Martin Carter’s House, Lamaha St., Georgetown, Guyana (author’s photo, taken February 2024)
“This is the dark time, my love”. Martin Carter (1927-1997), Guyanese poet.
Carter wrote this poem sometime between 1953-54 during British rule in Guiana (pre-independence spelling). A time when Churchill’s Government sent troops to a country that had recently elected a socialist government, posing a threat to the continued exploitation of the Guiana’s people and natural resources by the USA, Canada and the UK. This was the “dark time” Martin Carter wrote of, now more than 70 years ago.
I am reminded, daily, of this dark time we now live in when academics on both sides of the Atlantic, are hounded and vilified in person, online and in the press. Workers, spouses, teachers in schools, students and corporate employees who have felt they can no longer sustain the daily oppression, quietly leave this earth. Their names are forgotten by the world, but daily remembered by their loved ones. This is, indeed, the dark time.
“All round the land brown beetles crawl about. The shining sun is hidden in the sky”
So often, during these times, it feels like we are in “the season of oppression, dark metal, and tears.” Yet, I am sure Martin Carter and others in the Guiana of the 1950s, including my own parents, would want us to look beyond this time, envision and work towards a different future than our present, as they did, so bravely. Through their legacies and in the prose and poems that remain, Carter evokes this moment that has not been overcome even with the passage of time; lest we forget.
The beetles may have changed their colours but they still “crawl about” and we have evidence of this wherever we look. Every news feed reports renewed strikes against those who dare to call out the abuses of power. And even those too young to understand are denied their right to normalcy; school and work, play and sleep, safety at home, love and care.
Although it may be difficult to be hopeful, “A Luta Continua”, as sung by Miriam Makeba. So, the struggle continues. When we think one battle has been won, another one rages in our midst.
This summer we have seen the highest temperatures in places in the northern hemisphere, floods, landslides and whole areas with their inhabitants, washed away, in the Global Majority. Struggles in places whose names we find difficult to pronounce and others, in areas we are unable to place on a map. But in each space, there are children and adults continuing their struggle, which is also ours.
The end of August, here in my home, brings a promise of new crops for next year as the earth is made ready to plant in September. The harvests of maize, wheat, rye and barley are over. Gardeners with small holdings sell their produce on the roadsides and onions, cucumbers and tomatoes are available in small quantities to take home and enjoy. Fresh herbs, tiny pink carnations and lush sage leaves survived the heat wave outside my kitchen and children, with their parents, ready themselves for another school year. Winter slowly turns to spring in the south and somehow, we continue into September with renewed hope and possibilities.
Patricia Angoy 