IDPADA-G Statement in Observance of EMANCIPATION
As we mark 188 years since Emancipation, IDPADA-G calls on the African Guyanese community to ponder where we are today in relation to our status when our ancestors walked through the plantation gates in 1838 to chants of freedom. At that time, we could not go home to Africa – – the colonizers had brutally stripped us of our links to the motherland – no memory of name, language, family ties. We were of this new land – we had no other home.
In this new home, at the dawn of Emancipation, we had a vision of owning the land, building communities, and taking our rightful place as the builders of this land.
We were confident in our power to create because we are descendants of a great people. We were the first humans to walk this earth – over 300,000 years before any other people – and Africans developed the first civilizations. We were the builders of the great pyramids and temples of Egypt and the towering empires of Songhai, Mali, Ghana, and many more. That ancestral knowledge inspired us. We purchased abandoned plantations in 1839 and began the work of nation-building, creating governance structures to form the first villages of this land.
But just as Haitians who fought and won their freedom have had their economy brutally crushed by the slave-holding societies of Europe and North America, the British did all in their power to crush the African spirit of entrepreneurship and our drive to lead the creation of this as our new home.
The anti-black playbook that stripped us of our culture, crushed our entrepreneurial spirit, which created and ingrained negative stereotypes of who we are continues effectively today. Recent events have put a negative spotlight on African Guyanese in a way reminiscent of the most revolting of the colonial past. The message is clear – our students are failing, while others are striding to the top of the class; our public servants, regardless of the broken tools given, are responsible for the nation’s worst maritime tragedy.
IDPADA-G calls on African Guyanese to take this time to reflect on where we stand on this Emancipation Day. We must question whether we have truly achieved the Emancipation our ancestors envisioned. And we must unite to achieve true emancipation, reclaim our glorious past, and create a brighter future in this country, whose foundation was built on our labour and talent.
