Dear Editor,
There is much debate going on, about the environment of our cultural development, arresting its neglected state and who should be tasked with this. This is not a new discourse; what is surprising are the terminologies and assertions used and directed at souls not deserving of the defamations being thrown around on facebook. Most of the persons in the dialogue in this public social media I don’t know; I however do know Ruel Johnson, so I will dismiss the others as enthusiasts and refer my concerns to Ruel who is a colleague of mine.
The controversy on culture and the marginalization of artists deemed outside of the PPP’s political construct began in early 1993. The first attempt to formulate a Cultural Industries Group was called the ‘Independent Media Workers.’ It included myself, Paloma Mohamed, Obrey, and many others; this was mid-1992. Its aim was to vitalize the arts. The elections came and the name was stolen from us and clients we had were absorbed by political friends of the PPP.
Next was the ‘Creative Arts Association’ which had launched the Castellani House with its first exhibition in late October 1992. We were quickly sidelined and a board selected comprising political rather than Arts practitioners. We were rendered no note of courtesy, saying ‘To hell with you,’ and I can quote dozens of other instances and sequences. Most of The Creative Arts Association left Guyana.
To say that Ruel was alone fighting this government in the Arts is fiction. On May 19, 2005 he wrote an editorial for the Chronicle, demeaning Burnham and describing Carifesta 1972 as a burlesque. I angrily responded and demanded that Sharif Khan carry my rebuttal, which was published on June 9, 2005. I have never called Ruel a soup-drinker or gatekeeper of the culturally void PPP, and he was working for them then.
I have always advocated that the department of government which presides over the development of Culture be separate, in this case from Youth and Sport; that such a department be peopled by souls who understand what they’re doing, and have lived creatively in some substantial arena of the Arts. I can publicly advocate Dr Paloma Mohamed as such a person. I have worked with her for over twenty years, when she consulted the Arts community for Carifesta 10. Without her management the Guyana aspect of that festival could not have come off. It was the culturally vacant people the PPP planted (one particular person comes to mind, not Frank Anthony) who failed to account for more money than all the artists/es had received for that Carifesta.
Ruel should cut the ‘bad-mouth’ innuendos and the rhetoric. The ‘Arts’ constitute more, much more than writers, and he has not ventured out into that myriad world as yet. Dr Frank Anthony was clueless in that position, and I accused him in the past of playing hide and seek, of being afraid to meet me and some other writers when I requested a meeting to answer questions on the Caribbean Press operations that Ruel brought to public awareness. The work to be done in the Arts of Guyana must be piloted by an experienced practitioner who understands the hues and contours of the Arts and how to apply them without hindrance to the spontaneous expression of the muses, in the interest of the national ethos. The History and Arts Council of yesteryear should be the case study and Dr Paloma Mohamed has the background and accolades to manage that in the interest of its greater purpose with all the Brutus’s that constitute ‘our world.’
Yours faithfully,
Barrington Braithwaite
