Historical frauds

Historical frauds

We never thought that we’d ever be in agreement with Lincoln Lewis. But how could you disagree with the following assessment over the nasty and opportunistic game the opposition elements are playing with the placement of the 1823 Monument? “…it is disgusting and disturbing that this country is again caught up in racial conflict that has the potential of creating animosity when none ought to exist in the first instance.”
The crucial question, of course, is why we have all this storm and fury by WPA elements such as David Hinds, AFC leader-in-waiting Nigel Hughes and all the usual suspects – ultimately supported by Lincoln Lewis? What are the facts? This government wants to construct a monument to the slave uprising of 1823 – the largest such uprising in Guyana. Is that a bad thing in this UN-declared International Year of African peoples?
No? So what’s the problem? The opposition provocateurs in our midst are looking for another issue to bring out the people into the streets in violent protests.  Last time around, after the Linden shootings David wanted Buxtonians to block the East Coast public road and even dig it up. Buxton, he declared, can teach the people of Guyana how to dig up roads. Such has become the legacy of the village that launched the village movement in Guyana!
Fact of the matter is that the 1823 Revolt occurred on the East Coast – it never spread to any part of Georgetown. It begun right in the Bethel Church at Le Ressouvenir where the reprobate David Hinds called for “for heightened activism” to take the agitation “as a form of civil disobedience and mobilisation of African Guyanese”. They want to site the monument at Parade Grounds – where some of the rebels were executed and their heads displayed on pikes.
On the other hand the minister of culture’s team – using eminently sensible criteria:, “adequate land space; visibility and accessibility of monument; availability of parking space for vehicles; and a connection to the East Coast Demerara” – settled on Carifesta Avenue which has that nexus to the East Coast. Why else but cussedness and provocation would the opposition want to put a monument at the place where the rebels were degraded? Isn’t it better that they’re closer to the site of their heroic deeds?
Or is it because Parade Ground was the site where Burnham and D’Aguiar first spoke on a common platform to oust the PPP in violent protests that took dozens of lives?

Racism redux
But the nastiest piece of racist division was the declaration that the African Guyanese are the only “true descendants” of the rebels – and only they should decide on the site. Wasn’t the leader of the rebels the white Reverend Smith? And what happened to ‘one people, one nation, one destiny’? Why do we allow these people only try to divide our country?
We thought the legacy of slavery and indentureship was a Guyanese one. Lewis wrote ringingly, “The lived experiences of every group in this society gives us our unique culture of oneness (Guyanese) and the honest weaving of these diverse tapestries help in the building of one nation where together we recognise a shared destiny, i.e. our wellbeing are intertwined by virtue of the land we share, the respect shown to each other, and the laws we must all adhere to.”
Is the call of those that oppose the monument and claim that it is only the patrimony of African Guyanese creating “a shared destiny”? But Lewis reveals his true form when he says, the government – not the opposition – “use(s) race as a wedge in this society”?

Double-speak and gobbledygook
Basil Williams claimed that the Local Government is not accurate to say that APNU has delayed the local government legislation. Really? He goes on to admit, however that the matter has languished in the Special Committee headed by himself!