Dear Editor,
I refer to your article in the Sunday Stabroek of October 20, 2019, captioned ‘More consultations planned to finalise national cultural policy’ and more specifically to the first bullet point (Pg. 19), and I quote (in part), ‘Ensure that strong sustainable systems are put in place to identify, protect and preserve both our tangible and intangible cultural heritage (ICH).…’ Editor, it is an extreme act of bravery by the Department of Culture to publicly announce, as a matter of policy according to the article, that it is preparing to transition into preparatory mode to now ‘identify ’ our ICH so as to ‘protect and preserve’. Guyana’s historical and identifiable ICH has to be considered (if it is integrated into the Cultural Policy at all), regrettably, as ‘Endangered’. I must confess that the article does not discuss how the Department of Culture intends to, going forward, disrupt/reduce the haemorrhaging of these artefacts now, whilst securing the universes out of which these ICH emerged…which leaves one to consider of what usefulness is the process as outlined in the above captioned, whenever it so commences.
Yours faithfully,
Rohan Sagar
Socio-historical
Ethnomusicology
