitting of the Tenth Parliament merited not even an acknowledgement of having been received. They knew that they had long decided to disenfranchise the creative community of this nation, and all that was said from Carifesta to now was untrue. I was naïve, for at the recent art exhibition at the American Ambassador’s residence, I was standing with Paloma Mohamed and two other artists when the Prime Minister came up to our group. I asked him about copyright and funding for cultural industries, and he responded that you had to look at the amount of constituencies living from pirated goods. Something else followed, but I could only hear my own voice in controlled anger; Paloma grabbed my hand and I walked away.
At the symposium of Artistic Enterprises my colleague Al Creighton stood up in front of the audience of foreigners and local creative people, including Ruel Johnson and Roopnandan Singh, to correct my statement that there is no awareness of practices by state agencies in recognition of copyright. Al mentioned several international copyright agreements that the government had signed. He did sound good; now, not so good. I licensed an An illustrated History of the Pork-Knockers to the GGMC in 2009; this I owed to the support from Commissioners Robeson Benn and then William Woolford. The copyright of that historical graphic magazine compensates me for the twenty-four years (1983-2007) from initial process to receipt of a copyright certificate. My R&D (Research and Development) costs have not been recovered. The livelihood of creative persons in Guyana and the international reputation of this nation now lie with the initiatives of Parliament − I have also presented copies of the cultural industries document to the joint opposition. I have always maintained that the PPP has a chronic strain of mediocrity and a lack of sophistication. Who advises them legally, from Demerara Gold to this embarrassment? No doubt, Anil Nandlall.
Yours faithfully,
Barrington Braithwaite
