Dear Editor,
The reported banning of the year’s calypsos, or some of them from the government’s radio station or radio and TV stations is a denial of freedom of expression in art.
I had the pleasure of listening to De Professor. I wonder what most frightened the government in it. I ask myself, Is this a rumour? Can it be true? This is not the police now. This is cabinet rank. Who appointed anybody in the cabinet to decide these things?
Some two years ago, or less, when the columnist Freddie Kissoon described the PPP/C regime as fascist, I said to myself, “Hello.”
Calypso is one of the liberating forms of art, in song, developed in the ranks of the much slogan-eered working people. Is this judgment not a part of the work of the Board of the Broadcast Authority? Here again, don’t we have a second command?
I was lucky to hear the Minister of Culture, a young Guyanese man, declaring open a new drama school. I waited to hear some young insights. Nothing, nothing at all about theatre or drama. And they are taking decisions on where to bury and where the people want a monument. They have heavy boots.
There are many signs that somebody somewhere is not at ease with people’s voices. Many of us remember “Tell the Prime Minister” before the PPP staged “The return to democracy.” I bring these things up to show what has not changed. I speak only for myself. I know others will have much more sense to say. I am dumb, speechless.
Yours faithfully,
Eusi Kwayana
