Permit me to share some thoughts on a most distasteful episode in Guyanese history. There is an African quote which states “When two brother fight, the stranger inherits their land”. This ancestral wisdom seems to have been not understood and will lead African Guyanese down the slippery slope of self-destruction.
People of African Descent in Guyana and the Caribbean are surprised and angered at the deliberate attempt to negatively impact ACDA’s 31st Annual Emancipation Day Event by the one-year-old Association of People of African Descent (APAD).
This relatively new organisation claims it is hosting its Emancipation Event in direct competition with ACDA, because it wants to bring unity to the African community. This claim is so preposterous that is offends the spirit and is surpassed only by the organization’s frontal dishonesty and lack of any form of integrity.
Offering a free simultaneous Emancipation Event just 30 yards away from ACDA’s family-oriented event to honor our African ancestors on this most sacred day is a willful act of disrespect to all Guyanese. Isn’t this act the same as if another group representing Indian culture hosting an event next door to the Memorial Gardens where the Indian Arrival Committee annually has their commemoration.
When self-respect is traded for financial or political gain on the most sacred day for People of African Descent in the global diaspora, it reminds one of Frantz Fanon’s books entitled “Wretched of the Earth”.
When I think of Emancipation Day in Guyana, I think of not only African Descendants in Guyana, I think of our Indian, Portuguese and Chinese Indentured Descendants, I think of our Indigenous First Peoples, how we come together at the Guyana National Park to unite in honouring those enslaved Africans who fought and died for their freedom, our freedom. We come together to celebrate their final victory.
We come together with our children, grandchildren, our friends and family. We come together, meeting new people, enjoying the sights and sounds, and buying treats and artefacts from local vendors who come from around Guyana to impart knowledge of a culture lost but not forgotten.
For the last 31 years, the African Cultural & Development Association (ACDA) has made these experiences and memories happen. Memories and experiences that cannot be replaced by any price tag or lack of it.
It is difficult to read the minds and souls of those running an organization that willfully desecrates a sacred day because all it will lead to is ancestral karma and a slippery slope of self-marginalization. Here are some facts.
Fact #1: APAD was formed by Shaun Allicock, the husband of Minister of Commerce, Oneidge Walrond. I know this to be true because I was invited to the first meeting.
Fact 2#: APAD was launched in August 2023, a year ago, by Minister Kwame McKoy and Minister Oneidge Walrond.
Fact#3: The organization claims it is funded from the pockets of its African Partner organizations and that the Malteenoes ground, directly opposite ACDA’s Family Event, was the cheapest ground it could afford. This leads to the question of how they could afford Warrior King from Jamaica who is scheduled to perform at this free event.
Summary
Many African Guyanese have reached the conclusion that APAD has been created as competition to the International Decade of People of African Descent Guyana Assembly (IPADAG) and hence its name is so transparently registered. Of course, IPADAG’s recent conflict with the government of Guyana was very public at the United Nations in New York and Geneva at events held by the Permanent Forum for People of African Descent. Why this organisation would target ACDA is another question.
Needless to say, very few individuals and organizations in Guyana and the Caribbean believe APAD’s story and that the event is to unify Africans in Guyana.
Is this the unity APAD members will teach their children and grandchildren”?
Zora Neale Hurston once said, “If you are silent about your pain, they will kill you and say you enjoyed it”.
This frontal attack on ACDA on Emancipation Day is a classless and unapologetic strategy to create disunity within the African Community on its most sacred day.
One wonders if they understand ancestral karma. It will fail because of its lack of authenticity. It dishonours our ancestors and is soulless, gutless and disrespectful to all Guyanese seeking a better country.
Eric Phillips
Chairman of the Guyana Reparations Committee
Vice Chair, Caricom Reparations Commission
