Eye on Guyana with Lincoln Lewis

Freedom is never free… it requires eternal vigilance and sacrifice

TOMORROW marks 178 years since chattel slavery was abolished in the British Empire. The emancipation of African slaves, after serving four years of amelioration (1834-1838), though marking a significant achievement in a people’s struggle to be treated as human, enjoying equal rights and dignity as their former oppressors, those who occupied the land with them and came later, had not been without eternal vigilance and sacrifice.Commemorating emancipation does not only require recounting with pride and zeal the sacrifices and struggles our forebears made to make it possible for us today. As a people we must not settle or accept that what our forebears did and achieve mean that we have nothing to do. Equally, we must reject any who want to make us feel that the end of chattel slavery means an end to systems of oppression, nor we can rest or our laurels and get complacent.
To accept that Africans, more particularly those domiciled here and with lineage to this country, must reject being identified by their ancestral roots, we must reject those who so tell. The history of the African man and woman in Guyana dates back to the slave trade. Our ancestors were brought here against their will and because of this historical fact, Africans who came after were born here. This means by ancestral lineage we are Africans and by geographic birth or citizenship Guyanese and it is OK to be identified as Afro-Guyanease.
We must be respecting of who we are, equally as repelling the mis-education that wants us to feel racial identity is unnecessary and unwarranted, since it constitutes another process of trying to strip us of our identity, history and contributions as a unique member of the world’s human demography. It is our responsibility therefore to understand and protect the evolution of the African man and woman in this society.
We need not be diverted too by those who remain mentally enslaved and see any identity with race as being backward, given that by their propagation and acceptance it can cause the retarding of our development.  In national planning data is collected with the prime objective to ensure that delivery of services properly target individuals and groups. For instance, the sickle-cell disease is pronounced in the African community.
If this nation, more particularly Africans, are to accept that race is immaterial and one ought not to be so identified, then by extension such contributes to a process of denying required allocated State resources, including education on the disease and health-care facilities to manage and treat same, which can ensure quality life and longevity.
The freedom acquired at emancipation was not only for that time. It is a freedom for us to express and identify who we are as a people, our strengths and weaknesses, and how we can use same for our holistic development. As society evolves, dreams and aspirations similarly do. Consequently, the quality of life post-emancipation forebears had cannot be equated with what exists today or what we must strive for. Their journey travelled and sacrifices made have contributed to the change in thinking and behaviour.
Change in thinking and behaviour in pursuit of development, self and national, requires eschewing acceptance that once you look like me gives you the prerogative to deny me my freedoms and rights. Equally, it means that not looking like me grants you no prerogative to trample me and I remain silent in order not to offend your feelings or be accused of being racist.
In the 21st century, freedoms that our forebears gave of their lives, sweat and blood for are under threats. What stand out immediately for me are: i) the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining which are more being observed in the breach; and ii) the right to work which is denied the unemployed and though this government has inherited an unemployment rate at approximately 21 percent, it shoulders the responsibility to reduce it.
As Guyanese our Constitution and laws are being trampled. It matters not whether the PPP/C or APNU+AFC government has out-done each other and to what extent; the fact is, it must not happen. That these continue to be inflicted by descendants of slaves and indentured servants, who are the beneficiaries of struggle, mean the masses who are heirs of their forebears’ sacrifice and pain must hold officials, elected and appointed, accountable to preserve the freedoms inherited.
Freedom from want, fear, discrimination, marginalisation and all forms of enslavement, including mental and self-loathing, still have to be struggled for and the needed sacrifices made. It brings me no satisfaction that in independent Guyana the political leadership is supporting foreigners, more particularly Russians in the bauxite industry, denying Guyanese their freedoms, thus by extension making them the new co-enslavers.
At this juncture in our history, the nation’s Head of State and Government is a historian by education. He more than most would recognise what enslavement constitutes, yet he seems comfortable presiding over a government, where as a historian he has recorded and condemned such atrocities.
Emancipation is not only about wearing African clothing, attending events and recounting the atrocities of centuries ago; it is about continuous vigilance to ensure that the freedoms and rights of citizens are respected and working towards improving their livelihoods.
To the African community, where the foundational village economy is practically non-existent, in that you have exercised your power to vote for a government, ours is the responsibility to ensure we have our just share of the nation’s patrimony.  As Africans mark the sacrifices and contributions of our forebears, it must also be accompanied by commitment and actions to redouble efforts to improve our condition of life.
Progressive emancipation!

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