By Lear Matthews
Lear Matthews is Professor, State University of New York, Empire State College.
As we celebrate Guyana Republic @53 and the University of Guyana @60, I decided to engage our dear land in an imaginative, but serious discourse.
Dear Land of Our Birth: I hope you are well, enjoying the Sunshine and Seawall breeze as the waves of the mighty Atlantic lash furiously in tantalizing rhythm against your shoreline. I just wanted to gyaff with you a bit, so I decided to write this letter.
You started your career many, many years ago when you were treated like the proverbial football by rivalling, marauding colonizers, who sought to conquer, dominate, divide and exploit. I was introduced to you way before you were declared a “Republic”. Having resided on the West Coast of Berbice and Georgetown, and traveled across the regional counties, I was privileged to experience the varied topography of your beautiful coastal and hinterlands. Since gaining independence, we’ve wrangled over you, giving you various names symbolizing our interpretation of your natural assets and indigenous peoples’ culture. Later on, based on ideological preferences, we attempted to mold you into a particular system, with some successes, but also trepidation and regrets. You must have been disappointed with the persistence of the racial and political divide, pleased with projects that uplifted the underserved, but baffled by the missteps of some of our leadership.
How does a nation with such cherished cultural traditions and brilliant minds repeatedly become mired in the abyss of tension and discontentment? This unfortunately seems to have become one of the hallmarks of a society from which soaring emigration has been like an exodus, swelling the diaspora to levels unparalleled, leaving behind a land of exquisite natural beauty: majestic waterfalls, undulating mountain ranges, lavish savannahs, winding rivers abound with edible fish including the arapaima, bio-diversity, diamonds, gold and a mosaic of other precious things…And now, clamoring over the unpredictable ramifications of discovering “black gold”, attracting interests from the international community in numbers untold. Please forgive those who rummage the depths of your bowels in pursuit of your precious belonging. But if that’s part of your destiny, let’s hope that the nation’s underserved communities benefit from the spoils of whatever is extracted and the environment is protected. You are so highly valued, your neighbors, with questionable claims of sovereignty, desperately seek to get a piece of you. In defending you we pledge: Not a splat of mud! not one curass”, not a blade of grass!
Geography and Poets taught us to “listen” to you, learn how to navigate your terrain and design structures for safe and productive living. Our ancestors had a more “down-to-earth” relationship with you. I wish we had consulted the indigenous peoples to guide us in the formative years as an independent nation since they have a spiritual and metaphysical connection with you. You warned us about the need to make strategic adjustments to avoid disasters such as exposing you and us to a tidal wave risking unprecedented destruction on your coastland. In fact, as I wrote this letter, I was informed that there is extensive flooding in the epicenter of our garden city, Georgetown. It is up to us to take action to mitigate risks of infrastructural damage.
We have had many opportunities to make good use of your rich soil and natural waterfalls. Reportedly, over the years, “foreigners” have been given compromising rein to explore, extract and syphon wealth from you, sometimes with minimum local returns. This may be due to an imbalanced Production Sharing Agreement (PSA). Not to trivialize the importance of transnational negotiations, but you have attracted many international suitors, perhaps including some “cochors” trying to get a piece of the action. You survived a shocking human tragedy, “Jonestown” in which your serene hinterland was woefully violated, culminating in the unthinkable loss of precious lives. Unfortunately that was your introduction to some in the rest of the world, while others continue to confuse you with “Ghana”. An increasing influx of territorial neighbors have also crossed your border seeking refuge, searching for relief from economic and other hardships. Unchecked, this development could potentially brew tensions among the local population, government and your new settlers. Population increase and modernization may be good for development, but we must be prepared to deal efficiently with incidental costs to you and local communities.
A significant number of the Guyanese population reside abroad, but the diaspora remains an extended community of interest with birthright claims on you. Geographic separation, ethnic discord and tensions should no longer impede a common identity and the will to collaborate to fortify your stature. We left your shores by choice or circumstance, but have not abandoned you. The diaspora remain connected to you, sending remittances or visiting to introduce your new generation born in a foreign country, and who look forward to meeting you. We are emotionally attached to you and need you to fulfill our appetite for nostalgia. Some of us periodically return to you for spiritual and physical re-vitalization- bush tea, fresh greens and vegetables, fresh air, home cookin’ and pickin’ fruits straight off yuh trees or perhaps an earthly “bath” to protect those who may have encountered misfortune during their sojourn abroad. Although you’re not blessed with pristine beaches that would lure swimmers and surfers to ride the waves and bathe on the sand, you do have other natural assets to attract tourism. An occasional nature walk where your flora thrives and fauna roams, can be a unique adventurous experience.
Diasporans discovered that the grass is not always greener on the other side. Yet to have said to someone “yuh gat life in London” implied that life on your soil was inferior. That must have angered you! Nonetheless, you were thrusted into prominence through leadership roles such as Carifesta and CARICOM and referred to as “the Bread-basket of the Caribbean”. These accomplishments must have made you proud.
You must have noticed population shifts and changes in the use of your space. Long ago we divided you into counties, districts and wards. Then we “parcel yuh off “ into ten Administrative Regions. Known as “Land of many Waters”, your natural topology has basically remained the same. Oil and gas, it seems, will soon be fully added to the nation’s industrial machinery. Hopefully this will not be at the cost of decreasing agricultural cultivation as a main industry. Despite the changes, a vision of higher heights for all Guyanese awaits to be fulfilled. After-all is right dey, on your sacred ground, our ancestors were bought, shackled, indentured, brought, birthed and died. It is in you that plenty ahwee nable-string bury. As we grapple with concerns about your future, we pray for you and those responsible for governing and protecting you.
Many of us adore you. Some of us ingratiate ourselves by boasting about your unique natural assets, while others have desecrated you. You have been, described as one of the most economically impoverished countries in the Western Hemisphere. Dey eyes prapuh pass yuh. It irks me as officials in “advanced countries” refer to you and other Caribbean nations as “Banana Republics” when describing a disaster aftermath or when governance in one of their communities has gone awry. Look at you now! You’ve been through so much, yet you are responsible for our grounding and survival. We are the salt of your earth. Your rich, fertile soil has produced the natural properties for a healthy existence. You have offered us a treasure chest of ancient wisdom. We created many Folk Songs about you (Itanami gon wuk me belly, Itanami gon drownded me). We will never know all of your secret mysteries. Some of us under-estimated your endurance, but your perseverance gives us a purpose in life.
We walk, ride and drive over you, sometimes with reckless abandon. Every year we celebrate our history and diverse cultural traditions, but as we ‘tramp’, ‘Mash’, ‘wine’, flounce and gyrate on your surface, adorned in a kaleidoscope of symbolic costumes, we hope that the true meaning of those events in your honor is sustained. Unfortunately many of our youth do not know your history and the personalities who championed your transformation and development. You have not only hosted and nurtured a multi-ethnic populace with whom you have been through tic an’ tin but provided a place we can call HOME. You must be wearied carrying some of our burdens. On behalf of fellow Guyanese, as we navigate our social space, thanks for accommodating us while we sojourn on your precious grounds. You are referred to as part of “Mother Earth” because of your compassion, endurance and wisdom.
I do not understand all the challenges you are facing, but I do have an interest in your welfare. The uncertainty of unprecedented social and economic transition makes this a watershed moment for you. Rumblings of “Wuh dee oil doing fuh we” have been heard locally. Come what may, we in the diaspora promise to be proud ambassadors for you – our beloved country. Rise up Oh beautiful and bounteous Eldorado! Onward and upward! For the sake of generations to come, let us collectively, with pride and in harmony take you to a level of existential comfort and dreams deferred.
So long, until we meet again.
Sincerely, Lear Matthews, another son of the soil.
Postscript:
In writing this letter, I took an imaginative but “down to earth” approach, which I hope will not only resonate with Guyanese and people of other nationalities, but initiate a bold conversation (serious gyaff) about our dear land. Paying homage to one’s birthplace in this way is gratifying and thought-provoking. It is quite a journey to think about a place, a land, a geography with human characteristics, an immortal “living thing” that can be addressed. Having a dialogue with one’s home space gives it a kind of attachment and viability that we often miss. It offers a cultural, economic, political and historical critique from an unusual angle. I believe that this unique “correspondence” has captured the tribulations and painful past at the same time that we can speak about possibilities and hope. It is interesting to think about the resilience of this sacred ground upon which Guyanese and others dwell, to which we pledge allegiance and claim sovereignty. Not only how it may have been unintendedly misused or neglected at times, but how we can assuage its resources by collaborating more effectively within the nation and between the diaspora and home. I close with this advice from Guyanese Poet, the late John G. Morris:
“Put lil oil in yuh lamp.
When dee well run dry and all gone is dee plenty money?
Den suddenly yuh rememba dee cattle in dee Rupununi savannah
an’ dee agricultucha in dee land of Guyana!”
