Dear Editor,
I read with some amusement and some sadness the ‘commentary’ by Khadija Ba “The Great Cultural Procrastination”.
Let me provide some context that is perhaps unintentionally missing from Ms. Ba’s piece. In May 2015, the Granger APNU+AFC administration was handed the fruits of the research of the Prince Claus Fund supported, Janus Cultural Policy Initiative, an independent initiative under my execution that preceded the then change of government.
For the next six months, at the behest and out of personal respect for Minister of Education, Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine, that administration received my effectively pro bono support in shaping of its cultural policy framework and strategic pathway just as it had received my pro bono support in crafting its manifesto commitments on culture before my being hired on a short contract in November of that year.
Based on my advice and that framework, in his 2016 budget speech, then Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan, made the declaration that:
“This year, the Government will focus on reviewing, enhancing and implementing a National Cultural Policy, subsequent to meaningful consultation with cultural heritage and creative industry stakeholders. Whilst the policy implementation period will cover two five-year cycles, specific programme initiatives will fall under a biennial 2016-2017 work programme. The policy will be premised on three areas: mainstreaming culture in national development, cultural heritage preservation, and creative industries development.”
Winston Jordan, Budget Speech 2016 (pg. 17)
When those commitments were not followed through, I chose not to opt for a contract renewal and instead in July, 2016 proceeded on an international fellowship, having handed over a draft framework. It was Dr. Roopnaraine who encouraged me, on my return to Guyana, to reengage in October of 2016 to deliver a finished draft national cultural policy to him at the end that year, and to rest of Cabinet in February of 2017.
What followed was an increasingly regressive attitude to cultural heritage and the creative industries including but not limited to: the disappearance of the Guyana Prize for Literature; the disappearance of the National Drama Festival; the repainting of State House in the interest of political branding; the increasing removal of Guyana’s involvement in international cultural policy infrastructure; and of course the refusal to even acknowledge officially that comprehensive draft policy, much less take it to consultation.
From 2014 to 2019, the only [limited] cultural policy consultations held in Guyana were initiated and organized by yours truly, with funding either from my personal project, salary or a single engagement supported by UNESCO at the end of 2019.
It is precisely because of this failure of the Granger administration that I informed then Minister of Social Cohesion, Culture, Youth and Sport, Dr. George Norton, in mid-2019 that I would not be renewing my contract later that year.
Under the current administration, I was engaged with the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport in November of 2021. Between 2019 and 2021, indeed, significant disruptive events had taken place. Guyana was still recovering from the attempted rigging of elections by then APNU+AFC, and perhaps more importantly the devastating effects of the COVID pandemic. The pandemic not only caused global economic devastation, but also transformed the cultural policy landscape, particularly with regard to government budgetary allocations for heritage as well as the capital base and market access for the creative industries. The initial effort therefore was to update the draft from 2016 to one that took into account, among other things, the post-COVID environment.
Even so, from 2022-2025, basic policy-based initiatives were implemented, the low-hanging fruit that was achievable during 2015 to 2020. For example, the Guyana Prize for Literature that went missing, despite a policy paper recommending its retooling for the prize’ 30th anniversary in 2017, was restored, enhanced and expanded and has since been an annual event along with a literature festival. The Cultural and Creative Industries Grant, a 2017 recommendation that was poorly executed once in 2019 was implemented with a larger budget and a more sweeping mandate. In the area of heritage, among other initiatives, a comprehensive draft legislation repealing and replacing the 1972 National Trust Act is on the government’s legislative agenda this year, a commitment available in the draft policy since 2017.
As I explained during my presentation, last Thursday’s exercise was meant not to present the detailed policy initiatives that have been in development since the President launched his Orange Economy Cabinet Task Force last November, but to kickstart a state sector policy and operational cohesion process the eventual outcome of which will be a Creative Industries Development Strategy, following a National Consultation. Ms. Ba’s ‘analysis’ even includes the diagram I presented summarizing the processes over the next six months.
The Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Charles Ramson in his presentation presented an extended timeline on implementation. Therefore, when she declares that “The time for summits, primers, and focal points has passed”, it is clear that she did not under the process at all – I presented Jamaica’s most recent attempt, also post-COVID as an example of a similar process, but did not point out that this was really the end stage of a process that has been ongoing at least since 2007. This is precisely the time for summits, primers and focal points.
And when she authoritatively declares, “It is time for the MOCYS and its long-standing advisors to stop looking at what Jamaica did last year or what South Africa did five years ago”, it is a clear demonstration of the sort of hubristic ignorance that runs through the article, part of the process of finalizing our creative industries strategy has been to engage the UN system which has, as is best practice, provided us with examples of orange economy strategies in other jurisdictions, countries that have both benefited from existing models even as they have, as we are doing, tailored them to fit their own situation.
I agree on principle that there needs to be intelligent, hard-hitting investigative and analytical journalism on cultural policy, whether heritage or the creative industries. Ms. Ba’s attempt however is not it. When she asked for my presentation from the recently concluded event, I willingly presented it to her. If she is truly interested in writing on “The Great Cultural Procrastination” I can also easily make available my 2018 annual report, as Cultural Policy Advisor, in which I concluded:
“Budgets 2017, 2018 and 2019 have not, however, catered for consultation either in whole or in part for national cultural policy… Directly through the efforts of the CPA and indirectly through several government of Guyana initiatives a more than adequate foundation has been established to justify national consultations on the Draft Framework National Cultural Policy, followed by tabling of the document in the national assembly, and finally implementation of policy recommendations and initiatives… It would be unfortunate and unhelpful to the national cultural development if stagnation on cultural policy continues into 2019. As observed by then Leader of the Parliamentary Opposition in 2013, now His Excellency President David Granger in 2018, ‘…no one will benefit from the absence of a national cultural policy.’“
I am still to receive an explanation from the former President, who I believe Ms. Ba is closely affiliated with, on why exactly it is that his rhetoric in 2013 as Opposition Leader resulted in exactly the opposite in the five years of his Presidency, and why despite handed a policy framework since 2015 and a draft policy since early 2017, there was a great procrastination in consultation and implementation. I have no such queries about the commitment of the current President, His Excellency Irfaan Ali.