Dear Editor,
It has been months since I have written on the plight of our senior artists. Most of our senior artists have given up that anything is likely to change our state of affairs. They figure that government actions are deliberate and people are so burdened with their own survival that they don’t care nor do they value our service. One artist even likened our task to “ploughing the sea”. Since then, four of our senior artists have died, all in their sixties and seventies. I myself fell ill and have not the mobility that I once had and therefore have not been as active as I used to be. I was moved when I heard of Simpson’s death. Always with a smile on his face, hustling to sell one of his latest gems. I can recall him saying “this is a masterpiece!”
Nevertheless, I can still write of what is happening in the life of our small and diminishing artist community. My thoughts are of the many incredibly talented Guyanese artists and other professionals, ordinary members, members of the working class who have given their golden years of service to our country and have died in poverty and neglect. My thoughts are of the school teachers in the trenches battling for a living wage.
Now I am going to be quite honest in saying that since the PPP government came to power in August 2020 and I am not singular in my experience, artists associated with the Guyana United Artists GUA, primarily of working-class origin, have not received any financial support that is in the form of grants, purchases of art work or otherwise. Now it is unfair, unjust that this Ministry that has been allocated billions of dollars could display such contempt and disregard for artists who have served Guyana and the Guyanese Nation for well over 4 decades. No consideration of how artists and their families survived the COVID shutdown and in the aftermath. What I am saying here is recorded in letters to KN and SN.
I have even gone to the extent to inform the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres of the plight of this small group of artists who are discriminated against for expressing our creative geniuses which only seeks to unite and bring Guyanese together to fulfil our destiny by way of our unique cultural traditions. This letter is being Cc’d to President Irfaan Ali, UN Secretary General, UN Resident Representative in Guyana, Guyana Cultural Association NY and others….in addition to my request for the National Gallery to acquire ‘The Outline of Guyanese History’, the only visual arts representation that captures on canvas our post-colonial history from Independence to the present day.
It is not the cost that has any bearing on the acquisition of the work, it is that the PPP government does not want future generations of Guyanese to know of their history and this work, so far that they misrepresent and replace our rich artistic tradition with mediocrity. Having said this much, it is for the Guyanese public and the international community of nations to inquire into the characteristic political tendency of the PPP government which is to use the power at its disposal to crush any semblance of freedom and democracy. Art must be free and unfettered, this Ministry has been once again allocated quite a large budget, GYD$ billions from the GYD$1.1 Trillion budget, the largest budget ever since Guyana gained Independence!
Sincerely,
Desmond Alli
