African-Guyanese should think their way out of the problems they are currently experiencing and become more self-reliant.

These were some of the dominant themes coursing through a panel discussion on Tuesday on the future of African-Guyanese with particular reference to Buxton.

One of the speakers, women's rights activist, Andaiye, called on women to support each other rather than drag each other down because of racial differences or party politics.

Speaking on the difficulties faced by African women at the discussion held at the Buxton Community High School, Andaiye warned women in protests to be careful of the targets of their militancy, because on several occasions rage has been turned against Indo-Guyanese women as poor as themselves.

She also warned that party politics had become very narrow and focused on the other side as the problem. But she noted that this was not true and it only served to hide who women's true allies are. They "carve us up", she said of women in political parties, citing as an example the division between domestic and middle-class women who are members of the same party.

And while she conceded that the government is a problem, corruption is a problem, and racism is a problem, she asserted that were the government to change today, there would still be global challenges. In order to win, she said, it was imperative to stop fighting a new war with old methods.

Trade unions, she said, are being weakened by the global system but they continue to limit themselves to the formal sector and do not seek to organise informal workers and housewives.

In Venezuela the work of housewives is recognised as paid work, while the majority of African Guyanese women are doing this and under harsher conditions. In earlier days, housewives had the support of the extended family, she said, but today a single mother is a single mother. This is as a result of broken families, communities and violence. The latter inflicted by slave masters and overseers during slavery is today done by husbands, boyfriends, death squads, and sexual assault.

Economically, she said, African women are today not receiving any help with their children. The only way of survival is the income they work for, and they are the highest number looking for work. Fewer women feel able to stay home and look after children. This situation is manifested she said, in the cries of single mothers, "I have five children to look after."

She noted that former president Forbes Burnham's attempt to make us buy local was one of the best things he did, marvelling at how different things could be if all the money spent on fast food and other imports were spent locally.

She urged women to organise in their own communities as carers, as parents and independently with allies on a new level. Such organisation, she said, would clarify what should be demanded locally, nationally, and internationally.

She said women should make big demands so they are more likely to be heard. She advised that women demand freedom of movement, to be fed, to be protected. More demands should be made of women's organisations, she said. "If we do not do something today we cannot get anywhere tomorrow."

The event was organised by the Buxton Friendship Community Alliance Outreach and the 1st of August Move-ment.

Speaking about the village, Deon Abrams who opened the presentations noted: "It seems every time we try to rise above our difficulties for the last two years, we are thrown back into strife. Nevertheless we must take up the mantle and try to move forward. And hope not to continue in ways that see the good name of our village tarnished."

He said the media made it appear as if Buxton was the cause of the problems in this impoverished society in which we live.

Abrams suggested a public meeting to discuss the events of Monday last at the Community Centre (the murder of Buxtonian Gregory Adams), which he believed Buxtonians themselves would have to take on.

Cultural genocide

Historian Dr Kimani Nehusi in his presentation on African religion and culture spoke about the importance of the relationship between the past and the future, noting: "If you do not know where you came from then you would not know were you are going."

He said Africans invented civilisation, instructed other people and made society work. Africans were creators of their own destiny, he added, but then something happened to disrupt that: the Arabs using and abusing Islam and the Europeans using and abusing Christianity. From that time Africans have been disoriented, he said.

Enslavement was cultural genocide aimed at the distortion of African Cultural Institutions and the consequences still live with us in the form of the permanent disablement of Africans. Culture he explained was the relationship between a people and their environment and out of this came the principles African people have lived with. These were equality, respect for age and experience.

However at emancipation Africans did not come out of slavery but remained mentally enslaved. Africans invented religion, Nehusi declared and said that for them to go forward they must understand the background of cultural institutions and values. Some of which are family, the education system, the media, and religion.

He said that Africans must continuously look at the world through their own eyes. "There must be institutions to socialise African Guyanese without forgetting that the society we live in is multi-cultural.

"Black people must know themselves to live on a basis of equality. If not we will continue to be disoriented into taking up positions as paid killers."

Bottom of the ladder

David Hinds, in his presentation on the future of African Guyanese said: "If something is not done immediately we may well face or see the reality of total disintegration in the country. Africans do not have control of national politics, or global politics, we do have control over the local level of politics in the communities. We must determine where we are. We are in poverty, unemployment, not in the business sector, more in the public service and not self sufficient in anything."

He said many people were angry with former president Cheddi Jagan, when he said Africans were at the bottom of the social ladder, but he was talking the truth. And this is so worldwide. "We have got to think internally, we are responsible for charting our way out of this situation.

"Street power is effective at a certain level, military power and the police who would allow the protests to go on. But we do not have institutional power, we live in a country driven by party politics, the party in power decides who gets contracts, where money is spent, where canals are dug and roads built.

Economically and politically we are in bad shape. And a lot of this is historically driven."

No race that was enslaved for 300 years can be free in a short space of time, he said.

"Political parties are not fighting for us," Hinds said. "They do not bring anything for you. They are interested in running for government. We should deal with our communities and self reliance; organise in little parts of the village. Talk about your problems and when we begin to talk bring in our fine sons and daughters to give of their expertise. Make demands of them, because they went to university on your backs. Begin to plan. There is still money out there for organising in communities to teach you how to write projects, help you to go to the Caribbean Development Bank for money. For if you write them you would want projects to succeed. Start trading projects, skills training projects to prepare for the coming of big business. Learn about computers how to organise small business. Learn how to do something with $100,000. Learn the skill of managing.

"All of this still would not turn things around. We must operate at the political level. Black government took the village movement away from us; go after the return of the village council as provided for in the constitution. At the national level black people need access to land again the onus is on the government to have a land reform movement."

With regard to education, he noted that at one time there were three high schools in Buxton, now there are none. "Government has said it is prepared to build a high school in Buxton but because some people say we cannot take anything from them nothing has come of it." He urged Buxtonians to demand guaranteed access to employment, access to contracts. "If you march for a day they would be scared for a day and wait it out," Hinds said. "Agitate with a plan so if you are rejected your struggle would be a righteous one. Power sharing in the short run is something to go for. The worst that can happen is if the PNC and PPP get together to do what the PPP is doing today."

Also speaking at the event was Hazel Maria Woolford, who dealt with education and focused on the work done by previous ministers of education - Winifred Gaskin, Ceceline Baird and Malcolm Parris - who were all originally from Buxton.