SINCE time immemorial, some outstanding figures in the family of humankind have been putting their personal welfare, even their lives, in the line of fire — literally and figuratively — for the benefit, the general good, of others; while there are yet others who trample on the rights of others, including leaders who engage in pogroms against their own people, to advance their self-serving interests.
Within the Guyana landscape, many have tried to end the scourge of slavery in various ways — the slaves through rebellions, with some paying the ultimate price; and the various monuments around the country do not even begin to tell the stories, many unrecorded, of the desperate courage of men and women who refused to vitiate their humanity to bestiality.
It is through a continuum of sacrifices by heroic antecedents of the Guyanese people that this country finally achieved Independence from Great Britain; which sadly did not confer real freedom to the newly-birthed Guyanese nation, because this country was still held captive to a dictatorship which refused to relinquish its stranglehold on the fledgling nation, with many of the freedom fighters having been locked up in jails even while the instruments of freedom were being conferred to the dictator.
However, the greatest freedom fighter Guyana has ever known, who strategised and led the fight for freedom against colonisation — Dr. Cheddi Jagan — along with a team of loyal and committed patriots, continued relentlessly to pursue true democracy, whereby the peoples of this land could truly celebrate their national identity through cultural diversity on the once common path to peace, progress and prosperity.
The journey was rugged, and the way was filled with the encumbrances of violence meted out to the path-breakers, who sometimes paid with their lives to create a way forward for a pathway on which their descendants could tread with the confidence of a brighter future ahead – if they succeeded.
And succeed they did, but the martyrs are strewn like flowers on that path that led to the lives steeped in democratic freedoms that the current and future generations of Guyanese are enjoying.
The period of June-July marks the season of Guyanese martyrdom. It was during this season that 17-yr-old Jagan Ramessar and father of five, Parmanand Bholanauth, were brutally shot and left to bleed to death when they tried to prevent the hijacking of ballot boxes by members of the Guyana Defence Force during the elections of 1973. This brutal murder is still being defended by then high-ranking officer in the GDF — Burnham’s security advisor, current PNC presidential candidate, and Leader of the Opposition, David Granger, who is adding insult to injury by placing the blame on the victims for their own gruesome and unnecessary murder.
The young and charismatic leader of the Working People’s Alliance, Dr. Walter Rodney, also paid the ultimate price for opposing the dictatorship, with the Guyana Defence Force once more being accused of his murder. And he was merely one of many others, including peaceful Catholic Standard photographer Father Bernard Darke, who was merely taking photographs when he was run down and bayoneted in full public view.
It was in June of 1948 that five sugar workers on the Enmore Estate sacrificed their lives in pursuit of humane working conditions in the industry, which precipitated even greater efforts on the part of an already charged young Dr. Cheddi Jagan on a lifelong course to pursue justice and equity for the overburdened and abused working class people of then British Guiana.
Throughout the decades of much injustice and suffering meted out to him and his supporters, he continued unswervingly to place his beloved country and people in a comfort zone that would guarantee posterity fulfillment of the promise of unity in this nation’s cultural diversity; which would become bridges to strengthen a pathway to progress for the nation, instead of chasms that could lead to a nation being forever divided. And he pursued this dream of freedom and unity in diversity all his life.
What he achieved in the early 1950s is once again fructifying, despite the frantic efforts of those who want to once more divide the people so that they can rule the land with an iron fist.
The PPP/C administration is succeeding in bringing the Guyanese nation together in shared efforts at nation-building, where everyone is a participant in joint community initiatives; which is slowly but surely melding the Guyanese people into a nation with the one common objective being the pursuit of peace, progress and prosperity for all.
But in the various engagements to reach this objective, the peoples of this land must never forget to honour those who have made these achievements possible – the martyrs of Guyana who sacrificed their own welfare and sometimes their lives to carve this pathway to a brighter future for Guyana and the Guyanese people.
ERRATUM: In the August 25 edition of our newspaper, part of the editorial erroneously read: “Thus it was that an education component began whereby black Muslim Brother Abu eventually was in the first batch of students studying for and successfully writing the CSEC exams.”
This was due to faulty editing. It should have read: “Thus it was that an education component, whereby black Muslim Brother Abu began a programme that eventually led to the first batch of students studying for and successfully writing the CSEC Exams.”
Chronicle wishes to apologise to respected educator, Brother Abu for this grave error.
