Dear Editor,
This is in response Khemraj Ramjattan’s letter justifying the AFC’s withdrawal of its motion to cut the Sports and Arts Fund, published in both leading dailies on Saturday, April 27, 2013. There are several troubling aspects of this justification, of which a few core ones I will address.
On the issue of Carifesta, let me start by saying that this past week I have been contacted on behalf of the Department of Culture to represent Guyana at the Inter-Guianas Cultural Festival in French Guiana in July, and at Carifesta in Suriname in August. I have signalled my acceptance of this invitation, because I believe I am qualified in the areas I have been asked to represent. This does not in any way lessen my call for complete transparency on how the Ministry of Culture selects delegations to be sent to these festivals. What are the qualifications of those selected in various areas, and were others given a chance to represent their country in a system that was fair, merit-based and open?
With regard to the hosting of workshops, there is a bit of background that should be included. In mid-2009, I met with David Dabydeen and we developed the idea of having writing workshops as a first step in establishing an eventual Institute of Creative Writing in Guyana. As discussed, I came up with a proposal including a budget and format (an earlier version of the one I used for the Guyana Prize workshops I conducted in February of this year), and dropped it off at the desk of the Minister’s secretary. I heard no response until I ran into the Minister in February of 2010 at Castellani House and was informed that the cost, $500,000, was too high – this money would have covered three one week workshops, inclusive of meals, to be conducted by yours truly, Dabydeen, and Lisa Allen-Agostini from Trinidad. It should also be noted that I included in the plan a gap-funding option that would see private sector engagement to secure any shortfall, yet the idea was dismissed out of hand.
I waived my fee for conducting the recent Guyana Prize workshops on poetry and short fiction, with the hope that whatever it was would be used towards the funding of more workshops. I would hope that with $4.7 million approved for writing workshops this year, Minister Anthony would now be more amenable to the plan I put forward and I will be engaging his ministry for exactly that, and I expect that Mr Ramjattan would ensure that this or other progressive initiatives are not rejected by Dr Anthony.
On the issue of the Caribbean Press, I suggest that Mr Ramjattan set a far higher standard for being impressed. The partial list he provided is more indictment of the sycophancy, myopia and nepotism that has typified the management of cultural policy for the past seven years than anything else. There is the inexcusable publication of the book by the Minister’s daughter by the Press, which has not been addressed. Further, Dr McDonald, veteran writer and an advisor to the Press – a developmental mechanism – has not one but three books published by it. Dr Dabydeen, the Editor, has had a book republished. It is a basic ethical principle that a consultant should not benefit directly from any mechanism that he or she is engaged to establish, whether remunerated or not, particularly when such benefit goes against the intended spirit, or letter as exists, of such a mechanism.
Additionally, most of the people listed have been published before. How on earth would this situation satisfy anyone that this is the Press, having existed for five years, serving its developmental function?
The question was asked by APNU’s James Bond – not anyone in the AFC – about writers gaining access to the Press, to which Dr Anthony responded that people can approach the “Directors.” Yet when asked publicly earlier this year about the composition of a supposed board of Directors, the Minister could not provide any such information.
Perhaps Mr Ramjattan can aid the general public and glean it off of him.
With regard to the anthologies of Guyanese poetry and short fiction edited by Mr Petamber Persaud, as a practising writer of short fiction and poetry in Guyana, I know of no call for publications for either volume.
In 2011, an e-mail was issued to less than ten people for inclusion in an anthology of Guyanese poetry to be edited by Dabydeen. As a recipient of that mail, I made it clear that I would not be involved in any election year politicking using poetry, and that any anthology that I submitted my work to had to have benefited from a national call for publications so as to cast as wide a net as possible, and workshops/editorial guidance to improve the work of those with promise.
My reasoning was that any national anthology of poetry had to be borne out of the greatest inclusiveness possible, and it should be of the highest literary standard – I know of no further progress that came out of that effort outside of two meetings chaired by Mr Persaud after which he promised, and failed, to update those who turned up. I await the launch of these two anthologies to see if it is that they meet those two benchmarks of quality and inclusiveness.
The Press was founded primarily to publish new writing coming out of the geographical space of Guyana and the wider Caribbean because of the lack of such a mechanism here – it has expressly not done so. Typical of the government’s policy of almost every sphere of public life, the people who benefit most have been the people who are closest to, or most facilitating of, the administration, regardless of [relative] capacity or merit.
Mr Ramjattan should be aware that he has released far more information about the ministry’s operations on these issues in one letter than the Minister has in the past year, even when challenged directly. As Minister of Culture, it is the duty of Frank Anthony to face interrogation with regard to the management of taxpayer dollars under his portfolio. If he does not believe himself competent enough, then he should direct either his Permanent Secretary or his Director of Culture to do so; or he can engage the services of a Public Relations Officer, other than Mr Ramjattan.
Finally, were I in Parliament, I would expect any citizen of Guyana – party supporter or not – to question any decision I made, particularly if that decision runs counter not just to the principles of the party, but to that of basic good sense and fairness. As Cultural Policy Advisor to the Alliance For Change during the 2011 elections campaign, I created a cultural development blueprint that was based on three central pillars – investment in the artist, investment in the intellectual worker, investment in the cultural entrepreneur – embedded within a robust cultural policy environment that was transparent, fair and forward-planning.
The friends, family and favoured persons regime is a far cry from that, and the management of cultural policy under Dr Anthony’s ministry needs not praise but stringent and vigilant reform. Having engineered the passage of the Fund, it is the responsibility of the AFC to ensure that throughout the upcoming year this reform takes place, and I offer my services to provide advice in that regard.
Yours faithfully,
Ruel Johnson
