Cheddi Jagan Revisited: Photo Exhibition by Eddi Rodney
Last week Monday March 19, 2009 a photographic exhibition that feature
various stages of Dr Cheddi Jagan’s Life, political activities and the
struggle of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) which he founded and led
for decades, was opened at the National Library, Georgetown.
This exhibition was sponsored by the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre and
all of the prints, mounted on single sheet panels have been seen by the
public on previous occasions.
What is striking about these images, especially for students and
others who may know relatively little of the foremost Guyanese Freedom
Fighter, is the fact that Dr Jagan always appears as though he was actually
evolving with the given process. If we take three or four examples:
The 1943-1949 years, described as “Getting In Struggle” reveals the
early Cheddi Jagan – the radical people’s dentist and politician. “The Third
PPP Government, 1961-1964” gives the viewer some idea, some mental picture
of what was the reality of the PPP as a “party in government” after it had
confronted severe challenges from Anglo-American imperialism and its local
allies.
“The Struggle Continues – 1964-1969” as well as “The 1980s,” all form
part of a broader assembly of pictures that depict Dr Jagan in his public
role (speaking at the East Coast, Lusignan, GAWU rally for instance), or at
the head of a PPP March for the democratisation of the electoral process.
But there are also other scenes showing him relaxing with his family,
on holiday with his wife Janet Jagan in Egypt, playing with his
grandchildren and at his desk and office at his residence.
Photographs from the period 1992-1997 “Victory at the 1992 Elections”
as well “Father of the Guyanese Nation” are of a special interest to young
people, and these may well irk those who have always ranked the PPP as
“communist” and concerned only with personal power.
Viewers can see Dr Jagan with the Tanzanian ex-President Julius
Nyerere and Martin Carter. There are prints of his speaking to (then) United
Nations Secretary General, Mr Boutros Ghali, and also posing for a group
photograph with his first Cabinet Ministers appointed after October 5, 1992.
Obviously, those prints over time would require renovating as the
monochrome process lasts for about 15 years or at the most two decades. This
exhibition provides an excellent insight into how Dr Jagan was involved at
the leadership level, the role of photographs in identifying personalities
and associations, and most of all the legitimacy of the nation building
process coupled to the development of a new national culture.
