By Norma Whittaker, former Minister of Local Government

ON the occasion of Emancipation Day 2023, I send greetings to all my fellow Guyanese, and, more so, the descendants of the African slaves.

And while some may care only for the holiday with little or no concern about the significance and meaning of the holiday, I invite you to consider and to focus not only on the holiday (August 01, 2023), but also to reflect on what this day means or is intended to mean for all Guyanese.

August 01, 2023 marks 185 years since the approximately 82,000 slaves in then British Guiana were freed by an Act of the British Parliament passed in 1833.
While the Act ‘kicked’ into force in 1834, there was a six-year apprenticeship period (reduced to four years) to allow for the slaves to be transitioned into a money economy i.e. they’d be paid for their labour during that time.

History records that, in the immediate post slavery period, most of the ex-slaves removed from the plantation to fend for themselves. Our history books record that some of them pooled their savings during this apprenticeship period and bought up abandoned plantations and launched what we call the Village Movement.

I mention these things to draw attention to the importance of the immediate post-slavery period and the meaning/significance behind the Emancipation Day we celebrate annually.
Let us see today as providing opportunity for us to consider: To what extent are we indeed free? And if indeed we are not, let us take time to consider where we are as individuals and collectively as a race/as a nation in this process of emancipating ourselves; more so, in terms of the way we think; for no one can really declare us free.

Let us together view the occasion as a very important national event. More than that, Emancipation must be viewed and observed for what it is here in Guyana – a National Event, A universal event of significance which ought to involve all of us.
My friends, recall that Emancipation Day was declared a national holiday for the first time on August 01, 1994. It has since grown into a major festival in which tens of thousands of people of various ethnicities in our country participate in various activities across our country.
Comrades! Friends! Slavery represents one of the worst examples of man’s inhumanity to man. And so, even as we commemorate 189 years since the abolition of slavery in 1834, let our voices of dissent and criticism be heard as we condemn those who continually preach the ‘Gospel’ of race in our country.

Those recalcitrant people are indeed guilty of continually trying to drive a wedge between the two major races in our country and could not have the good of our country, and its people at heart.
We need to stop focusing on our perceived differences and focus on what we have in common, and the common goals we seek to attain; for the major races of Guyana share cultural and historical connections and similarities.

History records that it was the so called civilized, the early Europeans, who asserted that Africans were not civilized and who consequentially captured and enslaved them in the name of civilization… one of the worst examples of man’s inhumanity to man.
I am not suggesting or saying we must allow ancestral traditions to die. To the contrary, we need to reject divisions which are driven by fear and embrace cultural differences.

And so my friends, I encourage you to, once more, get involved and participate in the various Emancipation activities across our dear Land of Guyana.
These would undoubtedly include, cultural programmes aimed at informing the Guyanese people about slavery; African drumming, dancing, masquerade bands and traditional calypso; learning of the history of various villages across Guyana; display of African attire; African dishes viz: metemgee, foo foo, drinks like mauby, crafts, and artwork.

Let Tuesday August 01, “Emancipation Day”, serve to remind us all that this nation was founded/rooted on slavery. We have come a long way since that time.