African Guyanese will only progress when they have strong leaders and are interdependent

Dear Editor,

I refer to F Skinner’s letter in SN of April 8, `The African Guyanese Community has to find a way to develop strong financial independence.’
My journey through the history of African Guyanese communities/villages, and my community ‒Kwakwani ‒ and  the bauxite industry, shows that progress for African Guyanese comes when there is strong leadership backed by the interdependence of the people.
The slaves had to fight collectively before slavery was abolished. After slavery was abolished, they pooled their money to buy villages. Local government first came into being in relation to their villages.
We can also recall the benefits of boxhand in the absence of a banking system, where we collectively pooled our money and patiently waited on our turn to draw our hand. We planned what we would do with our money and we did what we planned to do.
In my community, strong leadership and a spirit of interdependence enabled it to build a teachers hostel to make the teachers of our children comfortable, a secondary school to reduce the cost for our children to acquire a secondary education and the Kwakwani- Ituni Road. The secondary school was built with workers pooling money matched by the bauxite industry at that time.
There were also systems put in place to help bauxite workers (who were predominantly African Guyanese) to be financially strong. The Bauxite Industries Thrift Plan was developed by strong leaders who were concerned about workers after retirement. The destruction of this plan can be discussed at another level.
How we arrived in this state and whether we can get out must be of serious concern for anyone who considers him or herself to be a leader today.
As it relates to the financial status of the bauxite workers, I always recall a statement by Mr John, Deputy General Manager of GNCB Trust at one of our management committee meetings. He said: “It is not that the workers’ money is too small; it is their inability to manage it.” His  reference was to the fact that workers were withdrawing money and not borrowing from the fund.
There is no denial that quite a lot of our people squander scarce financial resources on pleasure and waste educational opportunities that are available. Mr John Lewis, CEO of Bermine, was one of the great leaders who had in place a system to refund employees for any course they successfully completed to make them more qualified.
I must admit that I am no expert on the subject of African Guyanese behaviour, but what I am seeing and experiencing around me is enough to convince me that as a people, we will only progress when we ensure the leaders we select/elect are strong in every sense of the word, and we are prepared to be interdependent.
Yours faithfully,
Jocelyn Morian