Portrait of Guyana 2000
Ian on Sunday
The new Millennium technically does not start until 1st January, 2001, but everyone except the pedants will be ushering it in an instant past midnight on December 31st, 1999. However blas one would like to seem, off-handedly pointing out that, after all; this is just another of the countless moments of time, the fact is that 2000 has a special, reverberating ring about it that is bound to echo in the ear of history. Through the centuries it will be marked and noticed. Knowledge has been accumulating at such a rapid rate in the last decades of this century that it is impossible to gauge what astonishing vistas of unbelievable new discoveries will greet us quite soon in the new Millennium, much less by its end. I find it particularly fascinating to think that before very long we will know how matter originated and how life began - though the whys of these mysteries may take a little longer to be explained - by the resurrection, perhaps, or the crack of doom, whichever is the sooner. Nobody with half an imagination can view the start of a new Millennium without a thrill or shiver of extraordinary anticipation. We in Guyana do not seem to be showing much interest in the dawn of a new Millennium. Businesses are worrying about the Y2K problem and I suppose a few hotels and clubs are planning Millennium parties but apart from that what is being done to mark the occasion? Nobody seems to be paying the slightest notice. Of course, this could be interpreted as indicating that we are the most level-headed and sensible people on earth but somehow it does seem a pity not to participate a little more enthusiastically in the drama. There is one Millennium project which would certainly get the world off to a marvellous, flying start for the next 1,000 years. It would give world trade an enormous boost. It would transform the petty men who masquerade as leaders of the world today into 'historical giants. Above all, it would give countless millions of desperate men, women and children around the globe a new lease of hope for a future in which they would have a better chance of enjoying some measure of the elementary decencies of life. Let the world powers that be stop shilly-shallying around with this, that and the other terms of debt relief for the poor, the poorer and the poorest and in one dramatic move - perhaps at the WTO conference in Seattle at the end of November - with a sweep of their collective pen forgive all the poor world's debt. That would be a really worthwhile millennium project and would help just a little to level the WTO's infamously and brutally uneven trading field. Back at home, what millennium projects are in the works? We should be doing a few things to make history notice. I very much liked John Warrington's excellent idea of planting thousands of trees in Georgetown and other centres in 2000 to return some beauty to our urban lives. An uncomplicated plan for which we would be kindly remembered as the new century progresses and the trees grow and flower - but it seems nothing has come of that good idea. I wish to suggest a Millennium project for Guyana which I think might be possible to organise in the short time available, would not be very costly, would enlist a number of our important creative talents and would make a significant and unusual contribution to Guyana's future generations' awareness of what their ancestral homeland and their ancestors were like at this great hinge of time. I suggest we commission a score or more of our best photographers and artists during the course of the year 2000 to visit Guyanese localities through all the length and breadth of the land taking portraits and making paintings of Guyanese scenes, artifacts, people, buildings, ceremonies and festivals, workplaces and habitations, sports and pastimes, customs and curiosities. A national committee could coordinate the endeavour and draw up basic lists of what might be recorded but considerable creative latitude should be encouraged. Let us assume this project yields, say, 1,000 or 2,000 p6rtraits and paintings of Guyana in the year 2000. Think what a Millennium Album that would make for posterity! Think what a priceless Portrait of Guyana 2000 we would then have created for our children and our children's children and the generations to come. Such a volume, such an effort of our collective imagination, such a non-partisan endeavour, such a national work of art would become a treasure worth preserving in a place of special honour in our archives. Let us try to find the money - budget 2000 is coming up - and let us in good time commission our leading artists and photographers to begin preparing to create this portrait of Guyana 2000.
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