THE time has come again to mark the abolition of slavery in Guyana. This is the anniversary. It is many years since slavery was abolished. In 1834 Damon lead 300 apprentice slaves in a quiet demonstration was peaceful and was held in the Trinity Parish Church yard on the Essequibo Coast. The authorities arrested Damon and he was later hanged in Georgetown. In 1763 the fight was long and many were killed. Hence, by 1838 when slavery was abolished, Africans traditional beliefs, values and practices were already replaced by those Creole culture rooted in the culture baggage of Europe, especially Britain, and highly adapted to the socio-economic and racial exigencies of plantation society. No doubt there are unrecognised memories of shaping our perception of the present day society in which we live and influencing the way we act and behave.

I can remember well my friend Sherlock Atwell’s grandmother an old lady who spoke to me as a boy in the nineteen fifties, of seeing marks on her mother’s skin, inflicted when her mother was a girl, before the abolition of slavery. For long periods and in most places around the world, Man has made slaves of his fellow Man, at hand. Europeans made slaves of fellow Europeans; Africans made slaves of fellow Africans; but this last period of widespread slavery when Europeans took Africans as slaves often with the help of other Africans, has been most pernicious and its effects persistent. This was the period of European take-over of the Western Hemisphere, the growth of trade, and the beginnings of the industrial revolution.

And Europe perhaps by then reluctant to make slaves of its own people, found it convenient to bring African slaves to the Caribbean and much of the Americas.

The conditions of this instance of slavery have been rightly decried as showing the lowest levels of Man’s inhumanity to man. Perhaps we sons and daughters of slaves must take the lead if this period of slavery is to become just another episode in the history of man. Perhaps we should seek out and cast away those attitudes which may have kept our forefathers from behaviour which was futile within the institution of slavery. Let us recognize that many fellow sons and daughters of slaves in the Western Hemisphere are earning and are bring granted widespread recognition – Bob Marley, Michael Jackson, President Obama, General Powell, Oprah Winfrey, Prime Minister Thompson, Michael Manley, Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, Professor Clive Thomas, Prime Minister Patrick Manning and Michelle Obama.

They are being the best that man can be and reaching the highest heights that man can reach. Their extraordinary success no doubt rests on extraordinary ability, intense application and to some extent on circumstances. And if anyone says that this range of application is limited let me say that it is a start-a-great start. Few of us would have the inborn ability of the brothers and sisters referred to above but there is nothing stopping any of us applying ourselves as intently as those brothers and sisters have done. Let us recognise that the stigma associated with being the sons and daughters of slaves is waning. The times have been a-changing. Let not our fellow men have any right to say that any of us son and daughters of African slaves is holding on to the fact of slavery as an excuse for not trying, not applying ourselves.