Guyana’s Mew Calendar Of Holidays Opposed

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31247, 20 December 1966, Page 18

Guyana’s Mew Calendar Of Holidays Opposed

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter)

GEORGETOWN (Guyana).

A Government plan for a new calendar of national holidays is meeting with opposition from religious leaders and businessmen in the newly-independent state of Guyana.

The strength of the i-eaction from the country’s 250,000 Christians, 220,000 Hindus and 80,000 Moslems is said to have come as a shock to the Prime Minister, Mr Forbes Burnham, and his Cabinet, which designed the new holiday calendar mainly with the aim of integration in this raceconscious country.

The new calendar, which is intended to come into force from the beginning of 1967, drops most of the British holidays now observed in the former colony and creates national holidays to celebrate major non-Christian festivals.

The Government plan proposes 12 public holidays in the year: Good Friday, Easter Saturday, Easter Monday, and Christmas Day for the Christians; Phagwah and Deepavalli or Divali for the Hindus; Eid-ul-Ahza and Youman Naubi for the Moslem; and New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Labour Day, and Commonwealth Day. The British-originated holidays which are eliminated include Whitsuntide, the Queen’s Birthday, Peacemaker’s Day, Remembrance Day, and Boxing Day. Independence Day

One politically-inspired proposal which has caused a ripple of protest is the switching of Independence Day from May 26, the day on which independence was granted this year by Britain, to February 23. On that date in 1763, African slaves struck the first blow for their country’s freedom by rebeling against their Dutch masters.

The greatest outcry has come over the intended abolition of Boxing Day, undoubtedly Guyana’s greatest holiday, when an outburst of revelry follows the quiet of Christmas Day. The Georgetown Chamber of Commerce has appealed to the Government to retain Boxing Day, and expressed disappointment that the new holiday calendar is not sufficiently spread over the year.

Some Christians fear that with Boxing Day abolished revellers will hold their celebrations on Christmas Day, the single holiday of the festive season. This would, they feel, shatter the age-old serenity of Christmas Day and eventually diminish its religious significance. Bishop Pleads Pleading for the retention of Boxing Day, the Anglican Bishop of Guyana and Archbishop of the West Indies, Dr. Alan John Knight, says that in Guyana people of all Christian religions go to church on Christmas Day and celebrate Boxing Day as a secular holiday. If Boxing Day were abolished, he hopes people will attend church as usual in the morning of Christmas Day and celebrate afterwards. The archbishop says that he is protesting more from the social than the religious point of view. He considers that the thousands of shop assistants deserve the extra holiday on Boxing Day after having toiled late into the evenings from mid-December to Christmas Eve to deal with the thousands of shoppers who invade the country’s stores. Even if Boxing Day were declared an ordinary working day, absenteeism would be high and productivity among those reporting for duty would be very low. The new plan has also aroused criticism among Hindus and Moslems, descendants of Indian indentured immigrants brought to the country in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to work on the sugar plantations after the abolition of slavery. “Utter Dismay” The Hindu objects to the exclusion of Ram Naumie, the anniversary of the birth of Lord Rama. Through their three main bodies they have expressed “utter dismay” at its exclusion and told the Government that “Ram Naumie to the Hindu is as sacred as Christmas is to the Christian.”

The Moslems are not asking for an increase in the number of holidays allotted to their festivals, but they want an important one, Eid-ul-Fit’r, which is excluded from the calendar, to be substituted for a less important one, Youman

Naubi, now included. They have explained to the Government that Eid-ul-Fit’r marks the end of the monthlong fast of Ramarhan, and is of greater spiritual significance to them than the observance of Youman Naubi, the anniversary of the birth of the Prophet Mohammed, which, they say, “was at no time observed by our Master the Holy Prophet” Protests from solitary voices among Guyana’s 30,000 indigenous Amer-lndians, 8000 Portuguese and 4000 Chinese are not being taken seriously by officials. Their claim is that since Indian festivals are to become national holidays, and an African slave rebellion is to be commemorated, one holiday each should be allotted to the Portuguese, Amer-lndians and Chinese sections of the population'