…the Gladstones
And here your Eyewitness thought that the battle over the sins of the Gladstones was fought and done within 1823!! Naïve little sod!! While that battle involved over 10,000 slaves on the East Coast of Demerara, this ongoing battle two hundred years later has dragged in all of Guyana – including the lot who’ve deserted our fair shores to live in the lands of our erstwhile slave masters – to fight among ourselves!! Seems that for this internecine battle, we’ve adopted the cry of that arch-imperialist Churchill: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…” So, who said Massa never taught us anything??
So, what’s this fight all about?? Since the dust hasn’t settled yet, your Eyewitness doesn’t have a definitive answer – but there is no lack of candidates!! First, there’s the fight on whether Gladstones’ apology for the sins of their fathers should’ve also been extended to the Indian Indentured who were brought in after slavery was abolished. Your Eyewitness thought that shoulda been left to the Gladstones – since it was they who were trying to assuage their guilt for past wrongs. Why should others tell them what should prick their consciences??
Then there was a fight over the location where the apology shoulda been delivered. In your Eyewitness’s estimate, that should’ve either been at Success – where the slave uprising started – or at Vreed-en-Hoop, where the “Gladstone Indian Indentureship Experiment” was launched. If we’re looking at the past, let’s go back to where the past that prompted the apology really started!! Those who brought the Gladstones down however – in collaboration with UG – felt that the forum should be at UG, while the Government plunked for the Convention Center. Was that because that locale was closer to Plantation Success??
Now another fight – more like a catfight actually – has arisen, cause one fella from London, the heart of the dastardly imperialist enterprise, saw fit to complain that those folks picketing the Gladstones were overreacting!! They were looking at the £100,000 gift horse by the Gladstones in the mouth!! Now, c’mon!! If the Gladstones’ conscience had pricked them about a past they saw as “abominable”, don’t the descendants of those who experienced that abomination have the right to express their feelings in a way they see fit?? In other words, the British education they received after slavery and indentureship hasn’t anesthetised the picketers enough??
And the last fight is the sniping by those who’ve launched the “apartheid state” salvos at the Ali administration, at the ACDA leader initiating the Gladstones’ trip – for not consulting them!!
Jealousy!!
…ports
Before Exxon struck that gusher – figuratively!! – miles under the Atlantic, the talk of us needing a deepwater port had arisen so as to facilitate shipping from northern Brazil to the Atlantic. And saving them the thousand-mile journey eastwards to Belem, when the goods eventually had to go north. But even then, at the beginning of the millennium, Georgetown was already too congested. And the consensus was that the highway from Lethem should divert to the mouth of the Berbice River, where a deep-water harbour should be located.
Fast forward two decades and CGX put up their hand to build it on Crab Island – near the Berbice Bridge. But those poor sods seem to’ve been cursed!! Even though they pioneered oil drilling off our shores – and even helped us resolve our border dispute with Suriname – they just can’t seem to get off the starting blocks – with oil or the harbour.
On the latter, we’re now told it’ll be done in stages. They’re now at the “stelling” stage!!
…gravy
The Rose Hall strike is an object lesson in the dangers of grants becoming entitlements. When the estate was closed, some workers – transferred to Albion and Blairmont – were happy. However, those fired got a $250,000 grant – which the transferees want when asked to return home!!
