OPINION: Emancipation Day, I call from president to peasant: let there be the fullest self-emancipation

Last Updated on Wednesday, 31 July 2024, 17:17 by Writer

by GHK Lall

May all Guyanese make the best of Emancipation Day 2024. Closing in on 200 years since the abolition of slavery by the British, and considering the incomparable blunt traumas inflicted on Africans, a special hand of warmth is extended to Guyanese of that historical heritage on this their extraordinarily sacred day. Emancipation Day, what can I say? What qualifies me to say something, anything? I start from that height in the hearth and heart. I am not worthy to pronounce on Emancipation and the essence of it, but still the effort must be made.

Emancipation—what does it mean for me, stir in me?—should be for Guyanese who cherish cleanliness in their environment, their affairs. For a start, Emancipation must become a compulsion towards the expulsion of the corruptions that cause so many convulsions in this population. When there is some abolition of corruption in Guyana, then there is more than the celebration of emancipation by African Guyanese. There is what embodies true emancipation in all Guyanese. I can see the riches of the people—poor and with a head of hope, without and still afflicted with faith that things can and will be better—and I can think of them and where they are and leave those riches of the soil and children of this country alone. Been there, done that, and even those who curse and criminalize know so. I am emancipated from those clutches that corrupt, and I call on them—PPPC, PNC, AFC, and the c’s in every citizen—to emancipate themselves, not just from the lure and love of mammon that is now the transcendent God in Guyana, but from that corruption of the mind that enslaves rather than emancipates, that separates instead of unites. It is better for me, for the rest of Guyana, to be in chains if I can’t feel free to speak mind, speak truth, shed light. The truly emancipated, whether in attitude or spirit, does not fear whips. May Guyana stand so emancipated, free of such fears. I am. Whoever fights to suffocate will have to overpower first, then vanquish. Banish me to Hades and the blood will cry out louder. Emancipation, the wholly, authentically emancipated, is that one genie that cannot be seduced nor reduced back into the bottle. Those who come to this realization have taken the first tottering step to give themselves a chance at emancipating themselves.

I look around, I hear the plaintive notes on the winds, read the pleas on pages: help! We need help from the misery of cost of living. From Aishalton to Zeeburg, from Buxton to Yarrowkabra, from Corentyne to wherever the X-Trails take us, even as far as the Cuyuni: where are the fruits of this great richness? How about a little more for us? In an era of extraordinary economic empowerment from natural resources, why is there one enslaved citizen in this country? Economically enslaved? The cost of living enchained, the slavery being submitted to by the hungry? To those who defend by saying look at all that has been done, I say this: like pregnancy, there is no knowing of such a condition being partial. So, too, remedies that offer relief cannot be partial. There is either full abolition and complete emancipation from the economics and environments of need in today’s Guyana, or there is nothing. This is where I stand. When I hear that more will come later, I am compelled to put this on the public table: is that Guyana’s version of a post emancipation apprenticeship? The years of drudgery, of the nose pushed to the grindstone, before there is freedom.

When all Guyanese can feed their basic needs, that is emancipation. There will come a time when they can have the luxury of thinking about what they want, but only after essential needs have been fulfilled. Now, that’s another degree of emancipation, of which there will be no conversation today. Abolitionist William Wilberforce waged his wars. Political force of nature Abraham Lincoln issued his proclamation. Guyanese must know that condition that comes, must belong to each of them. It is past the season for Guyanese of every extraction and heritage and descent (and whatever else such are termed) to know, to enjoy, and to rejoice in the incomparable delights of emancipation days and years that know neither boundaries nor bitterness, nor more brawling and compulsions to crimes that follow from saying things like these in the manner that I do.

For those so predisposed to bringing down, to enslave into cowering silence, my work is to find a cure for them. For me, that is what emancipation at its fundamental best represents and projects. From the president of Guyana to the most insignificant citizen of Guyana, I share this message in the hope that there will be a new look at what emancipation means. And that it starts with self-emancipation from what shackles and traps, any and all such things. It could be rum. It could be riches. It could be the rages that rent Guyana asunder. It could also be that new beginning that takes Guyana to that calmer, cleaner height that it is still to know. Emancipation Day greetings all around. It is more than a sacred day. Emancipation is a season, a way that life is lived.