Dear Editor,
Instead of addressing what I’ve raised about the management of the Caribbean Press, the Minister of Culture, Dr Frank Anthony continues to present misrepresentations and half-truths, completely hides from journalists asking hard questions, or is content to let the PPP’s idiotic phantom letter writers and ‘columnists’ engage in the ad hominem and pathetically ineffective attacks against me.
In the Guyana Chronicle, famous for its facilitation of letter writers employed by GINA and Office of the President, we learn from “Matthew Henson” (a direct descendant no doubt of the African American explorer of that same name) that I have a “fatal attraction to Minister Frank Anthony.”
At the Guyana Times, we have a series of articles that most recently offered the brilliant anonymous writer’s erudite critique of an unpublished story that I posted an excerpt of on Facebook, all part of the bold and open defence of the Minister of Culture.
Mark Ramotar and Raschid Osman, editors at the Chronicle, perhaps forget that I know the entire system thoroughly having worked for and consulted on the management of the paper. It is precisely that sort of politically partisan stupidity that I have advised against in internal memos dating back to 2003, since it serves nothing but to reduce the Chronicle’s circulation to the dismal figure it is at now. I can forgive Nigel Williams because he is merely a figurehead at the Times and has long lost whatever journalistic credibility he had accrued during his time at Stabroek News. It is well known that the Guyana Chronicle is propped up by government ads and both papers benefit from mandatory patronage by ministries and other state entities.
I intend for this to be my final and definitive correspondence on this issue, since the information presented below hopefully will see the independent media and the Parliament undertaking a full investigation into the operations of the Caribbean Press.
In a letter published in Kaieteur News (June, 3), Mr P D Sharma picked up on an issue I raised two years ago with regard to financial oversight of the Press. Says Mr Sharma, “$100,000 U.S. a year is a nice round figure: easy to remember, easy to repeat, sweet sounding, and it rolls off the tongue with a smooth finesse. $104, 524.89 would have had more credibility with me.”
Both Drs Dabydeen and Anthony have studiously avoided making public the exact amount spent so far on the Press, even though both have given plenty of lip service to financial prudence in printing as well as the voluntary nature of Dr Dabydeen’s management. We learn that some of the writers gave up their royalties, but what we remain uninformed about is who provided copyediting as well as design and layout services to the Press and how much they were paid? How much did Drs Ian McDonald and Lynne Macedo, Guyana Classics editors, earn in total? Who was the printer and how much money was spent on printing the books? What was the cost differential between those costs and quotes by local printers?
One curious thing in all this is that while the ministry has budgeted US$80,000 for this year for the Press, Dr Dabdyeen both publicly and privately claimed ignorance of this allocation. If Dr Dabydeen is solely responsible for both publication policy as well budgeting (“a contractor like Courtney Benn or B K except in books, not concrete”), and he was unaware of the funding Dr Anthony budgeted for, how precisely did Dr Anthony come up with that figure? I would advise the joint Parliamentary opposition to demand that Dr Anthony provide a full and detailed account of all expenditure under the Caribbean Press.
Now, to the question of the publication of work of resident Guyanese writers, those unconnected to the Press, said to be captured in two anthologies commissioned by the Ministry and edited by Petamber Persaud. Dr Dabydeen has been kind enough to provide a full list of those people published. I’ve spoken to several of the twenty-two writers listed as published in the poetry anthology and each of them – including Yaphet Jackman (who has worked closely with Dr Anthony over the past year), James Bond, Gideon Cecil, Rochelle Christie and Radiante Frank – have denied knowledge of publication by the Press. Indeed, one person specifically requested that the poems submitted to Mr Persaud not be published as is.
In the anthology of short fiction by eight ‘resident’ fiction writers, two of them – both with whom I enjoyed cordial friendships – are dead. Former Minister of Education, Deryck Bernard, author of Going Home and Other Tales, passed away in January of 2008, before the commitment to launch the Press was even made. My very good friend, a former teacher, administrator, and dedicated writer Mohamed Yasin (Crabman and Other Stories) died some time in mid-2009, around the time of the launch of the Press. Rooplall Monar and Janice Rogers (another friend and, like Mohamed, fellow Cropper Writers’ workshop alumnus) both migrated long before the establishment of the Caribbean Press. Guyana Prize winner Ryhaan Shah, listed as having a story published, was one of the people who wrote earlier this year demanding clarity on the issue of the Caribbean Press. Writers number six and seven are Petamber Persaud and Ian McDonald, both consultants to the Press, with Dr McDonald having had three books published by it.
Before I go on, permit me to quote Minister Anthony’s attitude to the critical issue of copyright in the lead-up to Carifesta X, held in Guyana in 2008.
“He said the issue could be approached in two ways, either by making incremental changes to existing legislation or more comprehensive changes and because of the many implications of such laws, discussions were still ongoing. Stating that his ministry does not have overall responsibility for the matter, the minister declined to state a time frame for when the consultations could be expected to be completed. Asked whether it would be done before Carifesta, he said that he did not think this was likely.” (SN, January 20, 2008)
When asked about the issue of copyright during this year’s budget debate, five years after and with yet another Carifesta looming, the Minister was equally vague on a timeline. I highlight this as preamble to the fact that the eighth and most surprising contributor to the Caribbean Press fiction anthology is Ruel Johnson whose short story, Killing the Kitten, is featured. The problem is that this Ruel Johnson, yours truly, never gave anyone permission to publish the story outside of my self-published first book, Ariadne & Other Stories and a one-off in the Guyana Chronicle – the only other permission I gave is to myself to publish in a tenth anniversary edition of Ariadne scheduled for a launch with two other of my own publications next month.
In other words, the state-funded Caribbean Press – after all the obfuscation, after all the ad hominem denigration and deliberate marginalization – has been revealed to have engaged in the blatant and unrepentant infringement of my copyright as both publisher and author of my own literary work.
Considering that Guyana is a signatory to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works as well as a member of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), this is, well, a bit awkward. And unethical. And illegal. And hypocritical. And above all, outright stupid – under what sort of logic do you marginalize a writer, attack his income, denigrate his prize-winning work, even as you use that work without his knowledge or permission? I expect a public explanation from the Minister on this issue since he is ultimately responsible for the Press.
Dr Anthony has constantly deferred to David Dabydeen’s expertise in publication management – this may show the Minister’s complete cluelessness on such matters. Dr Dabydeen is a writer, an academic, has some editorial experience, but in the immediate six years prior to him being placed with sole responsibility of managing the taxpayer-funded Caribbean Press, he was associated with two failed publication ‘houses’ – Dido Press, founded in December, 2002 and the Derek Walcott Press, in 2007. I have been reliably informed that at least one ‘publication’ produced by one of the failed presses was recycled into a Caribbean Press book. Additionally, I confess to allowing Dr Dabydeen generous licence to repeat his absurd claim of the historicity of Ashley Anthony’s book (“first book written by a Guyanese child”) as justification for publishing – had Dr Dabydeen a cursory familiarity with the history of local publication, he would have known that long before the work of Frank Anthony’s daughter was printed by the Press, a privilege not afforded to other Guyanese, the teenager Roman Harris, a former student of Saint Stanislaus and son of radio personality Elaine Harris (‘Auntie Elaine’) published a book around the year 2000, while only about a year older at the time than Ashley Anthony is now.
While clearly, and this is something he readily admits, Dr Frank Anthony is completely ignorant of what constitutes literary quality, he is nonetheless expected to conduct basic due diligence in the management of funds allocated to his ministry.
Grand promises have been made, there has been tremendous output, a great deal of money has been spent, speeches have been speechified at widely publicized launches, but there has been nothing of substance with regard to what was originally and explicitly promised by the Caribbean Press, the publication of emerging resident Guyanese writers. This is a scandal that spans four continents and has involved the names of respected (and not so respected) academics, one acclaimed UK publishing house, two of Guyana’s diplomats, cost a conservative estimate of US$200,000 of poorly accounted for taxpayer dollars and to date, not a single demonstrably competent emerging writer has been published. If I am wrong, let the Minister produce verifiable accounts of expenditure under the Press, as well as copies of the anthologies that both he and Dr Dabydeen have claimed are at the printers – if finished copies are somehow unavailable, proofing or manuscript copies would suffice in the interim.
Throughout all of this, Dr Anthony has not answered a single direct question; instead, the past week has seen the Minister photo-opping with visiting UK-resident writers John Agard and Grace Nichols, both of whom have done very well under the patronage of successive British governments. In contrast, Dr Frank Anthony, PPP Minister of Culture for the past seven years, has presided over a literary ‘development’ policy that has been marked by duplicity, the blacklisting of critics and the apparent disregard for as basic a principle as copyright.
Even if we were to generously overlook the swimming pool fiasco or the WICB/GCB debacle, the white elephant youth projects and failure to institute a national youth policy, the mismanagement of Carifesta, the system of spite and vindictiveness in place of an open, fair and equitable cultural policy, this single issue alone shows that Dr Anthony is completely out his depth, while staunchly resisting assistance offered genuinely and in good faith. He should do himself, and us, a great favour and resign immediately.
Yours faithfully,
Ruel Johnson
