…populace?
The word “woke” was officially added into the Oxford English Dictionary as an adjective in June 2017. Just two years before, the hip Urban Dictionary had defined it thusly: “being woke means being aware… knowing what’s going on in the community (related to racism and social injustice)”. But decades before, it was part of the argot of Black America (like “hip”!) in Harlem. It reached the attention of the wider America when the NY Times mentioned it in 1962. So, the word and its connotations come out of the Civil Rights struggle in the USA.
In 1972, this connection was made explicit when a character in the play “Garvey Lives!” said: “I been sleeping all my life. And now that Mr Garvey done woke me up, I’m gon stay woke. And I’m gon’ help him wake up other black folk”. Since then, the word has expanded its reach into the wider world: oppression knows no boundaries – along race, colour, sex, gender, age, ethnicity, origins, etc.
So, being “woke” is to be aware of who’s stepping on who – and accepting we gotta stand on the side of the oppressed. However, of recent, the word’s been given an ironic twist to suggest that some folks place themselves on pedestals from where they can sneer down on others who aren’t as “woke” as they. So, how’s this playing out in Guyana? We would’ve noticed that the words “racial” and “racist” are being thrown around with abandon nowadays – especially before and after our elections.
Is it that the folks bandying the terms are more “woke” than others – who insist that there’s more in the social mortar than the pestle of race? Or is it they’re just exploiting the terms wrenched from their American roots? Sorta like England’s PM Boris Johnson being asked if the newly inaugurated Joe Biden was “woke” following the latter’s swearing in! The usually loquacious Johnson volunteered noncommittally and laconically that “there is nothing wrong with being woke”! Joe, woke? What a question!
Anyhow, your Eyewitness’s take on the local usage is there’s nothing “woke” about anyone suggesting we have a “racial” problem in Guyana. At least not like the one in the US – after the White Brits departed in 1966. Since then, an African Guyanese-dominated government took over the country, was given independence on a platter, and ruled with no interference from any other Guyanese ethnic group for 28 years!! Who was oppressing who? The Indian Guyanese complained that THEY were being oppressed.
Then, for the next 23 years, it was African Guyanese complaining that Indian Guyanese were oppressing them.
So, what’s next? We need some woke folks to point out that, being all minorities, we just have to court the “other”!
…or an educated populace?
OK, OK, even though we may not be “woke”, the Government is guaranteeing that at least we’ll be educated. Ever since slavery, we were told that education was the path to true freedom. “Emancipation” was just a word…but EDUCATION would make us qualified to seize the opportunities long denied to us. Emancipation would only be real when we became economically independent.
But even though Jagan started UG in 1963 and Burnham gave it a home in 1972, getting educated still remains a dream for the majority of Guyanese. Not only because of money for fees and such like; there’s the challenge of distance to our far-flung villages. But now that’s all behind us with the launch of GOAL – the “Guyana Online Academy of Learning” initiative. 20,000 scholarships from UWI, Indira Gandhi National Open University, India, JAIN University (India) and University of Applied Sciences (IUBH), Germany!!
And this is only a start! A degree in every Guyanese’s portfolio!
…on COVID-19
Your Eyewitness hopes we all get woke on COVID-19. And realise that, with its inherent continuous mutations, we’ll never really be free of it. So, expect every year we’re gonna need booster shots.
More billions for Big Pharma!
