Happy Republic Day!

For a country that was born in the ignominy of seizing the land from the Indigenous Peoples and pushing them deep into the jungle, then carving out agricultural lands on its coast and cultivating sugar to enrich Britain and the Netherlands by using labour snatched from Europe, Africa and Asia, being a Republic is not something we should take lightly. None of us.
Especially when it seems, from my readings in the press, that sugar is about to go the way of the Dodo as it did in Trinidad. But there they made provisions for the labourers that were no longer needed. What is a Republic if it is not able to take care of its citizens? But this Thursday is Republic Day! And I’m kind of disappointed that I won’t be home, because I understand quite a lot is going on.
Although I certainly wasn’t around way back in 1970, to know personally what it must have been like to live in a country still under the rule of another, I do know that it must be better to be in control than to be controlled. And we won that right on Republic Day, to elect our Government, to make our owwn decisions. WE have no other excuses for blaming “the man” for our fetters. To be a citizen of a Republic is to be “captains of our destiny: masters of our fate”.
I’ll say it again: my favourite hero in WI history was Toussaint L’Ouverture.  To have a man – born a slave – take on the full might of one of the greatest European powers of the day, for the right to be free, was awe inspiring. He was indeed an “Opening”: the eventual independence of Haiti showed the path that every other colony had to walk.
So on Republic Day at least, we should make a point of being proud to be Guyanese. On that day we commemorate the earlier rebellion of our own Cuffy, in our own Berbice, for that same struggle to be free. We are coming up on the 100th Anniversary of the end of Indentureship: we must remember those who died in the cane fields at the hands of the colonial Police in 1872, 1896, 1898, 1903, 1913, 1924, 1939 and 1948. And work to ensure no one dies at Wales after the entire sugar estate was closed so suddenly. Malnutrition can be more deadly than bullets.
I know some people try to raise some Guyanese pride on Republic Day, but unfortunately for most, it’s just about the Mashramani parade. Granted, everyone has different ways of celebrating, of showing joy. But the problematic thing about it all is that most people don’t parade because of national pride. They parade to dress up (or undress) in costumes and ride on floats. Because it’s all about Mashramani- the celebration.
We’ve gotten so caught up in the celebration of festivities, that we’ve completely forgotten why we’re celebrating in the first place. Who thinks of the meaning of Cuffy or Toussaint or dead sugar workers in the definition of what ‘freedom’ means? We argue about the Brickdam route being too short for the ‘wine down’.
And that’s a shame, because for a country with quite possible half of its population living abroad, national pride and identity is something we desperately need to see being expressed by the Guyanese still living here.
At the very least, perhaps we should keep in mind the theme for this year’s celebrations, “Celebration with dignity, liberty and greater unity”.
So this Republic Day, if you’re going out, wave your Guyana Flags. Wave them to show love for your country! And do something to make it better!