Category: Editorials

A few days ago, I happened upon a Facebook post, in which, the author (who shall remain unnamed), berated “self-proclaimed youth leaders” for rising to fame at the expense of others who remained disenfranchised. The post further went on to explain that the author had no issue with people wanting the best for themselves, but rather, he took issue with those who had exploited marginalized youth by claiming that they had contributed to development, and used these claims to develop portfolios with which they gained access to ‘big’ positions overseas.…

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Every morning at Queen’s College, I started my day with a recitation of the Lord’s prayer. A Christian prayer, prior to my attendance at Queen’s College I had not been exposed to. It always bothered me then, and it continues to bother me now that a public school, run by the Government of Guyana, a State which claims to be secular, practiced such a thing. Personally, I believe that in public schools, there should be a complete separation of religion and education. What aggravates me is that when this is…

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I wonder why so many are now expressing outrage at the grotesque treatment meted out to that innocent Amerindian boy, who dared to presume, when asked to show up in his people’s traditional costume, it was meant literally. What the administrators meant, of course, was he should have dressed up in THEIR conception of what was his “native costume”. But the reaction to the boy’s costume by a Georgetown elite school goes far beyond just “proper” clothes: it goes to the heart of a process that has been deployed to…

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By Ravi Dev I thought it interesting that one of the persons President Granger decided to honour was Dr Alvin Thompson; who, along with himself and Dr Winston McGowan, edited the massive ‘Themes in African-Guyanese History’ in 2009. Like Granger, Prof Thompson specialises in the history of African Guyanese, and was for decades a Professor of History at UG and UWI. He has made some pertinent comments in the past, which bear repetition in the present, on the silencing of the efforts of Indian Guyanese in the struggle for Guyana’s…

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A recent International Labour Organisation (ILO) report once again brings to the fore the issue regarding the massive toll HIV/AIDS is taking on the labour force, and the economic and social implications it is causing on many countries around the world. The report – The impact of HIV and AIDS on the world of work: Global estimates – prepared in collaboration with UNAIDS, examines how the evolution of the HIV epidemic and the scale-up of antiretroviral therapy (ART) have impacted the global labour force, and how they are projected to…

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The restoration of the City Hall building, estimated at G$400 million, was the topic for discussion at a two-day workshop at Duke Lodge, Georgetown, which concluded on Thursday. The project is a collaborative effort between the European Union (EU) and National Trust of Guyana. It focuses on preparing a comprehensive restoration and sustainable conservation management plan that will guide the refurbishment and long-term preservation of the structure. Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC) Town Clerk Royston King told reporters that the estimated figure was derived around a decade ago and…

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One of the consequences of the peripheralizing and silencing of the Indian presence in the Caribbean has been a lack of knowledge in the other groups about changes that were initiated in that community both indigenously and externally. Consequently, there remains a persistent myth that the Indians in general and Hindus in particular are like the people described by Squire in his poem: “There was an Indian, who had known no change.” Save rather than “straying content along sunlit beaches gathering shells”, the Indians brought from India into the WI…

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With the second season of ‘13 Reasons Why’ released, the topic of suicide will inevitably be brought to the forefront of adolescent conversations. The show itself received serious backlash following its release last year. If you aren’t aware, the show details the life of a high school girl, Hannah Baker, and the self-described reasons for her suicide, which she includes in 13 recorded tapes that she mails to her classmates. One of the reasons the show was widely criticized was the manner in which it chose to portray her suicide.…

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