Dear Editor,
Amidst the inevitable, understandable deluge of opinions, analyses, advice and projections relevant to our politics and our “new” government, I thank you for allowing me to share the following few relative “digressions” and diversions.
How bitterly unfortunate that two diverse stalwarts missed the welcome victory over the dark days of five “selfish” months and the installation of hope; of another formal government. I refer to PPP/C M.P. and late trade union leader Komal Chand and the departed Owen Seymour Arthur – the Barbadian quiet dignified icon. (Even the PNC’s ferocious character-assassins were forced to spare Owen Arthur their low-life ammunition).
Couldn’t the new administration assist Arthur’s Guyanese relatives here to attend Friday’s Bajan farewell in Bridgetown? Would be a necessary magnanimous gesture.
At last! At last! Some group of hinterland citizens have finally joined A. A. Fenty in quiet – albeit determined – rejection of the historical misnomer “Amerindian”! Over decades I have expressed my own dislike for the term which was birthed when European explorers mistakenly believed that they had come upon India – the Asian sub-continent territory. “The “discovered” earliest inhabitants – as a result of the socio-geographical error – were therefore later deemed to be the “Indians” of America (South) – Amer-Indians! How humorously funny! And condescending!
The late social/cultural anthropologist Desrey Fox and I – over some strong, very strong drink at a Campbellville oasis years ago – had a robust enlightening “debate” over the “Amerindian” description. We agreed that “Amerindian” should go. She used something like “nations”. We disagreed even over “indigenous” for, as the drinks settled into my being, I told the then Minister that “indigenous” refers to those “produced by, growing or living naturally in a particular, specific region; native, originating in a place.”
I argued that “Amerindians” were really from Asia’s Mongolia who trekked over to the Americas; that they too were “arrivals” to early Guiana. That’s why I embrace my preference for First People. They were first to arrive on these Guyana lands. However, I applaud the group now rejecting “Amerindian”.
Earlier this year I was invited to be a guest contributor to the yearly arts-and-culture magazine – the Guyana Annual. Because the publication’s major theme this year is Guyanese folklore. Now I insist that I’m no trained folklorist, but it was pointed out that locally I am among few – if not actually alone – who persist in promoting, even preserving various aspects of Guyanese folkloric culture – its practices and traditions. Indeed I still – on radio, on television, in publications – produce and present folk-culture productions.
Amidst all the politics and pandemics, I hold that as Guyanese products and citizens, we should learn about and hold high the wisdoms and behaviours of our original folk (s). Recall that we were all once “villagers” before urban towns attracted us from rural places?
We can like our Caribbean brothers’ Jamaican music and even pretend to speak like Americans – some of our minds have migrated permanently, it seems – but we were born here. Let’s celebrate our Guyanese identity daily. And some doses of rich folklore would be a needed tonic. Assist and welcome the 2020 Guyana Annual.
(Incidentally, I wonder what the new Ministry of Culture has in store for us?)
Yours faithfully,
Allan Arthur Fenty
