The 60+ page final report and white paper will be distributed shortly. In the interim, here is the executive summary/overview. This is offered to advance the recommendations from the symposium. GCAs executive team wishes to thank Dr. Shamir Andrew Ally, Dr. Vibert Cambridge, Rose October-Edun, Dr. Juliet Emanuel, Dr. Rory Fraser, Dr. Gillian Richards-Greaves, Dr. Melissa Ifill, Eusi Kwayana, Gentian Miller, Dr. Robert Moore, Desmond Roberts, and the participants in the symposium for their contributions to the report. Here is the overview: BACKGROUND The Guyana Cultural Association of New York is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the study and celebration of Guyana’s rich cultural heritage and the promotion of Guyanese creativity. Our mission is to document, showcase and celebrate the multiple roots of Guyana’s cultural heritage. Through our work we preserve our cultural heritage and make it available through various channels to inspire future generations of Guyanese at home and abroad. In short, our mission is to Preserve, Promote, and Propagate Guyanese creativity. For the past 12 years, the symposium has been an important part of the annual Guyana Folk Festival season—it provides a space to have conversations on the season’s theme. The 2013 symposium was the 12th one since 2002. Themes addressed by previous symposia include Guyanese Music (2003), Guyanese Language (2004), Guyanese Dance (2005), Carifesta (2006), Mittelholzer (2009), and Masquerade (2012). Several have addressed the issue of identity in multi-ethic Guyana: Oii: Origins, Identity, and Influence (2007); Creole Meche Meche (2008); Diversity in our villages; Harmony in Our Culture (2010); and Aal Bady, Waan Bady (2011). “Who are We?: Imagining Guyana beyond African and Indian politics of race” was the theme selected the 2013 symposium. This theme recognized the complexity of the environmental, social, cultural, economic, and political issues facing Guyana, including the persistence of mistrust between Guyanese of African and Indian ancestry. The theme also reflected GCA’s ongoing support for the position that in Guyana’s folk heritage and contemporary creativity are untapped and underutilized resources for the creating a just and caring society. The 2013 symposium was organized to focus attention on the nature of identity in contemporary Guyanese life and start a conversation among Guyanese about three interrelated questions—“Who are we?” “How can we live together?” What can we become? The declared ambition was to provide comprehensive responses to these questions in a variety of formats during the Guyana Folk Festival season in 2016—the 50th anniversary of Guyana’s political independence. We at GCA feel that the 50th anniversary of Guyana is a significant moment in the emergence of the Guyanese nation and it ought to offer opportunities for reflection, benchmarking, and reaffirmation. It should not be co-opted by politicians for partisan ends. THE CONVERSATION Five interrelated themes were unmistakable in the responses to the Call for Participation in the 2013 symposium: • The natural environment • The peopling of Guyana • The Diaspora • Guyanese creativity • Governance and leadership These five themes guided the plenary and small group conversations that characterized the 2013 symposium. The symposium reminded that the roots of the mistrust are to found in 19th century British Guiana—a strategic location in the political economy of imperialism. As Dr. Robert Moore’s “Colonial Images of Blacks and Indians in Nineteenth Century” points out, the importation of indentured labor from India, starting in 1838, even before the emancipation of enslaved Africans in British Guiana, led to the creation of some of the most pernicious and persistent racist myths and stereotypes in Guyanese society. This preponderance of these racist myths and stereotypes in the public sphere overwhelms those daily expressions of solidarity and collaboration that characterize a people engaged in loving and sharing and hoping and becoming Guyanese. The ethno-politics that characterize Guyanese political life is a major reinforcer of racist myths and stereotypes. Counter narratives are muted in the under-resourced and suboptimal used national communication system. This national communication system includes the state-owned national radio and television broadcasting infrastructure (NCN and the Learning Channel), the National Archives, National Art Collection, and the several state-operated museums. The symposium also reminded that racist myths and stereotypes have created barriers which inhibit opportunities to experience cultural commonalities. The persistence of these racist myths and stereotypes undermines efforts to encourage national cohesiveness. CONCLUSIONS Participants concluded that the lack of knowledge of Guyana’s common, collective multi-ethnic history and heritage is pervasive and this contributes to: • The perpetuation of racist myths and stereotypes; • A lack of appreciation of Guyana’s geographic scope and the diversity of natural resources; • The inability to distill and to apply the spiritual and philosophical wisdom born of the communally generated heritage; • Maladaptive behaviors, especially the practices of physical, psychological, and legal domination in governance and inter-personal relationships; • The inability to develop and to implement an equitable and sustainable national development strategy; RECOMMENDATIONS The symposium challenged GCA and other stakeholders to use traditional and contemporary communication channels (oral traditions, radio and television programs, the performing arts, the visual arts, literary and musical events, actual and virtual museums, video games, social media, community festivals, fairs, fun days and melas, and the culinary arts) to: • Make accessible to young people high quality, evidence-based content about the nature and scope of Guyana’s geography and their responsibilities as the future custodians; • Make accessible evidence-based content related to the common collective history of Guyanese; • Identify and celebrate the commonalities of Guyana’s multi-ethic heritage. ACTION Several specific initiatives were offered for achieving the knowledge creation and knowledge distribution tasks associated with the abovementioned recommendations. What follows is a listing of some of the proposed initiatives: KNOWLEDGE CREATION • Research and creative support o Develop a national research fund to support the study of Guyanese history and heritage by resource-strapped researchers in Guyana. o Develop a national fund to support Guyana’s under-resourced artists. o Engage older Guyanese (at home and in the diaspora) in a process for collecting, storing, and making accessible Guyana’s memory; o Develop a mechanism to support and encourage increased contacts between researchers and artists in Guyana with counterparts in the diaspora. o Ensure that national institutions, especially those associated in international collaborations to study and disseminate Guyanese history and heritage, demonstrate reciprocity and absorptive capacity--the ability to work with international partners, recognize the value of new information, assimilate it, and respond in a timely and effective manner. • Rehabilitation o Continue efforts to stabilize and ultimately digitize that nation’s audio assets (sound recordings) held in various national depositaries. [Most of the nation’s film heritage has been lost due to flooding, neglect, or deliberate destruction]; o Continue the reinvigoration of masquerade o Initiate support for the study and rehabilitation of Taan singing • Creation of Content: All stakeholders are encouraged to take initiatives (respecting intellectual property rights) over the next three years to create content (television documentaries, radio programs, new performing arts works, displays and exhibitions, music compilations, anthologies, literary festivals, film and video festivals, art exhibitions) to: o Make accessible to Guyanese at home and in the diaspora the meanings of the various cultural symbols associated with multi-ethnic Guyana. o Make accessible to Guyanese, especially young people (18-35), content about the nature and scope of Guyana’s geography and their responsibilities as the future custodians; o Make accessible, evidence-based content related to Guyana’s common collective history and heritage. KNOWLEDGE DISTRIBUTION All stakeholders are encouraged to support the conversation on the three interrelated questions—“Who are we? How can we live together? What can we become? Further, all stakeholders are also encouraged to develop and share content related to Guyana’s common collective history and heritage. It is anticipated that the Government of Guyana as a key stakeholder, will harmonize the performance and output of the state-owned institutions in the influential communication sector of the society. As mentioned previously, this sector includes the state-owned national radio and television broadcasting infrastructure (NCN and the Learning Channel), the National Archives, National Art Collection, and the several state-operated museums. To these could be added state-funded festivals and events such as Mashramani, Amerindian Heritage Month, and Main Street Lime. The state sector is encouraged to: • Develop at the National Communication Network business and programming models that encourages the production of high quality content related to Guyanese history and heritage; • Develop a virtual museum of Guyanese history and heritage. GCA March 24, 2014
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 14:14:24 +0000
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