This will happen this November 15 at the Maison des Cultures et des Mémoires in Rémire-Montjoly, the historian Jean Moomou will host a conference: “The Republic in the village: the political experience of the populations of the Maroni valley (1958-1993 )”, an event that fans of the history of Guyana will not miss.
Jean Moomou, Doctor in history and civilization, university professor will provide during this conference, scientific insight on the relationship with institutions of the populations of the Maroni River.
For the historian, it is necessary to explain : « How the political experiment started on the Maroni. How this event structured the political organization of this space and the appropriation by the inhabitants of the political situation that they did not know before the 1960s.
The speaker’s entire purpose will be to show how this Republic is gradually inserting itself into the space of populations who were on the fringes of colonization and departmentalization. He will, step by step, introduce the public to this progressive integration into the current system and the learning of democracy.
Jean Moomou recalls that the populations of both the east and the west were landlocked until the 1960s when land development began with the arrival of aviation. There is already a desire to create a road network. Gradually, new generations, more integrated into the French system, seek to obtain territorial equity.
There is a citizenship that will emerge more and more in the general sense but, underlines the speaker, coastal Guyana was much more politicized than Guyana on the margins. However, the new generations are now better armed and demand to have an existence on the Guyanese political spectrum.
He will return to the work carried out by political actors who went to the margins of Guyana such as Robert Vignon, Hector Révierez, Paul Jean-Louis and even Léon Bertrand; « The men on the right were on the Maroni from the start and the left came gradually. In particular the Guyanese socialist party, independence movements like Moguyde…”
This allows us to understand why the people of the river voted mainly to the right, recalls Jean Moomou…
It will be interesting to follow the professor’s explanations on the relationship between customary authority and state representation. On this level, Gran Man Tolinga, the first mayor of Maroni, played an essential role in the beginnings of this “municipalization” of Maripasoula.
As Jean Moomou points out, there was violence and clashes between clans and families during this period over the choice of candidates for the elections. And one of the consequences of this integration into the French system is the weakening of customary authorities…
This conference will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the MCMG
The access plan to the MCMG on November 15 • ©DR
