By Hubert Williams (Please note that this was written in October 2011)
Boston, Massachusetts, October 30, 2011 — I wouldn’t have thought that it mattered very much. Or that anyone would bother to notice. That was until I visited New York to participate in family celebrations over the Labour holiday weekend.
Godfrey Wray, a journalism colleague from way back and now based in the “Big Apple”, remarked on the absence of writings by me on political, social and economic developments in Guyana.
With music blaring close by and the chatter of guests around us, conversation could only be sketchy. Eventually, it was limited to our personal activities, his wonderfully well- presented first novel “Beyond Revenge”, and the unfolding ‘crushObama’ frenzy on the American political landscape. Continue reading →
Poison preferred method of suicide in Guyana
Photo Credit: Guyana Chronicle
In his article, “Guyana’s breakdown is connected to our high suicide rate,” published in Kaieteur News on February 6, 2016, Freddie Kissoon posits that an underlying cause of Guyana’s alarming suicide rate is “the political pessimism that has dogged this country since Independence.” Bear in mind that the controversial columnist, a former social science university lecturer, has been highly critical of the former ruling East Indian left-wing political party (1992-2015).
A small developing Caribbean nation with a declining population of less than 750,000 people (Census 2012), Guyana topped the chart of the World Health Organization’s 2014 report on suicide worldwide, based on data for the year 2012. With a suicide rate of 44.2 per 100,000 persons, Guyana beat South Korea (28.9) and Sri Lanka (28.8). At the time, Guyana’s health authority claimed a much lower rate…
Opposition coalition lashes back at PPP attacks in Queens, New York
Sunday, 22 March 2015 23:38 – Written by Denis Scott Chabrolm- Demerara Waves
The coalition appeared to have deliberately targeted its message to the predominantly East Indo-Guyanese community in Queens, New York who have been traditional backers of the incumbent PPPC.
Assurances- although not entirely watertight- that A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) would not kick out the Alliance For Change (AFC) from the coalition on winning the May 11, 2015 election were given against the background that the PPPC has been claiming that there would be a repeat of the PNC had booting the United Force (UF) four years after coalescing in 1964. “It will work my friends. We have to make it work. This is not about us. It is about you. This is what you want….National unity is now on the cards,” Nagamootoo told more than 300 mainly Indo-Guyanese. Continue reading →
“Hot cross buns-hot cross buns-one a penny-two a penny-hot cross buns,” my dad would sing, with an air of nostalgia reminiscing about Eastertime in Guyana. On Good Friday, an Afro-Guyanese woman would walk down the road singing the tune, with fresh buns in a basket on her head, distributing to her Rose Hall Town neighbors in remembrance of Jesus’ crucifixion.
My dad and his family are Hindu. His weekly chore as a child was to offer prayers and flowers in the murthi-laden mandir built in their backyard. Yet my dad and numerous other Hindus attended Sunday school, where they learned and recited the Psalms in the Bible. When I saw my parents close their eyes and state the “Our Father” at my junior high school graduation Mass, I was taken aback by them, the very individuals who taught me the popular Hindu prayer “Twameva Mata.” Continue reading →
The Bake Shop on Liberty Avenue sells addictive sweets. The Little Guyana strip of Queens runs from 104th to 130th Street. (Ray Cavanaugh)
Nobody told me about Little Guyana, a mile-plus-long stretch in the Richmond Hill neighborhood of Queens where the residents are Indian but sound like Bob Marley when they speak.
I discovered it by accident when I fell asleep on the A train, passed up my intended destination and was awakened by a fellow passenger telling me that the train had reached its last stop. The people here, known as Indo-Guyanese, are mainly descendants of indentured servants who were recruited from India (often by deceptive tactics) to work on the sugar plantations of present-day Guyana — formerly known as British Guiana — starting in 1838, when the British abolished black slavery in their colonies. Continue reading →
Gender, Ethnicity and Place: Women and Identities in Guyana – (Routledge Studies in Development and Society)
Linda Peake and D. Alissa Trotz
This book is concerned with the nature of the relationship between gender, ethnicity and poverty in the context of the external and internal dynamics of households in Guyana.
Using detailed data collected from male and female respondents in three separate locations, two urban and one rural, and across two major ethnic groups, Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese, the authors discuss the links between gender and race, exploring development issues from a feminist perspective.
The El Dorado Complex in the Shaping of Indo-Guyanese: A Revisionist Perspective
by CLEM SEECHARAN
Emeritus Professor of History, London Metropolitan University
In February 1594 Sir Robert Dudley made inquiries about the rumoured Empire of Guiana…He sent a small boat to investigate and its crew returned, after great hardships, to say that the natives had told them of goldmines so rich that the people of the country powdered themselves with gold-dust. Michael Swan (1957)
Guyana has alwaysbeen a land of fantasy. It was the land of El Dorado…. V.S. Naipaul (1991)
Guyana, for all its independence and its symbols of nationhood, has never been a closely-knit society…the ethnic divide made this almost impossible. There is hatred between the various ethnic groups with the darkest of the races being reserved for the greatest hatred. Leader, Kaieteur News, 6 February 2014 Continue reading →
The World Health Organisation says global suicide rates have increased by 60 per cent over the past 45 years.
In the tiny South American nation of Guyana, one in every 4,000 people end their own lives, the highest rate in the continent.
Guyana a country situated on the main land of South America has been reported to have the highest suicide rates in the entire continent of South America, and one of the highest in the world. These rates rank high among the Indo-Guyanese Population. There has been a tradition of suicides through hanging and drinking of pesticides.
However, it has not been acknowledged as a social problem until recently when religious groups and community workers decided to intervene by providing counseling. Speculations are that the economic pressures among religious contractions pertaining to courtships and marriage are the major causes.
Importantly, Guyana is the poorest nation in South America with its dollar being 200G =1US for over a decade now. Despite ecotourism industry, bauxite, gold and diamond mining sugar and rice exports there has been very little economic progress toward lowering the value of its dollar. As such, the cost of living is some 300% higher than the average income of the highest paid professional. (comment from Vauldine – Allvoices. Miami Florida)
In today’s Guyana, the curry-favor, the disparities, the discrimination, the prejudices and the race-baiting, has to be stopped. The trajectory of a collective and cooperative people has been eroded. One group is stashing more and more and the whole country is getting less and less, getting worse and worse as the tenor of humanity devolves and dwindles.
There is an outward appearance of success but an inner hunger for equity and equality. Indo Guyanese have been slipping through the porous borders with their ill gotten gains and the blacks are dissuaded from playing a meaningful role in nation building. Traditionally, they have been the public servants, technicians, artists and artisans. Their Indian counterparts, historically, had the option of farming and repatriating their funds to their homeland.
Today, the homeland has changed and it is every other place outside of Guyana. Continue reading →
Recap of the ‘evidence’ – by the Kissoon defense team in the Jagdeo vs Kissoon Libel Case
Here is a recap of the ‘evidence’ presented so far by the Kissoon defense team in the libel case brought by President Bharrat Jagan against Frederick Kissoon, a columnist at Kaieteur News.
President Jagdeo claims that the accusations of discrimination by him and his government against Afro-Guyanese were incorrect and libelous. The defense submitted a UNHR Report by Gay McDougall as an analysis that backed up Kissoon’s claims. They also listed a number of “facts” – (see list below). Continue reading →
Linda Peake and D. Alissa Trotz
THE AFRO-INDO DIVIDE IN GUYANA – By Hubert Williams
THE AFRO-INDO DIVIDE IN GUYANA
By Hubert Williams (Please note that this was written in October 2011)
Godfrey Wray, a journalism colleague from way back and now based in the “Big Apple”, remarked on the absence of writings by me on political, social and economic developments in Guyana.
With music blaring close by and the chatter of guests around us, conversation could only be sketchy. Eventually, it was limited to our personal activities, his wonderfully well- presented first novel “Beyond Revenge”, and the unfolding ‘crush Obama’ frenzy on the American political landscape. Continue reading →
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