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Both the 1763 Monument and the role of Cuffy have come in for serious criticism by some sections of the Guyanese population. Many persons consider that a monument expressive of a national personality (or what we may call the soul of a nation) should reflect some consensus on what it should be like. In other words, the public should be consulted in some way before action is taken. Failure to do so has resulted in great division in several countries, including some Caribbean ones.
This is true, for instance, of the statue of The Mighty Sparrow, erected in Trinidad in 2001. It is even more so of the first statue erected to Bob Marley in Jamaica in 1983 (which was pelted with stones and fruits at its unveiling); and of the highly controversial statue, titled Redemption Song, located in Emancipation Park in the heart of Kingston since 2003. This last statue depicts two starkly naked black persons (a male and a female) just emerging from a pool of water.
Apart from their appearance, public approaches to the few monuments in the Caribbean have been quite varied for a number of reasons. First, people have not generally been taught to appreciate the significance of monuments in the same way as, for example, Europeans. Thus there is generally a striking indifference to the issue of monuments, and this attitude often pervades even the highest echelons of our society; for instance, our leaders in Government, many of whom seem not to recognize the urgency or even necessity of erecting monuments to the victims of colonialism.
Second, and partly as a result of the first observation, people often do not see the need to invest what they see as scarce financial resources in the erection of a structure that is seen as more symbolic than functional; and the leaders appear at times to be afraid that the public would criticise them for “wasting” scarce resources, rather than spending them on roads, buildings, transport, health and so forth.
In the context of Guyana, the situation is compounded by the fact that — especially since the late 1950s, and certainly by the early 1960s — the two main ethnic groups have been jostling each other for political, social and cultural precedence.
Clearly, this has acted as a constraint in identifying and honouring historical and present-day national personalities in ways in which they deserve; although, in the case of Cuffy, the leaders of the Peoples Progressive Party and the Peoples National Congress have agreed to acclaim him as the nation’s first national hero.
While some Guyanese question his elevation to national hero status because of his procrastination in waging an all-out war against his enslavers, and his action in burying the gunpowder immediately prior to his suicide, we must realise that Atta and other insurgents accorded him full honours at his burial.
To quote Anna Cameron, writing in 2007, “Despite this, the revolutionaries honoured him with the burial of a great chief, and killed two Whites on his grave.” She goes as far as to assert that “The 1763 Uprising still stands as one of the most remarkable events of West Indian history, and Governor Cuffy (sic) as one of the region’s most outstanding leaders.”
In 1988, Dr Cheddi Jagan and Mr Moses Nagamootoo produced a statement on the 150th anniversary of Emancipation, in which they declared:
“In the face of great odds, superior forces and arms, our early revolutionaries proved they could not easily be intimidated. Leaders such as Cuffy in Berbice, Quamina in Demerara and Damon in Essequibo laid down their lives in heroic struggles for freedom.”
In 2002, President Bharrat Jagdeo is reported to have stated: “Guyana has the honour in the history of this hemisphere of holding the first successful slave rebellion which overthrew the Dutch, and [the insurgents] were in control of [Berbice for] over a year before (the rebellion) was brutally and ruthlessly smashed.”
Without debating the accuracy of these statements, I have cited them to indicate that it is possible for leaders to span the historical and ethnic divides that have existed for some time over the question of national heroes.
As I have intimated above, it is not only those who have struggled against slavery who deserve to be honoured in visual and other ways by the nation, regardless of their ethnic or ideological stance. We should welcome images of Trade Unionist Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow and former President Forbes Burnham. I consider it also imperative to honour Dr. Cheddi Jagan and Mr Richard Ishmael in a very prominent place in the capital city.
An airport and a building in Dr Jagan’s name are fine, but they do not tell the story of his struggle to achieve freedom and promote progress and dignity among the Guyanese people in the way it ought to be told.
The importance of statues is that they “stand in your face,” you simply cannot ignore them; and because of this circumstance, both locals and foreigners have to recognize their existence and often ask about the contributions that the persons depicted have made to the nation.
But it is not only important to erect them; we need to maintain them in good repair. The sad reality is that a number of the statues to nationalist leaders in the regions are being neglected: Some of them have become garbage dumps, while birds (those denizens of the air and trees) leave copious droppings on them, which are only cleaned when a downpour of rain occurs.
There are several other ways to honour and retain in our consciousness the sacrifices and achievements of our chief political, educational, scientific, cultural, sports and other personalities.
Thompson was born in Kitty in 1942. He is of Barbadian and Guyanese lineage. Having been educated at Presidents College, he entered the School of African and Oriental Studies in 1965, and returned to the University of Guyana in 1969 to hold a lecture post.
In 1972, he became a lecturer at the University of the West Indies, and attained seniority in the post from 1977. In 2001, he attained professor status; and from 2008 to present, he has been holding the title of Professor Emeritus.
His Books include: The Haunting Past: Politics, Economics and Race in Caribbean Life (1997); Unprofitable Servants: Crown Slaves in Berbice (2002); Economic Parasitism: European Rule in West Africa 1880-1960 (2006); Flight to Freedom: African Runaways and Maroons in the Americas (2006); Confronting Slavery: Breaking through the Corridors of Silence (2010).
His scholarly achievements include: Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation Award for Research in Ghana, July–August 1977; Fulbright Senior Scholar Award, tenable at the Research Institute for Study of Man; Principals Award for Excellence, U.W.I Cave Hill Campus, 2005; Vice-Chancellors Award for University-wide Excellence; Lifetime Award from the U.W.I press, and many more.
