By Rishee Parasram and Michelle Asantewa
Rishee Parasram was a teacher and frontline activist of the WPA from Courbane Park, Annandale, and worked very closely as an organizer of the East Coast Demerara Region with Eusi Kwayana.
Dr Michelle Asantewa is an award-winning author, independent educator, cultural consultant and publisher. Her publications include the young adult novel, Elijah, The Reawakening and Other Poems, Guyanese Komfa: The Ritual Art of Trance and Something Buried in the Yard. She is the editor of the anthology In Search of Mami Wata. Mama Lou Tales, a biography of her mother received a prize for the Guyana Literary Prize in 2022. Her first collection of short stories, Rupununi Affair was published in 2024.
A Tribute to Brother Eusi Kwayana: Risheenand Parasram
Yes, Eusi Kwayana was a political activist, a teacher, a philosopher, a mentor, and much more to many people. To me, he was also my neighbour across the Annandale-Buxton sideline dam. He was a brother, a confidant, and a wise and respected elder. I knew him at close quarters, and from that vantage point I can say that, above all, he was deeply humane. His humanity was the inner light that shone through every encounter I had with him.
As neighbours, we worked together to improve race relations, foster trust, build respect, and promote political togetherness between our two communities. I learned from him and witnessed the fortitude with which he practised what he preached.
For a time, I operated a hire car and frequently picked him up in Buxton to drive him to Georgetown. In those days, hundreds of East Coast residents lined the public road in the mornings, hoping that the next car would stop for them. Whenever I picked him up, he would not allow the car to fill entirely with Buxtonians. He would welcome some aboard and remind the others that we must leave room for their brothers and sisters in Annandale to travel too.
Some might say that he was a politician and did this for political gain. But over the years, I witnessed that same fairness in his character on many occasions. These were not isolated gestures. Sometimes his actions carried the risk of personal harm, yet he acted on his convictions anyway.
Within the Working People’s Alliance, we addressed one another as brother or sister. So I knew him as Brother Eusi. During the years of our association, however, he was also a big brother and a confidant to me. I do not claim that relationship exclusively. I saw him extend the same concern, respect, and care to others who were associated with him.
I vividly remember the night of the rally marking the first anniversary of Walter Rodney’s death, held at the Walter Rodney Mall in Bourda, Georgetown. After the rally, Brother Eusi led the crowd in a march to Vlissengen Road. We passed the President’s residence and continued back towards Republic Avenue.
I was beside him as we approached the Bank of Guyana building. Suddenly, soldiers disembarked from their vehicles and took up firing positions in front of the marchers, their guns ready and pointed at the people. The commanding officer, his voice trembling with urgency, said to him, “Mr Kwayana, send these people away now! Disperse!”
Brother Kwayana did not falter. His concern for everyone’s safety was clear in his voice as he told me to help him ask the people to disperse. We both did so, and the crowd followed our instructions. He stood between the guns and the people until everyone was safely leaving the scene.
Finally, he told me to find my wife and make my way home. He was the last man standing there. In that moment, he was a big brother to everyone who had taken part.
As a wise and respected elder, he taught me much, both through his knowledge and through the way he lived his beliefs. His simple lifestyle was admirable. I visited his home regularly and remember that he ate no cooked food. As I recall, the family produced their own milk and grew their own vegetables. Organic food, natural living, and healing were evident in their family life, and I later adopted aspects of these practices myself.
During those years, I suffered frequent asthma attacks. When I mentioned this to him, he suggested applying a warm towel to my chest when I felt congestion beginning. I found that this helped me and continued the practice for many years. I remember this as another expression of his care for my wellbeing.
His example also awakened me to the need to change those aspects of my character that did not support the person I wanted to become. He was a catalyst for my own efforts to become the change I wanted to see.
Through our one-to-one conversations, I became convinced that he was deeply committed to nonviolence. I once asked him why he had called for “separation”. As I remember his explanation, he felt that if the two political parties, each drawing its support largely from one of the country’s two dominant racial groups, could not agree on shared governance, then living separately would be preferable to an eruption of violence.
He told me that, having observed the violence between Hindus and Muslims in India, he had suggested partition as a last resort to prevent a similar tragedy in Guyana. I recount this as he explained it to me. What I heard was his profound fear of communal violence and his willingness to risk his own political standing in the hope of preventing it.
Brother Eusi lived to the age of 101. As we mourn his passing, I believe we honour him most fully by carrying forward his vision of unity and fairness among peoples. I urge all who gather to remember him, especially those who aspire to political office, to begin the work of inner transformation.
His humanity transcended his Africanness. From my association with him, I came to believe that he did not regard race, gender, sexual orientation, country of origin, religious affiliation, ancestry, economic status, caste, or other distinctions as barriers to human unity. He saw the human being, and his heart throbbed for every suffering being on the planet.
I say again: humanity was the light that guided his thoughts and actions.
May we follow his example and strive to become more caring and compassionate human beings.
Baba Eusi, An Upright Man: Michelle Asantewa
From as far back as I can recall, Eusi Kwayana was literally a household name in my family. Not as an abstract, popular public figure, but as ‘family’. Older cousins used to say he was my grandfather’s adopted son. As I got older, I came to believe this was an exaggeration, but I never questioned its veracity.
Whenever he was brought into conversations, usually during those warming discussions about cultural pride and heritage, a certain myth would follow. At least, it appeared mythical to me. I became fascinated by stories of this elder, my grandfather’s ‘adopted son’, who they claimed had appeared before Forbes Burnham at his residence despite having previously been detained or gaoled. This was a cherished story, repeated often enough to become something more than myth. Those who spoke about him wanted me to believe he was mystical and, among other things, capable of astral travelling. This was my first conscious encounter with the concept of ‘astral projection’. But what did it mean? One of my older cousins was a lifelong supporter of Forbes Burnham, yet he always recounted this incident as though Eusi Kwayana’s spiritual power outmatched Burnham’s political dominance. I was neither politically mature nor astute enough to question why Baba Eusi had been detained in the first place, let alone how or why he might astral project.
Another of those other things often mentioned about Baba Eusi was that he never ate anything that ‘went on the fire’. He was never directly called a ‘raw foodist’, but I later recognised that this was what they meant. Why my grandfather claimed him as a ‘son’, or what these myths about him meant, I never knew.
Although I distrusted these stories, I felt there was a deeper connection with my grandfather, who was also spoken of with an air of mystery: a man who commanded great wisdom and knowledge of Africa. When I decided to focus my PhD research on Guyanese Komfa, Professor Clem Seecharan, then based at London Metropolitan University, where I was studying, advised me to arrange a visit to Baba Eusi when I went to Guyana. I was excited to finally meet a man who had long held a complex place in my heart. By then, I was developing my spiritual antennae and knew that meeting this elder was divinely aligned.
By this time, I was aware that Baba Eusi had been a member of the African Society for Cultural Relations with Independent Africa (ASCRIA), which preceded the African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA) in Guyana. I also knew he had moved between political parties during his lifetime, though I did not understand the reasons until much later. So, aside from what he could tell me about Komfa, I wanted to know about those myths!
Gentle and softly spoken, he confirmed that he knew my grandparents. He would often visit them at their home in Seafield Village, No. 42, West Coast Berbice. My grandfather was Daniel Ezekiel David, also known as ‘Topan’ and ‘Ole Mzee’. I have no idea where ‘Topan’ came from, but I feel sure that ‘Mzee’—the Swahili word for a venerated elder—must have had something to do with ASCRIA. My grandfather was proud of his African culture and was, in many ways, a repository of cultural knowledge.
During my meeting with Baba, I vaguely recall discussing his raw food diet, which was second nature to him but inspiring to me. Somewhere in the haze of that exchange, in 2002, Baba Eusi recommended Dr Kean Gibson’s book Comfa Religion and Creole Language in a Caribbean Community to support my research. At the time, this was the only academic treatment of the subject. As our meeting drew to a close, I dared to ask him about the astral projection story. If memory serves, he responded with a knowing smile—and nothing more. He neither disputed nor confirmed it. I live with the awareness that some elders possess the art of guarding wisdom and knowledge to protect their integrity.
I did not then realise that this meeting marked the beginning of a lasting relationship and the deep affection I would come to feel for Baba Eusi. It felt as though I had known him my whole life. We exchanged countless emails as I leaned on his cultural wisdom. Growing up in a strictly Burnhamite and PNC household, I know it was Baba Eusi who awakened my sensibilities, encouraging me to be more critical and less one-dimensional in my understanding of Guyanese politics. At that time, I did not call him Baba. For many years, I simply mirrored his greeting: when he called me ‘sister’, I called him ‘brother’.
When I decided to self-publish my thesis in 2016, Baba Eusi agreed to write the foreword. I felt that there was no one else who could do it justice, who would take the time and care. It was one of those full-circle moments I will always cherish.
That same year, The Legend: Post-Emancipation Villages in Guyana: Making World History, co-authored by Baba Eusi and David Hinds, was published. A few years earlier, Baba had asked me for photographs of my grandparents to include among the many village stories. I became emotional reading his account of how my grandparents competed to share folk stories and how villagers respected my grandfather, seeking his advice in disputes. It reinforced the sage-like quality I had observed in him.
It was several years later, during a telephone conversation with Baba Eusi and Brother Kofi, that I learnt my grandfather had been an adviser to ASCRIA members, who visited him for his knowledge of African cultures. I felt sad that I had not known this was such a significant part of their connection. Yet I take comfort in knowing that I must have met Baba Eusi during my childhood when he visited, although I have no actual memory of it.
In 1978, Baba Eusi and members of ASCRIA gave Pa, as we called my grandfather, a homegoing befitting a beloved African chief, complete with libation, drums and a parade enjoyed by the entire village. And I know I was there.
Baba Eusi Kwayana, I will remember you as an upright man whose love of people was inseparable from his love of African culture, history and liberation. You helped me understand that our elders carry knowledge that extends far beyond what is written or spoken. Some truths are revealed through conversation; others remain in a knowing smile. I am grateful that our paths crossed, that you honoured my work, and that you helped me see my grandfather—and my own cultural inheritance—with greater clarity. Your memory will remain a blessing, reminding me to always ‘walk good.’
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