MAKING OF A NATION

APRIL 20, 2024

Opening the door, I stepped into my office. The lingering fragrance of Valentino greeted me, a subtle reminder of the thorough work the cleaners had done the previous evening. As always, they had left everything immaculate. The cherry-coloured wooden desk gleamed beneath the soft morning light, its polished surface reflecting an understated elegance.

On the desk stood a telephone, a notepad, and a brass nameplate bearing my name and title:

MOHABIR PERSAUD, PRESIDENT

Beneath it, engraved in bold lettering, were the words SEIGNET PRECISION—a gift from my employees many years ago. It was more than a nameplate. It was a reminder of a chapter of my life built on work, responsibility, and the relationships forged along the way.

In the corner, my Lenovo computer awaited me, silent and ready.

I placed my A&W cup of tea on a coaster. It was orange pekoe, my usual morning ritual. The tea bag dipped in and out of the hot water, imparting only the faintest colour. I watched it for a moment. The liquid looked more like coloured water than tea, but the familiar routine was comforting.

I opened the laptop and began my usual sequence.

Click. Google.

Then I typed: YouTube.

A collection of videos appeared on the screen. One immediately caught my attention:

Dr. David Hinds — Politics 101: “African Guyanese Are People Too.”

The panel featured Olive Sampson, Nigel Hughes, and V. Alexander.

I clicked.

The rhythmic pulse of calypso filled the office. I settled into my chair and listened, allowing the music to draw me in. I waited for the lyrics to unfold their story, for the melody to reveal whatever message lay beneath its rhythm.

Then the images began to appear.

Maya Angelou. Barack Obama. Miriam Makeba. Walter Rodney. Eusi Kwayana. Dr. David Hinds. Martin Luther King Jr. Bob Marley. Malcolm X. Serena Williams. L. F. S. Burnham. Michelle Obama. Nelson Mandela. Dr. Letitia Wright.

A succession of figures whose lives, in different ways, had become part of the historical record. They had challenged established boundaries, overcome formidable obstacles, and left their marks on societies that had not always welcomed them. Their stories spoke of achievement, resilience, and the struggle for recognition.

Yet, as I watched, I wondered what it meant to celebrate the achievements of one people while continuing to view the aspirations of another with suspicion. Surely, recognition need not come at the expense of someone else's dignity. A society that values one community should not have to diminish another.

The discussion gathered momentum. The panelists spoke about a forum in Geneva, Switzerland, associated with the International Decade for People of African Descent, 2015–2024. The conversation turned toward race, identity, political representation, and the enduring grievances that had shaped Guyanese society.

I am reminded, two words that unsettled me from another YouTuber a few months earlier.

“Coolie Greed.”

The expression lingered in my mind. It was more than an insult directed at an individual or a community. In the context of our divided society, it carried the weight of a stereotype—a phrase capable of reducing an entire people to a single, unflattering characteristic.

I wondered how such language could contribute to the national conversation Guyana so desperately needed. What purpose did it serve to replace one racial grievance with another? We had inherited enough divisions from our colonial past without manufacturing new ones.

The moderator, measured but persistent, returned repeatedly to another word: “Gripe.” It was a reference to a letter published in the Guyana Current newspaper.

I listened closely. Beneath the exchanges, I sensed an unresolved question: how could Guyanese confront the injustices of their history without turning that history into a permanent contest between racial communities?

Then came a statement that caused me to sit forward in my chair.

“Guyana’s history did not begin in 1838.”

I paused.

The statement deserved consideration. The year 1838 is an important landmark in Guyana's history, marking the end of the apprenticeship system and the full freedom of formerly enslaved people. It also falls within the period when the first Indian indentured labourers arrived in the colony. But the history of the land stretches much further back—to its Indigenous peoples, their communities, their knowledge, and their relationship with the rivers, forests, and coastlands long before European conquest.

Nor can the story of modern Guyana be understood through a single date or the experience of one community. Our national history is a succession of encounters, struggles, migrations, and transformations. Each generation has inherited the consequences of what came before it.

As I listened to the discussion, my thoughts travelled back through the decades to British Guiana, a colony whose history had too often been interpreted through the interests of its ruling class and the prevailing values of the British Empire.

The First World War had drawn men from the colony into a wider imperial conflict. Those who returned home came back to a society in which political authority, economic opportunity, and social privilege remained concentrated in the hands of a relatively small elite. The war had changed the world, but it had not fundamentally dismantled the colonial order.

During the 1920s, Georgetown was a city of contrasts. Negroes, Mulattoes, Creoles, Europeans, Portuguese, and Indians occupied different positions within its social and economic life. Their circumstances varied, as did their opportunities, ambitions, and prospects.

Many Indians remained connected to the sugar plantations, while others moved into commerce, domestic service, transportation, and small-scale trading. The boundaries between plantation and town were becoming less rigid, although racial prejudice and class distinctions continued to influence the lives of ordinary people.

In the writings on African and diasporic history, Mulatto authors explored the experiences of peoples whose contributions to established historical narratives had often been neglected. The urban lives of Indians in British Guiana, too, formed part of a wider story of survival and adaptation: peddlers, vendors, labourers, and small traders seeking opportunities beyond the plantation system.

These people were not merely figures in a colonial economy. They were individuals attempting to build lives for themselves and their families in a society that offered unequal rewards for their labour.

At the same time, an educated Creole middle class was becoming increasingly vocal. Its members challenged aspects of colonial administration and pressed for greater participation in government. Their demands formed part of a growing movement toward constitutional reform and self-government.

Yet political change would not come easily.

The Second World War intervened, redirecting resources, delaying reforms, and binding the colony more tightly to Britain's wartime needs. The hopes of one generation were once again postponed.

When the war ended, however, British Guiana was entering a new era. Its strategic and economic importance to Britain had grown. Sugar remained central to the colonial economy, while bauxite, rice, timber, and other resources contributed to the colony's commercial value. The wealth generated by these industries sustained businesses and employment, but it also flowed outward to investors and interests beyond the colony.

The contrast was unmistakable: a land rich in resources, yet a society in which the distribution of opportunity remained deeply unequal.

By the 1950s, the signs of change were everywhere. American influence was increasingly visible in music, cinema, popular culture, and political thought. British Guiana's people were exposed to ideas and experiences beyond the limits of the colonial world. A new generation was beginning to imagine a different future.

It was against this historical background that I sought to develop the world of my novel, THE ACTIVIST.

I wanted to capture more than the dates and events of colonial history. I wanted to recover the atmosphere of a society in transition: the movement of people between villages and towns, the rhythms of railway travel, the sounds of music drifting from homes, the daily rituals of ordinary families, and the hopes of a population learning to understand itself.

To tell that story, I had to return to the beginnings of the society that emerged after emancipation.

Emancipation and the Birth of the Villages

The plantations of cotton, cocoa, coffee, and sugar established by European settlers had transformed the coastal landscape of the Wild Coast. Their fields and estates were sustained by enslaved African labour, and their profits helped shape the political and economic institutions of the colony.

Emancipation changed that order forever.

Following the abolition of slavery, freedom brought a new determination among formerly enslaved people to secure land, independence, and control over their own lives. In 1839, groups of emancipated Africans began purchasing abandoned or declining estates and converting them into villages. These acquisitions were not simply property transactions; they represented collective acts of self-determination.

The purchasers pooled their limited resources, negotiated the terms of sale, and divided the land according to the needs of their communities. Residential plots were laid out near the village fronts, while the backlands—often called the backdam—provided space for cultivation and farming.

The new villages required systems of administration. Residents organised their affairs, selected local representatives, and established rules for the management of common concerns. These arrangements developed into forms of village governance and, in time, the village council system.

The men and women who undertook this work had lived under a system in which decisions about their lives were made by others. They had observed how plantation managers exercised authority, how labour was organised, and how rules were enforced. In freedom, they adapted what they had learned to the needs of their own communities.

Their achievement was remarkable. With limited resources and little assistance from the colonial authorities, they created settlements that gave families a measure of independence and a foundation for future generations.

Emancipation did not, however, erase the inequalities of colonial society. Plantation owners retained considerable economic and political influence. Racial prejudice persisted, and access to education, employment, land, and public office remained uneven.

The colony was changing, but it was not yet a society of equals.

Its population included Indigenous peoples, formerly enslaved Africans, free people of African and mixed ancestry, Europeans, Portuguese immigrants, indentured labourers, and other communities whose lives were shaped by different histories and circumstances. Colonial law placed them within a common political framework, but it did not guarantee equal treatment or equal opportunity.

Nevertheless, the colony continued to develop. Roads, railways, river transportation, and other infrastructure gradually connected settlements that had once been separated by distance and difficult terrain. These developments altered the movement of people and goods, opened new commercial possibilities, and helped bind the scattered coastal communities into a more interconnected society.

The transformation was neither simple nor complete. It was the product of labour, enterprise, colonial investment, and the determination of people who sought better lives within a system that often restricted their ambitions.

British Guiana in the 1950s

By the middle of the twentieth century, British Guiana was no longer an isolated collection of coastal settlements. It remained a British colony, but its people were increasingly influenced by developments across the Atlantic, particularly in the United States.

American films, popular music, and radio programmes found enthusiastic audiences. English music, Hindi cinema, calypso, and the growing popularity of steel pan contributed to a distinctive cultural landscape in which different traditions lived alongside one another.

By 1950, the railway and river transport systems remained important features of everyday life. Georgetown and the surrounding districts were linked by rail, while ferries and other vessels carried passengers and goods across the colony's rivers. Buses served established roads, and the capital retained much of its distinctive wooden architecture, tree-lined avenues, and reputation as the Garden City of the Caribbean.

For those who travelled between Georgetown and the rural districts, the railway was more than a means of transportation. It was an experience in itself.

A journey from Georgetown to Rosignol could become an excursion, an adventure, and an opportunity to observe the many faces of the colony. The changing scenery revealed villages, cultivated fields, waterways, and the backlands where farmers grew crops for their families and for the market.

The 1950s carried an atmosphere of optimism for many people, although that optimism existed alongside poverty, racial tension, and the growing struggle for political power. The world was recovering from war, and British Guiana was approaching a decisive period in its movement toward self-government.

For a child growing up in those years, however, history was not experienced only through politics or constitutional debates. It was also found in the familiar sounds and sights of daily life: the arrival of a train, the whistle of a factory, the call of a vendor, a cricket match on a Sunday afternoon, or the smell of food cooking in a village kitchen.

These were the details that gave a place its character.

The Railway: A Journey Through Everyday Life

The railway was one of the most striking features of British Guiana's colonial infrastructure. The first public railway in the colony opened in 1848, connecting Georgetown with Plaisance. The line was extended eastward over subsequent decades, eventually becoming part of a wider network that served communities along the coast.

By the twentieth century, the railway was operated by the Transport and Harbours Department and had become an essential link between Georgetown and the settlements of the eastern coast. It connected people to employment, markets, schools, family, and the wider world beyond their villages.

The workforce that kept the railway operating included many men whose labour was indispensable to its daily functioning. Their duties demanded discipline, skill, and reliability. The system represented an important achievement in the organisation of colonial transportation, even as the benefits of such infrastructure remained unequally distributed.

I remember the train as a living presence in the landscape.

Its steam engine approached with a growing roar, drawing its carriages behind it and releasing thick clouds of black smoke. The smell of coal and steam mingled with the scents of the countryside. The sound announced the arrival of a familiar spectacle long before the train came into view.

Inside the carriages, passengers settled into their seats while railway employees attended to their duties. The conductor moved through the compartments, checking and clipping tickets. His starched khaki uniform and hard khaki hat gave him an air of authority. He carried himself with the discipline expected of a man responsible for maintaining order aboard the train.

At each station, railway personnel signalled the train's movements, and passengers prepared to board or disembark. Vendors gathered on the platforms, taking advantage of the brief intervals when the train stopped. Their calls competed with the hiss of escaping steam and the clatter of wheels.

The stations became places of commerce and conversation. A journey was not merely a passage between two points; it was a succession of small encounters that connected people from different communities.

Mahaica Station was especially memorable for the bustle that accompanied the arrival of the train. Vendors moved through the crowds, offering mangoes, star apples, and sapodillas to passengers leaning from open windows.

“Cheap! Cheap!” they called, hoping to catch the attention of someone eager for a taste of the season.

Amid the commotion, one vendor stood out in my memory: a tall African woman who moved gracefully along the platform, balancing a tray of food upon her head.

“Fish and bread! Get your fish and bread!”

Her voice rose above the noise, clear and rhythmic. On her tray were jill loaves, freshly fried bangamary, and a small bottle of fiery homemade pepper sauce. With practised hands, she assembled sandwiches that offered a simple but unforgettable pleasure.

Six cents bought a taste of something extraordinary.

For a hungry traveller, it was food. For a child watching the world unfold around him, it was theatre, commerce, and memory combined.

Rosignol: A Village Apart

Rosignol, the last railway stop before the ferry crossing of the Berbice River, occupied a distinctive place in my imagination. Its history was tied to the plantation system, yet the village had developed a character that belonged entirely to its own people.

It had none of the grand structures associated with some of the better-known villages along the coast. Its appeal lay elsewhere—in its landscape, its people, its everyday customs, and the relationships that held the community together.

People of African and Indian ancestry lived side by side. Their relationships were not free of the tensions that existed elsewhere in the colony, but everyday life also created opportunities for friendship, cooperation, and familiarity. Neighbours knew one another, shared experiences, and sometimes referred to one another as cousins.

Such relationships were an important part of the village's character. They reminded me that racial categories, though powerful in colonial society and later political life, could not fully describe the bonds that formed between ordinary people.

Rosignol's layout was distinctive. Rather than a conventional grid of intersecting streets, its pathways and dams led residents toward the sea, the railway, and the backlands. The surrounding farms produced crops such as bananas, ochro, plantain, and cassava, sustaining households and contributing to local trade.

Life followed a rhythm shaped by nature, work, and familiar sounds.

The first crow of a rooster announced the beginning of the day. The arrival of the train at eleven o'clock marked an important moment in the village's routine. Later, the high-pitched whistle of the Blairmont Sugar Factory signalled the progress of the working day.

These sounds were more than background noise. They were the village's informal clock, dividing the hours and reminding everyone of the activities that sustained the community.

Sunday brought a different atmosphere.

The morning was quiet, almost sacred. Sunlight spread across the village, illuminating its houses, yards, and pathways. There was a sense of stillness, as though the world had paused to allow people time for prayer, reflection, and family.

Before noon, games and loud conversation were generally set aside. The quiet was part of the village's customary respect for the Sabbath. Cricket and other recreational activities could wait until the afternoon, when the day's solemnity had given way to the pleasures of leisure.

To visitors from Georgetown, Rosignol might have seemed like little more than another stop along the railway line. To those of us who knew it as home, it was an entire world.

It was a place measured not simply by miles or timetables, but by the familiar rhythms of its people: the train arriving at the station, the scent of the Berbice River, the whistle from Blairmont, the voices of vendors, the sound of children at play, and the quiet dignity of neighbours going about their daily lives.

In its own way, Rosignol was a small paradise—not because life was free of hardship, but because its people had created a sense of belonging within the limits of their circumstances.

History, Memory, and the Nation We Inherited

As I sat in my office on that April morning, listening to the discussion about race and identity in Guyana, I found myself returning to these memories.

The words “African Guyanese Are People Too” carried an undeniable truth: every community deserves recognition, dignity, and the opportunity to participate fully in national life. But that principle cannot be confined to one group. It must extend to all Guyanese.

Our history is too complex to be reduced to competing claims of ownership, grievance, or superiority. Indigenous peoples, Africans, Indians, Portuguese, Europeans, Chinese, and the many communities that emerged from their encounters have all contributed to the making of the society we inherited. Their experiences were not identical, and their suffering and achievements should not be carelessly equated. Each deserves to be examined honestly, within its proper historical context.

The challenge is to acknowledge those differences without turning them into permanent barriers between us.

When we speak of emancipation, we must remember the determination of those who purchased villages and built new lives after slavery. When we speak of Indian indentureship, we must recognise the hardships endured by those who crossed the oceans in search of a future. When we speak of Indigenous history, we must acknowledge that the story of this land began long before the arrival of European settlers.

And when we speak of modern Guyana, we must remember the ordinary people whose work, sacrifice, and aspirations helped shape the country long before independence became a political reality.

These are not separate histories that must compete for national recognition. They are essential parts of the larger story.

That was the world I wanted to capture in THE ACTIVIST: a society shaped by colonial power, economic struggle, cultural exchange, political awakening, and the quiet resilience of ordinary people.

The past does not disappear simply because a new generation takes its place. It survives in the language we speak, the customs we practise, the prejudices we inherit, the institutions we maintain, and the stories we choose to tell.

The question is whether we will allow that inheritance to divide us indefinitely, or whether we will learn from it and build something better.

I looked again at the computer screen. The discussion continued, but my thoughts had travelled far beyond the office—to the railway platforms, the villages, the plantations, and the people whose lives had become part of my memory.

The tea in my cup had cooled.

Outside, the day continued as usual. Inside, I was reminded of a responsibility that had followed me through the years: to record the past as faithfully as I could, to question the assumptions that shaped our understanding of it, and to insist that the dignity of one Guyanese must never depend on the humiliation of another.

A nation cannot change its history. But it can change the way it understands that history—and what it chooses to do with the lessons it contains.