The Stabroek News editorial of August 6, 2019 remarked at the multiethnic nature of the crowds of people who visited the National Park to take in the Emancipation Festival that is held there annually on August 1. Guyanese turned out in large numbers throughout the day-long event, and what was impressive, according to the editorial, was the appearance of people of different races, the significant number of mixed-race couples and groups, the large numbers of youths reflecting this ethnic mix, and the very strong suggestion that the younger generations in Guyana care less about the narrow racial prejudices than their elders.
The turnout at the park, it was argued, showed new thinking. It gave hope that as a nation Guyana is not condemned to the divisive racial attitudes of the past and the present. There is a more progressive outlook to be expected than ethnic entrenchment and the conflicts that ignited tragic violence in the country’s history. Some of these were partially fueled and the flames fanned by colonial factors and policies, as well as by western anti-communist manoeuvres. A good work of literature that tackles this directly is the play Two Wrongs by Harold Bascom, Guyana Prize Winner in 1994.
