FORMER People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Member of Parliament (MP), Mr. Isahack Basir has embarked on a series of lectures, at secondary schools and other institutions in Region Two (Pomeroon/Supenaam), on the significance of the United Nations resolution declaring 2011 as the Year of Peoples of African Descent, globally. He said fourth and fifth formers will be given the historical background to relate to other groups in their respective communities.
Basir, who has a daughter living in Ethiopia, said much history about the slave trade is distorted.
According to him, prior to the year 1420, when the pilgrims occupied North America and, systematically, drove out Indians, the continent of Africa was not under slavery.
Basir said the Europeans of North America and England, the Dutch and Portuguese were able to fool the large groups of free people in Africa and enslave them in the various countries.
He said, in South America, there were nine territories which built their super structures on slave labour.
Free Africans became suspicious when their ancestors did not return and, as such, the slave traders and their agents had to use coercive methods to capture freed people, keep them in dungeons, chained, to pacify their anger or prevent them from committing suicide, Basir stated.
Noting that his grandmother came from India in 1885, he said she had practical relations with freed slaves and children of former slaves.
Basir said the entire super structure for agriculture in Guyana was constructed with slave labour and, in Essequibo, many landmarks created by slave labour are still noticeable. One such, he said, is the Cheddi Jagan Biodiversity Park, situated West of Anna Regina at Lima Sands, where a high dam of sand was built.
He declared:“In Guyana, we have failed to establish the institutions to propagate the contributions of the post-slavery population as well their complementary contributions for the survival of indentured Indians.”