Dear Editor
I BELIEVE the time has come to call a spade a spade. By this I mean that the nation of Guyana must understand that people of African ancestry (black people) have just as much ability as any other ethnic group to efficiently get involved in large scale business.

First, I want to point out that after slavery was abolished in 1834, the then slaves, who were all black people, had money, which they put together to purchase land. The history of land ownership in Guyana supports this contention, and the money which the former slaves had owned was obtained from throwing ‘box hand’.

However, black people were not able to succeed in farming because they were not able to get proper drainage and irrigation. The reason for this is that the owners of the sugar estates, who were close to the colonial government at the time, deliberately did not want these people to succeed in farming, since they had left the sugar estates and Indian labour had to be imported.

Black people have always been intelligent people, and so they decided that, instead of farming, they would encourage their children to become educated, and in doing so, many became teachers, some professionals, and others civil servants. This resulted in black children leaving their villages to live in the city and elsewhere, wherever they were employed.

Over the years, the land of their foreparents became abandoned, and up to today, this younger generation is trying to regain title to their inheritance.

I say all of this so that young black people could understand why their parents are not in big business. It is not because of their inability to do business, but because of a deliberate effort in earlier years to prevent them from succeeding.

Now that we have a coalition government, which is striving to achieve good for all the people of Guyana, I hereby encourage young black men and women to become focused and concentrate on getting involved in business activities.
In 1947, when I was still at primary school in New Amsterdam, Berbice, I can recall several religious folks from India visiting Guyana and encouraging their followers to own land. When you own land, you own the country.

As I travel to work each day, using public transportation, I can hear people talk that because there is a new government, things will get better. However, I want to point out that you better start to own businesses and land. We must stop pulling down one another.

Regards,
JONAS M.F. CODDETT