We need to pay attention to the ‘truths’ of our history

Emancipation 2016 is here. And 2016 is Guyana’s Jubilee year. There is much to reflect on.

The Guyana Reparations Committee wishes all Guyanese a wonderful Emancipation holiday and hopes there is much reflection during the day as we seek a ‘just society’ which is socially cohesive and which is underpinned by economic, political, cultural, ethnic and social inclusion.

It was the great James Baldwin of Notes from a Native Son and The Fire next Time fame, and who was born on 2 August 1924, who wrote “The past is what makes the present coherent and the past will remain horrible for exactly as long as we refuse to assess it honestly.”

James Baldwin was actually speaking to Guyanese whose history has been manipulated and distorted for political and economic reasons, and to justify slavery. The crime against humanity (African humanity) will never be forgotten as its legacies of racism and social inequality will be around for a very long time. In Guyana, we particularly need to pay attention to the ‘truths’ of our history. We have too many narratives of our history. The distortions are many and purposeful.

The enslavement of Africans did not begin in Guyana in the 1600s or when Columbus came to these parts in 1492 (the beginning of Indigenous genocide in these parts although Guyana’s tribes did not suffer such a fate.) The enslavement of Africans began when Portuguese seamen first landed in Africa in the fourth decade of the fifteenth century. From the outset they seized Africans and shipped them to Europe. In 1441 ten Africans were kidnapped from the Guinea coast and taken to Portugal as gifts for Prince Henry the Navigator. In subsequent expeditions to the West African coast, inhabitants were taken and shipped to Portugal to be sold as servants and objects of curiosity to households. In the Portuguese port of Lagos, where the first African slaves landed in 1442, the old slave market now serves as an art gallery.

In 1442, Pope Eugene IV gave the Portuguese the right to explore Africa. The Portuguese attempted to protect their findings from the Spanish, who were beginning to explore Africa contemporaneously. At that time, part of Spain was occupied by a Muslim power and the Catholic Church felt threatened. Protecting the church, Pope Nicholas V in 1452 gave the right to enslave anyone who was not practising the Christian religion, known as the Dum Diversas.

Emancipation was fought for with blood and tears. Witness the Monuments of Defiance of the 1763 Slave Rebellion, the 1823 Demerara Rebellion, and Damon in Essequibo.

Emancipation is why Guyana is celebrating itself as a nation of 6 Peoples. Without the humanization of the swamps of the Guyana coastlands for over 200 years and with the loss of 450,000 African lives, there would be no Guyana of 6 peoples. As a matter of fact, if the British had treated the freed Africans with dignity and fairness in 1834, the Guyana of 1966, the year of Independence would have seen a nation of 3 Peoples and with a fundamentally different ownership of the economy. In essence, Guyana today would be essentially a nation of Amerindians and Africans who would have owned most of the businesses and who today would be the inheritors of oil and all the wealth in this beautiful nation of ours.

This is why denying the descendants of Africans in Guyana their just reparations in terms of lands is simply another ‘crime against humanity’ by those who came after them and by those who disproportionally benefit today from the murder of 450,000 Africans.

Morality would indicate that those in Guyana against reparations are indeed perpetuating the ‘crime against humanity’ by opposing reparations. Our parliamentarians need to check their consciences when this is placed in front of them. History will record their votes and ‘We the People’ will know them by their votes.

The Guyana Reparations Committee has sent its claim and a request for a parliamentary resolution to the Attorney General Basil Williams. We await his action and a debate in Parliament.

I do hope that this Emancipation period will help our historians to present Guyana with a correct narrative of our history. There should be a committee, perhaps led by Professor Clem Seecharan to perform this very necessary task. The Father of the Nation designation should not be desecrated by ethnic needs. History has recorded the facts in blood, sweat and tears.

The Father of the Nation is an AfroGuyanese. Politics or racial incitement will not change this historical fact. This and other truths need to be settled with honour, dignity and historical facts. Those who want to prevent Guyana from moving forward must be rejected.

Emancipation is the most important holiday on the Guyanese calendar. It is the nexus of all of us being in Guyana.

Emancipation is about the idea of freedom, inalienable rights and justice. Emancipation is about nationhood and about the fundamental rights of economic, political, ethnic, cultural, religious and social inclusion. In Freedom Yours faithfully, Eric M Phillips Chair The Guyana Reparations Committee