Tag Archives: Guyana Independence Day

Down Independence Boulevard And Other Stories by Ken Puddicombe

21 Sunday May 2017

Posted by in Guyana, Recommended Reading

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Book Cover - Down Independence Boulevard and Other Stories by Ken Puddicombe

On May 26, Guyana celebrates 51 years as an independent nation. Independence did not come easy. Worker strikes, riots, lootings, burnings, beatings, rape, and killings turned the coexistence of the country’s multi-ethnic population into a toxic stew of animosity and mistrust. The so-called “racial disturbances” of the 1960s drove hundreds from their homes. Those who could, fled overseas.

In his collection of sixteen short stories, Down Independence Boulevard And Other Stories, Guyanese-Canadian author Ken Puddicombe, who migrated to Canada in 1971, takes us within the homes of families faced with racial violence and upheaval. With the keen eyes of a master story teller, Puddicombe lays bare their ruptured lives and re-invention as immigrants in a foreign country. Continue reading →

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Guyana Independence Day 2015: A New Beginning

24 Sunday May 2015

Posted by in Guyana

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Dawn on the Rupununi River - Southern Guyana

Dawn on the Rupununi River – Southern Guyana
Photo Credit: Dagron Tours

On May 26, 2015, the people of Guyana will be celebrating their forty-ninth independence anniversary under the new leadership of a multiracial coalition government. After forty-nine years of racial divisive politics, the nation embarks on a new beginning of a more inclusive government.

At the recent swearing-in of eight Cabinet Ministers, Guyana’s newly-elected President David Granger told those present: “We are determined to bring good governance back to Guyana. We are determined to have a Cabinet which is committed to National Unity.”

As with several new beginnings, expectations run wild; dreams hang within reach like ripening fruit on a mango tree; hope is born anew.

Those of us who have entered adult life and have already experienced new beginnings as a married couple and as newbie parents know the challenges each new beginning brings to our lives. Empty nesters face yet another new beginning as a couple alone with each other after years of child-rearing.

Those of us who have been freed from an abusive relationship know that it takes years for the scars to heal and begin life anew. Some of us never heal and continue to carry the abuser – long after he’s dead and gone – chained to our ankles, poisoning our children and grandchildren who unwittingly drink our Kool-Aid. Those who refuse to drink our cyanide-laced brew suffer alienation or ostracism.

After forty-nine years of abuse and deprivations perpetrated by both the African and East Indian political parties, healing and working towards national unity is a tall order. It will take time. Change at the top comes from change below, with each individual. Freeing ourselves from the chains of mistrust, fear, and hatred requires courage, openness, acceptance, and a willingness to forgive.

Forgiveness is not forgetfulness. We must acknowledge the sins of the past. We must not forget, lest we fall prey to them again.

Changing the way we relate to each other is a daily and ongoing struggle. Believing that we can achieve the change we seek is the first step to realizing our goal. The people of Guyana who voted for change have already taken that first step. Winning the minds and hearts of those who don’t want change or who don’t believe that change is possible may take another forty-nine years or more.

New beginnings are fraught with naysayers – those who like to put their bad-mouth on every effort we make – and those with big-eye who want everything for themselves.

With just a little over a week since the new president was sworn in, a member of his six-party coalition has already aired his discontent with the president’s agenda.

Meanwhile, still refusing to accept defeat at the polls, the opposition is planning countrywide protests and compiling evidence to file an election petition challenging recent poll results.

It’s a New Day in Guyana. Now is the time. Believe.

A Happy Independence Day to all Guyanese at home and in the Diaspora!

On the Anniversary of Guyana’s Independence Day: A Tribute to Stanley Greaves

26 Sunday May 2013

Posted by in Guyana, Poets & Writers

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Ground Birds - Shadows Series - Stanley GreavesGround Birds by Stanley Greaves from his Shadows Series
Acrylics on Canvas scroll. 102 x 76 cm.
Source: http://marukadc.com/galleryGreaves.html

 

On Guyana’s forty-seventh anniversary as an independent nation, I would like to celebrate our achievements and pay tribute to a son of Guyana: Stanley Greaves. An artist, sculpture, poet, and classical guitarist, he defines himself as “a maker of things.”

Born in 1934 in a tenement yard in Georgetown, Greaves was in his thirties at the birth of our nation. He describes life in the tenement yard as a vibrant community… with its own dramas among the families that lived there. He came from a family who were good at making things. His paternal grandfather was an upholsterer and cabinet maker from Barbados. His father made their own furniture. As a young boy, Greaves made things with whatever he could find: empty matchboxes, cigarette boxes, bits of string, wire, empty boot-polish tins. (Interview with Anne Walmsley of BOMB Magazine in Winter 2004.)

In his teens, Greaves began painting and developed his art at the Working Peoples’ Art Class (1948-1961). He later trained in the United Kingdom (1963-1968) and the United States (1979-1980). During his years back home in Guyana, he served as an art teacher and spent twelve years at the University of Guyana as head of the Creative Arts Division. Then in 1987, he left to reside in Barbados.

Recognition only came after years of work. In 1994, Greaves’ triptych of paintings, There Is a Meeting Here Tonight, won a Gold Medal at the Santo Domingo Biennales of Painting. Thenceforth, his acclaim grew within the Caribbean Region and beyond.

Greaves’ first poetry collection, Horizons: Selected Poems 1969-1998, was published by Peepal Tree Press, UK, in 2002. His second collection, The Poems Man, came out in 2009.

In Horizons, two political poems remain relevant today. Written in 1976, “To Politicians” brought to mind the vision of the founding fathers of our nation in 1966 to mold One People, One Nation, One Destiny.

A vortex of language, / seductive words of power / corrupt the tongue. / But words must leap fresh / – luminous lukanani in a pool. / Words must hit the air / – cosmic vibrations / of the gallant bell-bird. / Words must secure visions.

In “Knees” (1998), Greaves expresses hope that the people will someday bring to their knees politicians who accept words dangerous to truth.

Streets will sound to marching knees / Parents will dream for their children / and all will be right, perhaps, / in that dream if not this, / where knees of a weary people / threaten petty politics.

Greaves’ art has transformed over the years. His more recent Shadow Series explore the realm of shadows that lies beyond the second and third dimensions. To learn more, you can watch his Interview with Derrice Deane of CaribNation Television in 2011.

After forty-seven years as a developing nation, Guyana remains a shadow of its true potential. Unable to come together as One People, we are afraid to walk towards the Sun with confidence to achieve Our Destiny as a great nation…for all.

On the Anniversary of Guyana’s Independence Day: Guyanese-born Poets Etch our Nation’s Journey in Verse

27 Sunday May 2012

Posted by in Guyana, Poets & Writers

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Guyana Independence Arch – Georgetown – Guyana

“Monument to Freedom” unveiled on 22 May 1966, a gift from the Demerara Bauxite Company (DEMBA) to the people of Guyana on their independence.

Source: flickriver.com (arichards gallery)

On 26 May 2012, Guyana celebrated forty-six years as an independent nation. I recall well that night of 25 May 1966 when I stood with my family amidst the crowd in the Queen Elizabeth Park (later renamed National Park), watching the grand cultural performances to commemorate our independence from Great Britain. Just before the big moment at midnight, the crowd gasped in surprise. Our Prime Minister Forbes Burnham and his political rival and former Premier Cheddi Jagan unexpectedly embraced each other. Emotions ran deep.

The lights dimmed and wrapped us in silence. As the band intoned “God Save the Queen,” I watched the Union Jack slip down the flagpole while our new Golden Arrowhead climbed to the top where it unfurled to loud cheers and a gun salute. The sky exploded with the greatest display of fireworks I had ever seen, depicting Kaieteur Falls and the face of our Prime Minister. Great pride surged through my young veins. Our nation was born.

Syble G. Douglas in her commemorative poem “Independence (May 26, 1966)” expressed our joy:

At last Guyana is born / out of travail – strife and tears  / comes the new nation…

She then described the work that lay ahead to build a new Guyana.

Francis Yvonne Jackson in “Garden Paradise” also shared the joy of our achievement:

The Golden Arrowhead symbolic of our nation / Coconut trees whispering songs of hope, / Sending messages to the universe / Grasshoppers are hopping, / And lizards are crawling/… Roaring sounds of Kaieteur Falls awake masacuraman / Scaring the jumbie / Frightening the Canje Pheasant / Awaking my soul.

In the innocence of my youth, I believed that we could all work together and share in the wealth of our nation. I shared Mahadai Das’ dream expressed in her poem, “Looking Over the Broad Breast of the Land I Saw a Dream”:

I saw fields of fertility / Fields fed by the rain / Fields fed by the sun / Chimneys rising to worship the sun… / Children laughing in the sun, / Girls strewing their dreams with flowers;…

But our dream of forging “One Nation, One People, One Destiny” still eludes our young nation as we persist in emulating the errors of the past. Different leaders, same policies of our former colonial masters: divide and rule.

The young poet, Samuel Singh, in his poem “Unrecognized,” lamented:

This I do know; / yesterday’s Elysium is / today’s purgatory is / tomorrow’s underworld. / Heaven or hell / it is Guyana. / The drink / trembles in my hand, / drunkenness / soothes my mind. / I understand this land / less today / than yesterday / unrecognizable tomorrow.

In “My Native Land,” Francis Yvonne Jackson called attention to:

The haves away from the have-nots / a country of ethnic differences / Crime, drugs, political controversy, / The upsurge of violence / Not the Guyana I once knew / The young in a wilderness / Hoping for their Guyana / a better tomorrow…

The words of our beloved and world-renowned poet Martin Carter, in “Listening to the Land,” are still sadly relevant to our times:

I bent down / listening to the land / but all I heard was tongueless whispering…/ the old brick chimney barring out the city / the lantern posts like bottles full of fire / and I bent down / listening to the land / and all I heard was tongueless whispering / as if some buried slave wanted to speak again.

As Guyana celebrates its 46th anniversary of independence, let us remember the struggles and sacrifices of our ancestors – the slaves from Africa, followed by waves of indentured laborers from India, China, and Madeira – who forged our nation. Also, let us ponder on the simple truth of our existence: that regardless of our color or race, we are all the same. Gary Girdhari expressed this well in “Faces”:

Faces / Black, brown, white / All shades / All races… / Faces, faces, faces, faces / Everywhere you turn / The more you learn / There is no real difference among races.

A nation divided cannot withstand the vagaries of time in a world of giants.

 

POEMS CITED IN ARTICLE TAKEN FROM THE FOLLOWING POETRY COLLECTIONS:

Carter, Martin, Poems by Martin Carter, Edited by Stewart Brown & Ian McDonald, Macmillan Caribbean Writers Series, UK, 2010.

Das, Mahadai, A Leaf in His Ear, Peepal Tree Press Ltd., UK, 2010.

Douglas, Syble G., Transition: Poems Old & New, Georgetown, Guyana, 2008.

Girdhari, Gary, if only the gods were awake, Guyana Journal Publication, New York, USA, 2011.

Jackson, Francis Yvonne, Come Walk With Me: From Guyana to North America A Book of Verses, Illinois, USA, 2010.

Singh, Samuel, My Voice, Author House, Indiana, USA, 2007.