A letter in Stabroek News by Keith Bernard entitled “The British – and Durch – descended populations historiography seems to have been drowned out by larger ethnic narratives” caught my attention yesterday morning. One of the most prominent professional institutions that have emerged from Guyana’s colonial history is the law firm of Cameron & Shepherd […]
Tag Archives: history
SEECHARAN’S OLD, ENDURING, ANTI-JAGAN NARRATIVE
The legacy of Dr. Cheddi Jagan emerges for consideration in March every year, the month of his birth and of his passing. Dr. Clem Seecharan’s book, “Cheddi Jagan and the Cold War 1946-1992,” has provoked some discussion this year. Dr. Seecharan is an historian of modest accomplishments who wrote mainly about cricket, until he was […]
THE PRICE OF PROGRESS
I live in ‘Old Bel Air.’ It was previously known as ‘Plantation Bel Air.’ The prefix, ‘Plantation,’ fell into disuse after Old Bel Air became part of Greater Georgetown in the late 1960s or thereabouts.In order to distinguish it from Bel Air Gardens, Bel Air Park and Bel Air Springs, it began to be referred […]
CIVIL SOCIETY
Civil society began to attain prominence about fifty years ago as non-state actors outside the political and business communities. The World Bank defines civil society as “a wide array of organisations: community groups, non-governmental organisations [NGOs], labour unions, indigenous groups, charitable organisations, faith-based organisations, professional associations, and foundations.” Under generally accepted principles of democracy and […]
‘HE NEVER REALLY LEFT THE PLANTATION’
Dr. Baytoram Ramharack is a leading protagonist of the view, held by a section of educated Indian Guyanese opinion, that Cheddi Jagan was a plantation idiot. This view is argued with singular clarity in much of Professor Clem Seecharran book, ‘Sweetening Bitter Sugar’ (2005), ostensibly about the life and times of Jock Campbell. While Professor […]