There are some things in this country that cause me to shake my head in disbelief. On Emancipation Day, a day sacred to people of African heritage, the PPP Government could think of, finalize, and push ahead with plans that do more dividing than unifying. If there is anyone who could justify a competing Emancipation Day event sponsored by the PPP Government, then they are in a special category of Guyanese unknown to me. To hold it closer than a stone’s throw from an annual event hosted for decades by the African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA) of Guyana is more than insulting, it is incendiary. May sober heads prevail. What the PPP Government is about to do on Emancipation Day is as close to sacrilegious as can be on what is held as a sacred day by African Guyanese, and their brethren all over.
My understanding is that the Malteenoes Sports Club ground is the venue selected for where high voltage imported entertainers will perform for those bussed in from outlying areas. To hold it so close to ACDA’s celebrations can only have one objective: to provide a naked exhibition of who has the money, who has the power, and who among those in the African-Guyanese community will step forward and deliver according to plan. History has always had them, and history has not been kind to them.
If another objective is to overwhelm with volume and put in place, then I think it is so much time and resources and effort put to waste. How does any of this from the minds in the PPP Government, and through the hands of its agents, lift or expand One Guyana? How does this competing celebration give energy, life, and sustaining power to any element of President Ali’s One Guyana mantra is beyond me. It may be exhilarating for a few hot hours on Thursday, August 1st, but it also possesses all the ingredients of what is self-defeating.
It is preferable to see honest energies expended to foster what gives a chance to knit and heal this ruptured society. From the pinnacle of power in Guyana to the people who represent manifestations of that power on the ground, of what utility is such a show? To prove who has got what it takes, who can and will do anything that they wish? I am still struggling about the PPP sponsored event is of any value to visions of One Guyana. Perhaps, the real objective is more than One Guyana.  The intellectual masterminds behind this event (the competing celebration at the Malteenoes Ground) may convince themselves that it is a show of forcefulness and resourcefulness.
There is something that could be said for those. But I also discern what is nothing but a flaunting of foolishness and flimsiness. Emancipation Day is too precious to the African Guyanese community for the ugly and profaning politics of this country to intrude on it, make a football out of its rare hours. If I have it right, ACDA has made it a point over the decades to issue official invitations to both the government and opposition. I think that it is a standard that speaks for itself, has much to recommend it re inclusivity. All politicians in Guyana should have an appreciative nod.  I think that Emancipation Day, like Diwali, or any of the days of Eid, or Good Friday, provides an opportunity for all Guyanese to respect such profound days and the dignity of those who celebrate them. There is an extraordinary transcendence in those times of sharing, and none should tamper with it.
If it is so vital that the PPP Government hold its own Emancipation Day event/festivity, then the care and courtesy of holding it at a more distant location should feature prominently in such considerations. Why does it have to be right next door, almost in the face? What good is served by that choice, what good could be expected to result from such a gesture that has all the components of a foundation built on the spiteful and retaliatory. I wish that the PPP Government would learn. Exercises of this kind fail in breaking either the back or spirit or will of those targeted and squeezed. The objects, be they organizational or breathing and thinking, only become more dogged in resistance to what is seen through for what it is. Another obscenity, another uncalled-for instance of thoughtlessness and deep-seated maliciousness.
To President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo, I urge self-emancipation from this way of thinking. To continue to speak in solemnly expansive and inclusive terms in public has lost value and standing, has become the ultimate in hypocrisy. A competing PPP Government Emancipation Day event is proof beyond dispute. To think of such, then deposit it right in the craw of the vintage ACDA celebration of a day sacred to African Guyanese damages and divides this country some more. It undermines board by board, and citizen by citizen, any genuine intentions by the president towards the harmoniousness and oneness that he preaches. A torn asunder Guyanese society desperately needs authentic leadership, respectful leadership, healing leadership. Emancipation Day inspires such graces.
