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letters of november, 2003
green text is text of the letter.
white text is my reply or correspondence
initiated by me.
cyan text is an inserted note.
- letters are separated by grey lines.
3 november
2003
Hello;
This is Robert, I wrote to you once in July of this year to share
with you some of the experiences I had when I visisted Liberty
Ave. I came back to your site today and I decided to write you
about something pertaining to indian culture as a whole, not just
guyanese culture. I went with my girlfriend to India this summer,
it was my first time there and I was very excited about seeing
this country, people, sites, etc. I think I know now what you
say when you state "we have to perserve our culture".
We went to Mumbai and I must say, its like the indian culture
is gone or going to be gone in the near future. The people "the
times" if you will is so Europeanised. I would say Amercanised,
but I see a stronger influence of European culture there. Let
me list a few, nightclubs, the clothing, the attitude. Its really
distrubing to see all of this in India. When you are in the city,
to an extent, some of the Indian culture is definetly gone. To
the defense of the surrounding Towns and Villages, to which we
visited quite a few, I was pleased as to how these "villagers"
maintain their values and traditions.
My girlfriend was equally shocked and disappointed as she puts
it "if we lose our culture and identity in the motherland,
where else are we going to get it from". I find it a bit
odd, that a country like India, who was oppressed, humiliated,
and looked down upon by the British Empire, India, that is indians,
are patronizing, or better yet idolizing, Britian, its values
(very lose values), culture and traditions. Then again what do
we say about living in a country that had slavery, not just for
blacks but for indians as well ( I have papers and documents from
4 generations ago about my ancestors being brought over here as
slaves). Go figure. Anyway thank you for allowing me this opportunity
to speak about this issue.
9 november 2003
a reply to the above
hello,
thanks for writing to guyanatruth again. i do remember your e-mail
in july.
all over the world, nations are losing their cultural tradition
and values to american and european corporate culture. local cultures
are replaced or diluted by these foreign cultures that are boosted
by the media and governments of both the local and foreign nations.
sadly, a lot of people are pacified with foreign attitudes and
do not see what they're losing.
i have watched the news and been perplexed by israelis, in the
middle east, speaking with american accents. i've also had glimpses
of contemporary indian movies where the characters suddenly break
out in english, spoken in an american accent that sounds incredibly
forced. also, during the musical scenes, the background dancers
that were once brown indians have been replaced by white americans.
i really can't consider myself a child of africa, asia, or europe.
i am a child of guyana; guyana is my motherland. so i am concerned
with saving guyanese culture. unfortunately, when attempts must
be made to save one's culture, this indicates a loss of cultural
strength in itself.
your experiences in india can be compared to the situation in
guyana. we are a nation of slaves and indentured labourers; of
brutalised and oppressed people. we are supposed to be free yet
everything from our government to our food, our behaviours to
our clothes, and our beliefs to our shelter belong to the people
who enslaved us. we're supposed to be free, yet we are puppets
dangling from the claws of the colonisers and their systems. we
dance around the courts, the schools and the streets like civilised
ameri-guyanese, when we've really had no time to find ourselves
between our emancipation from the europeans' slave system, and
the implementation of the europeans' governing system.
we're supposed to be independent, but we're really very dependent,
especially economically and mentally.
losing one's culture is a result of effective mind control. maybe
if the alarm was "you're being brainwashed!" instead
of "preserve your culture" people would rise to action.
it would be enriching to guyanatruth if you could send in a scanned
copy of any of the ancestral documents that you have, you'll be
credited in full. i know that documents like these may be intimate
pieces of a painful past, so forgive and forget my request if
i have offended you.
thank you very much for taking the time to send in your thoughts.
peace.
g.u.m.
guyanatruth.tripod.com
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