…to Suriname
Your Eyewitness woke up to some good news for a change…No…it wasn’t the Gang of Four at City Hall suddenly resigning because they’d been overcome by a wave of shame. There hasn’t been such a miracle since Bethlehem two millennia ago! It was the news that funding’s been offered by the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) for a bridge across the Corentyne River to Suriname.
The previous Administration had agreed to such a bridge and extolled all the benefits that would’ve flowed from such a structure. Opening up of trade links to a fellow Caricom country. OK?… maybe we DO tend to produce the same things…but it’ll be easier to smuggle our sugar which we can’t give away right now, no? But seriously… both countries right now suffer from having Lilliputian domestic markets and at least we will have just a little bit more clout in (market) numbers.
But the biggest benefit might be the opening up of our horizons. Even though it’s been 50 years since we cut the colonial umbilical cord from Britain, we still retain much of their insularity when it comes to people speaking a different language than English! Can you imagine an ordinary Surinamese speaks about four languages on the average!! Then there’s the wide variety of cultures. We keep on talking about Guyana being “multiethnic”…but are we really so when we’re compared to Surinamese??
Take the Indian Guyanese…they’ve lost the most important feature when it comes to culture – language. It’s a truism in anthropology to assert that when a people lose their language, they’ve lost their culture. The Indian Surinamese still speak their Hindi dialect and can relate to their religious texts, for instance, when they listen to it being recited. Here it’s all “Dutch” to Guyanese Indians!!
Then there’s the Surinamese African. Over in Suriname, a large number of enslaved Africans escaped into “the bush” and formed communities – like they did to a smaller extent in Jamaica, where they’re called “Marroons”. In Suriname, they call themselves, “Djukas”. And they retain a much greater cultural repertoire from Africa than we can ever imagine. Added to the mix are the “Javanese” – whom most Guyanese visiting Suriname insist on calling “Japanese”!!
The Javanese are from what’s now “Indonesia” – which used to be a Dutch colony. The Javanese, a Malay people, are like cheese and chalk from the Japanese!! But the biggest benefit might be for us to experience the much easier relations all the Surinamese groups have with each other. Even at the political level.
It’s clear their experience with the Dutch political culture that’s based of “power sharing” premises has worked for them.
Maybe it’ll rub off here with the bridge?
…to Linden burnt?
No…no…no..Your Eyewitness isn’t raising that vexed subject of the bridge in Linden that was burnt during the protests and leading to several persons being killed back in 2012. He’s talking about a different bridge – one that was invoked by former PM Sam Hinds as being built after 1992 by the PPP to that community that has traditionally cleaved to the PNC. Sam…as most Guyanese refer to him (he that kinda no-frills guy!)…took umbrage at an assertion by David Hinds (relatives? Internecine battles can get bloody!!).
Hinds basically claimed the PPP only did right for Indians – he cited the sugar industry – and didn’t do squat for Linden. (Hey!! Your Eyewitness suddenly realised this HAS to do with that “burning bridge!”) Sam went to excruciating length to show it just wasn’t so. But he didn’t mention when the PPP was subsidising bauxite and its community to the max – they were still bleeding sugar workers via the PNC’s sugar levy!
But would that have rebuilt the (relationship) bridge?? Naaah!
…across troubled borders
What nonsense is this? The Venezuelans flew over our Essequibo to MAP it? What difference does that make?
Not a (damned) blade of grass!!! Or a cuirass!!
