Please use the comment section at the bottom of this page to share your remembrance/tribute/thoughts. If you are on the “Tributes” page, please comment at the bottom of the “Remembering page.”
I can hear her quip at our collective keening. So through the tears I can laugh.
Deep bows to you beloved Andaiye, thank you for everything. Love and light for your spirit’s journey. Tell Walter and all the ancestors howdy.
Carol Narcisse, Jamaica
***
What an amazing woman. Rest in Peace Andaiye.
Thank God for her book. You awesome Sisters – please write your stories down, plan podcasts and videos – we need their nurturing.
Love đđ˝â¤ď¸
Jean Lowrie-Chin, Jamaica
***
Morning Vanda….SistaFrens All….A strong wide Caribbean embrace as we ponder the death of Andaiye for ourselves personally and together. She is a Warrior, an Overcomer, an Inspiration. I came to understand better how she loves authentically.
Condolences to the Sistas and the whole family.
Rest in Peace Andaiye.
Linnette Vassell, Jamaica
***
Good morning Sisters
Andaiye of Red Thread Guyana made her transition from earth but not from our heart. Andayie was one of our champions for womenâs rights especially domestic workers. She helped to form the Caribbean Domestic Workers Network and the Guyana Domestic worker Cooperation and was actively working giving advice to me personally as needs arises. We have lost a champion. I am really emotionally weak right now. Andaiye work speak for itself across the Caribbean. It is a sad moment for us all especially the Red Thread family, Ida Leblanc, our Trinidad domestic workers leader and us JHWU in Jamaica.
Condolences to the family, Red Thread and the masses in Guyana RIP Andaiye
Shirley Pryce, Jamaica
***
Nuff nuff respect and deep enduring gratitude for Andaiye, LIONHEART friend, and fearless fighter. Her legacy captured in her book will be treasured. We need her wise counsel and advice in these difficult times!!!!!
Judith Wedderburn, Jamaica
***
I am deeply saddened to receive the news of Andaiye’s passing. Please know my prayers, thoughts and blessings are with her entire circle of family and friends. She has given us so much. I pray that her soul finds peace as she travels through another dimension and that we can give her reason to smile when she looks back at her Guyana/Caribbean.
Peace and blessings
Halimah De Shong, Barbados
***
It did not occur to me that she would not leave the hospital. She always does. I offer these lines of Martin Carter from a poem he wrote for Angela Davis. Andaiye was a conqueror.
Love, I wrap my arms around you all.
Nesha
Haniff, USA
and the triumph of the effort of
the always beating pulse
in the wrist and temple of the architect
who wars.
I am thinking about you.
Angela Davis / Andaiye
I am thinking about you and
what I want to do
is to command the drying pools
of rain
to wet your tired feet and
lift your face
to the gift of the roof of
clouds we owe you
Martin Carter
***
So very very sad at this news; somehow I was convinced that her âbad mindâ was going to keep her alive forever. There is an enormous space in the universe that is her spirit/presence and she will be missed and honored by a large community of women, children and men to whom she meant so much.
I am so very sad I could not have seen her again more recently. Though we had not seen each other for a great while, I always felt she was a sister. We spoke a couple of months ago and she was true to form: acerbic, witty and caring. I have so so many recollections of being with her in New York and Georgetown.
My thoughts are with you tonight.
MUCH love,
Lewanne Jones, USA
***
Thatâs very sad news. My sense is that she was an
extraordinary woman who chose, against tremendous obstacles, to lead the life
that she preferred and would not be deterred. Moreover, her unswerving bravery
in fighting that odious disease for decades was formidable.
Thank you for letting me know.
I knew Andaiye best when she was engaged to Louis
Wiltshire. This was about the time of independence. Louis himself died a few
months ago after choosing to be taking off the kidney dialysis machine that he
had been on for many years.
We are the older generation now with all the
unavoidable sorrows that status entails.
Miles
Stoby, Berlin
***
Read with tears.
Tears of sadness that this last great battle of
her life has ended. Tears of gratitude that she was surrounded by those she
loved.
And what an enormous privilege it was to have
known her.
Isabelle
de Caires, UK
***
Thank you for all you did to help Andaiye to stay with us and how lovingly and carefully you did it. We will never forget that. She left us on the 30th anniversary of Nelloâs departure. We had gone to bed by the time your email reached us after midnight. We got a call from my friend Margaret Hope in Barbados at 4am our time to tell us about Andaiye.
Eusi, I thought of you especially.
We both send our love and will call you later today.
Love to all the carers
Selma James and Nina Lopez, UK
***
I feel so happy that I was able to meet and spend time with her when I was there in April. That time with her was priceless.
I too am so happy that her book is complete so we have this record of her life and work. I am sure that in the future there will be many to reflect on her contribution, her amazing intellect, good humour and remarkable personality.
I am sad and we are all sad today. But I can see her laughing and in her dry humour asking what was wrong with all of usâŚ
RIP
Rhoda Reddock, Trinidad & Tobago
***
Thank you, Vanda for letting me know so quickly. An inestimable loss to friends, comrades and the world.
I must have lit my candle just as she died.
Devastated.
Pauline Melville, UK
***
Andaiye lived her life her way and made so much impact with her honesty, integrity, intelligence and wry humor.
So much to reflect on.
Big hugs and love to the Guyanese sistren who shared her life.
Roberta Clarke, Trinidad and Tobago
***
Greetings Vanda
Thank you for sharing this news.
Andaiye has been such an amazing force for social justice, both at home and abroad. She showed us how to make life meaningful by her own determination to make every moment count. She leads that generation that Martin Carter so aptly described, who did not sleep to dream but dreamed to change the world.
Please let me know arrangements for her final rites of transition.
Love to all the sisters and brothers who have shared in her dreams and work.
Asha Kambon, Trinidad and Tobago
***
I am so heartbroken to receive this news.
My condolences to all her friends and family.
David Scott, USA
***
My thoughts are with you all tonight and through the next days.
What an amazing person she was… a gift to so many of us.
Peggy Antrobus, Barbados/Toronto
***
Thank you for sharing this sad news but good to know that she fought to the end and that she had the support of those she was closest to around her.
Patricia Mohammed, Trinidad and Tobago
***
What a true and legendary fighter, gone. We mourn her passing across the region,
Gabrielle Jamela Hosein, Trinidad and Tobago
***
Please accept my sincere condolences.
This is indeed a tremendous loss for the entire
region and the feminist community.
Iâd written to Andaiye about contributing to an
accessible movement text and she indicated her willingness to do so just a few
weeks ago. Her willingness to be a part of it validated the entire exercise
given that she has been the most consistent critical voice in Caribbean
feminism. I always come back to her cautious reflections on who gets left out
and left behind in the kinds of feminist advocacy, development interventions
and academic research that predominate in the region.
When Sherlina Nageer and I organized the
young/ish feminist grounding in Barbados in 2012, Andaiye joined us accompanied
by Peggy Antrobus. She was also not well at the time. Her presence was a
blessing. And again, she cautioned against prioritizing participation in global
governance processes over organizing with women in our local spaces,
particularly women made most economically vulnerable.
The kind of confident idealism Andaiye
expressed, this willingness to confront the world and a stubborn belief that
you could actually change it. Thatâs something that the thinkers, doers and
activists who came of age in the independence period have that I certainly
donât see in my generation and I definitely donât have. That politics of hope,
as you rightly put it.
How else to honour her life, legacy and memory
but to keep doing the work ethically and with ongoing self-critique? And to put
womenâs caring work at the center of it.
Andaiye is a blessing and a gift.
Wishing you strength in this season of grief
Tonya Haynes, Barbados
***
May she finally rest in peace. She was a singular soul and a good friend.
Bernardo Garcia-Dominguez, Toronto/Cuba
***
I am so sorry to hear of Andaiyeâs demise.
Andaiye fought a good fight, her legacy will be cherished by activists across the Caribbean.
RIP Andaiye.
Delores Robinson, Trinidad and Tobago
***
My deepest sympathy at the loss of your dear friend and comrade……I have been deeply affected at her passing.
I have always had great affection and respect for her……..her indomitable spirit….social conscience and generosity will always be remembered…….au revoir Sandra ….till we meet again
your father Dr. Frank and Mother Hazel would have been very proud of you.
With affection to all
Ricardo Smith, Tobago
***
This was the news I dreaded. Iâm so sorry to learn about Andaiyeâs transition but itâs heartening to know she was surrounded by you and other loved ones. Itâs fitting for someone so devoted to peopleâs struggles and to recognizing the work of caring.
peace in struggle,
Robin Kelley, USA
***
Condolences to Andaiyeâs family and may light perpetual shine on her. Recently, I was in Guyana and had the pleasure of visited the Red Thread facility.
Regards
Sharene E McKenzie, Jamaica
***
So sorry to hear this sad news that my Aunt Andaiye is no longer with us in this realm. I send my love and condolences to her family and you all her village.
Love,
Malika Omawale, USA
***
So sad but she has gone to be healed. It was wonderful for her to see what great friends you all were to her.
Pat Insanally, Guyana
She is the most extraordinary person I have met. I loved her courage humanity and humour. What force she carried that one bright life.
Love to you all.
Nan Peacocke, Canada
Tanks…..Kamal lock sheself in d-bedroom..she ainât want talk….I dea siddown watching shadows stretching like nite twine hauling sun ova worlâ edge, me cousin Ray Hendricks he call anâ sey he go organize ah something dis side fuh we who Andaiye friendship embrace….Blessings
Marc Matthews, UK
We are saddened by this news.
Although inevitable, one expects
their lioness to live forever, as she provides us with both psychic challenge
and protection.
Andaiye is a true icon in the struggle for justice in Guyana and the
Caribbean.
Her contribution is immense on so many fronts and we all benefited from her example of courage and resilience.
We value greatly the opportunity to have spend some time recently with her in Barbados.
At this time, our kindest, warmest and most supportive thoughts are with you and all our mutual friends who share a relationship with Andaiye.
Deep and Kathy Ford, Geneva
Dearest Vanda, Jocelyn, Alissa, Family and Friends,
So eloquently written, thank you Vanda. As I sit in this lovely garden in Toronto my love and thoughts are with you and Andaiyeâs huge network of family and friends. Andaiye was my big sister and mentor, she is pain free and we now embrace special memories for all those sheâs left behind whoâs hearts and lives she touched so profoundly.
Denise Dias, Guyana
***
Just read about Andaiye. She had a tough struggle.
They need to recognize her for who she was, and her contribution to GuyanaâŚ
Oma
Sewhdat, Canada
Thanks for your timely and delicate communication on Andaiyeâs condition and preparing us for her final departure.
It is time for weeping and telling the world what she meant to it.
We shall all have so much to say!
Moses Bhagwan, USA
That is very sad news indeed. We will all miss her. Sending this news to friends will be a hard thing to do. We somehow thought she would always be there.
Love
Michael Gilkes, UK.
***
I am really sorry to hear of Andaiye’s passing.
We communicated by email earlier this year on issues such as CEDAAW, sexual orientation, abortion, sex workers et al. She indicated then that her physical strength was low but nevertheless, she wrote a robust and supportive email.
I am forever grateful for her life, her work, her love for all of us and her legacy. My her light shine forever!
blessings,
Marion Bethel, Bahamas
***
To Andaiye.
My love for Andaiye expressed itself in the form
that whenever I was in confrontation with a black person who evoked the worst
in me, I would think of Andaiye, who demanded the best of me, and that would
modify and transform my behavior bringing forth a more humane response. You
could not love her and not love her people. This logic has tempered my
emotions, and it applies to the multi-racial culture of the WPA, be it a
Kwayana, Walter, Ogunseye, Karen, Vanda, Bonita, Omawale, Moses, and the rest
of the bunch of misfits called the WPA. If the WPA did not exist, we would have
to invent it all over again. This is why we have to hold on to our legacy. Long
live the legacy of our sage in our hearts!
Love to all,
Rohit Kanhai,
USA
***
My heart is full at the passing of our sister, warrior, scholar, stalwart, friend. I spoke highly of Andaiye and Red Thread at a lecture I gave at St. Annes College, Oxford two weeks ago, how young feminists looked up to Red Thread and Andaiye and how they transcended the generational divide. I reread her Lucille Mathurin lecture and several other pieces, in preparation. I came away with a greater appreciation for always striving and being self aware, for the necessity for reflexivity and constructive, critical engagement.
She taught me a lot. And I am grateful I knew her. To the grieving group around her, her family and sistren, my love and respect. May she rest in the peace of a life well lived and a woman well loved.
Eudine Barriteau, Barbados
Sincere condolences to the people and Government of Guyana on the passing of a
great daughter of Guyana and of our collective Caribbean Civilization.
May her name, example and memory be forever lifted up and used as a source of
inspiration.
David Comissiong, Barbados
***
Thanks for taking the time and the effort to send the notice to Sav and I. Classy, (as per usual). What a loss! The stock of those whose very presence materially impacts (in the most beneficial way) the quality of human life has been diminished.
Please convey to all the sisters and brothers our solidarity in the sharing of their personal grief at this loss. We should however not allow grief to dominate our response. We need to celebrate the life fully lived that we had the honor to be a part of. We are all enriched by her example.
Because of my own compromised health situation it is doubtful that we will make the trip to Guyana for the memorial.
Abrazos.
Savitri and Lincoln Van Sluytman, USA
***
Light love and strength to her spirit as she moves onward to the ancestral realm. May we always be humble to her example and lessons. May we always call her name.
Iba se Andaiye. Iba se Egun.
***
Iba se Andaiye. Iba se Andaiye. Iba se Andaiye. The giant of a woman. This Warrior woman. This mother Goddess. Love and light to her spirit as she ascends to the Ancestral land. May her journey be easy and her load be light. May we always be humble to her example and lessons. May her stories be spread. May her name always be called.
Iba se Egun!
Taitu Heron, Jamaica
***
What can I write about a sister who has left several footprints on this land? We have been close friends ever since we were in final year at Mona. I waited for her to return from Paris to be my first bridesmaid. She then became the alternate mother of my daughters, particularly Alissa. I thank her profoundly for the mentorship she provided for Alissa. Rest In Peace, my sister. Your job on earth was completed with superior intelligence, common sense, humor and commitment. Thank you for being my friend.
Marilyne Trotz, Guyana
***
The Story of a Courageous Woman, a Bangle and a Film.
Today
I heard the sad news that my friend, sister and comrade, Andaiye, had crossed
over in Guyana after battling with cancer for 30 years. I first meet her in NYC
when we were editing the film The Terror and the Time, which we made in Guyana
from1976 -77 but due to political oppression had to finish the edit in NYC in
1977.
Andaiye was a big supporter of the film and assisted the project with funding
and criticism. At that time she gave me a bangle
which she said was for my perseverance and dedication. From that day the bangle
has remained on my wrist. It is one of the few objects that has maintained a
consistent presence in my life and a reminder of Andaiye. Shortly after we finished
the film she returned to Guyana to work with the political struggle initiated
by Walter Rodney and the Working Peoples Alliance (WPA). I do think this move
was instigated by my dear brother and the film director, Rupert
Roopnaraine.
I met her several times during my return film
production visits to Guyana as well as the 2 political campaigns for the WPA
that I contributed to the media production. It was always wonderful to listen
to her stories of the struggles and her way of thinking and strategy. Believe
me Guyana is no easy place to work in no less build a political and social
movement but Andaiye was certainly a source of inspiration and intellect.
Yesterday , 31 May, Andaiye died in Guyana- this
was yet unknown to me when friend here in Malaysia, Sara
Namdarian, asked me about the bangle and I told
her its story … calling Andaiye’s name and invoking her memory. I pointed out
to my friend that the bangle often indicated to me when I was troubled or
suffered from forms of toxicity as it would get black and yesterday it had
turned black.
Andaiye’s dedication and passion for political
justice and women’s rights in Guyana occupied her til her end. I understand she
had just finished writing a book which will soon be published.
My dear Brothers and Sisters in Guyana I am so
sorry for your loss but I am sure the path she created will guide many forward.
Love and peace.
Ray Kril, Malaysia
***
We have lost a great warrior, mother, mentor and friend.
There is no more suffering and challenges. May she have eternal peace. And may her memory and work live on and be passed on to generations to come.
Rest in Eternal Peace.
Kenita Placide, St. Lucia
***
I knew that the indefatigable, flickering light would be put out soon, but it is unbelievable now that it has happened. Andaiye has fought many battles but this is the only one to which she has succumbed – finally! A great life and one that will be celebrated in our history. I will have to amend the last paragraph of the essay. I hope you’ll be able to get the book out by the time you have an event to celebrate her life.
One of our great heroes is leaving us, but what she is leaving with us in imperishable.
Please convey my deepest sympathy to all Andaiye’s friends and relatives.
Walk good, Andaiye!
Clem Seecharran, UK
***
DEATH
OF A COMRADE
for Andaiye
Time makes us strangers here,
nothing crosses beyond the pillars.
All we can do is keep record.
(If we are lucky tributes rewrite our silences).
Life for so long, remains nameless,
holds us in unequal lands, days of disparity,
the quiet floods of alienation.
At night, we pray for breath, one more
arrangement of living hours to continue
the bloodline of struggle.
This is all of us comrade, before we are exiled,
very sudden, to that country where belonging comes
without gold and glory, without masters and elaborate myths
about
the origin of the Sun.
No
one has left us wanting, not even you,
for you have awakened the utopian regions in our eyes
and the water performs miracles,
mountain
the
up
trickling
Amilcar Sanatan, Trinidad & Tobago
***
ANDAIYE WAS forthright and courageous throughout her life and it is indeed a privilege to have been counted among her friends.
I KNEW her parents as well when she was still at school. Frank was my first patron and first to commission work. A mural for the childrenâs ward at the Hospital.
I AM glad that I had the opportunity to have a long conversation with her during my last visit.
MAY HER SPIRIT REST IN PEACE.
Stanley Greaves, USA
Such sad news. But thank you for letting me know. I was at the Hay Festival when I received your email and I read from Andaiye‘s contribution to New Daughters of Africa in tribute to her.
Here is a photo I took of Andaiye with Jessica Huntley about ten years ago.
One love,Margaret Busby
For Andaiye,
on learning of her death, from Denise Harris,
final lines from the final page of
Palace of the Peacock
by Wilson Harris
âIn the rooms of the palace where we firmly stood â free from the chains of illusion we had made without â the sound that filled us was unlike the link of memory itself.
âIt was the inseparable moment within ourselves of all fulfillment and understanding.
âIdle now to dwell upon and recall anything one had ever responded to with the sense and sensibility that were our outward manner and vanity and conceit.
âOne was what I am in the music â buoyed and supported above dreams by the undivided soul and anima in the universe from whom the word of dance and creation first came, the command to the starred peacock who was instantly transported to know and to hug to himself his true invisible otherness and opposition, his true alien spiritual love without cruelty and confusion in the blindness and frustration of desire.
âIt was the dance of all fulfillment I now held and knew deeply, cancelling my forgotten fear of strangeness and catastrophe in a destitute world.
âThis was the inner music and voice of the peacock I suddenly encountered and echoed and sang as I had never heard myself sing before.
âI felt the faces before me begin to fade and part company from me and from themselves as if our need of one another was now fulfilled, and our distance from each other was the distance of a sacrament, the sacrament and embrace we knew in one muse and one undying soul.
âEach of us now held at last in his arms what he had been forever seeking and what he had eternally possessed.â
On Andaiye and âRecognitionâ
[A little something on the death of Andaiye, May 31, 2019 on hearing complaints that she was not recognised, from Bonita Harris, lifelong friend, sister, and comrade]
I first came to know, that is, recognise, Andaiye, then Sandra Williams, as a âsmall girlâ (9 or 10) when she was a âbig girlâ (15 or 16) at the Bishopsâ High School for girls in the late 1950s. Even then, she was ârecognisedâ as special, as noteworthy, by academic and non-academic staff, by her peers, and by us mere secondary infants; even before the authorities appointed her âPrefectâ and uncapped/informal âgirl guide.â As sometimes happened in those days, after leaving Sixth Form, she returned to teach at Bishopsâ for a while. She then moved to UWI in Jamaica, and later to the Sorbonne, in France, taught in the USA, and then returned home full-time, to teach and mobilize for change in Guyana.
If you only knew her slightly, Andaiye is still not forgettable!
Many, including those who since have migrated from Guyana, will recognise her as the fearless, intrepid, never-daunted and caring-beyond-the-call-of-duty Headmistress, South Georgetown Secondary School (while I was a mere teacher at the time) who demonstrated against the Ministry of Education for furniture for her students, and for the re-location of the school which was frequently subject to flooding from the burial ground nearby. And this was while her friend, Shirley Field Ridley, was then Minister of Education.
From the later 1970s onwards, she was recognised as one of the founders and leading lights of the multiracial Working Peopleâs Alliance; as a founder and member of the leadership collective of Red Thread, and remained so with Karen de Souza, when other founding members moved into other arenas of national work; and in the Caribbean, as a highly valued gender and womenâs rights resource.
Andaiye was never not recognised. She was always actively seen, known, respected, admired, and exalted by many.
Her formal decision, by way of deed poll in 1971, to change her two given names to one, Andaiye, was partly to exercise her right to choose how she was ârecognisedâ and to undermine the patriarchal, colonial, slavish, classist, ageist, bureaucratic, officious, and to some, offensive, tradition of recognising women by their fatherâs name with a âMissâ or âMistressâ in front. In this, she was streets ahead of women who refused their husbandâs name or who added it to their birth names â oblivious to the fact that they were now carrying the last names of two men, one which they had no part in choosing, and in Guyana, for persons of African descent, usually the names of enslavers from our past.
By choosing a Swahili name meaning âdaughter come home,â she gave due weight to her original African roots, her gender, and the essentially environmental commandment respected by all tribes of people from the beginning of time, popularly expressed in the Judeo-Christian culture through the instruction to âHonour thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land … â (The root of the Hebrew word for honour is kabed which means to âattach much weight or importance to.â) Her conscious self awareness of her origin; her acknowledgement of herself as a product of the human and physical environment that reproduced and nurtured her; her clear understanding of her reason for being in this particular place and time; her ground-breaking works in Guyana, in the Caribbean, and further afield, and her documentation of the productive and reproductive work (âwork,â not ârole,â she emphasised, possibly thinking of our domestic, national, and international ârole playersâ) of women, especially poor women â have never gone unrecognized by the people she worked with and for.
Cognition is acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses â this she did, for all of her 77 years on earth. She generously imparted the knowledge she gained, and struggled unceasingly with major health issues for 30-odd years, because she was so committed to ensuring that her insights and learnings would remain accessible after her passing.
Recognition is the acknowledgment of something’s or someoneâs existence, validity, or legality. While working as a teacher, activist, researcher, editor, and writer for the full recognition of the value and work of others; Andaiye recognised her own existence, validity, and legitimacy early in life and up until the end. With her decisive name change, she both legalized her existence and managed to be creatively subversive of officialdom.
Tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of people across class, age, ethnicity, faith, and gender; across Guyana, the Caribbean, and elsewhere, were touched and recognised by Andaiye. The outpourings and tributes, recorded and unrecorded, are proof positive that she was duly recognised. Although she graciously accepted, and did not disrespect, formal recognition conferred by governments and institutions, here and abroad, she knew that she was appreciated and valued by many without the powers that go with âhighâ status, and remained modest, un-self-serving, available, and committed to public service, to the end.
Wherever she found herself, children, including very small children, were drawn to her, like iron filings to a magnet. In observing her interactions with children, you could see they too felt seen, and respected, and directly recognised as full human beings, not lesser mortals.
As an example, here is what my son, Zaman, now a husband actively parenting two daughters, had to say: (Please note his clarity on the ânecessary and vital work that women do all around the worldâ and Andaiyeâs and othersâ recognition âthat it is the work that needs to be done.â Her contact with him was indeed worthwhile. And, given the context of his tribute to Andaiye, please understand why his Aunt Denise and Yvette, two other women who helped his young life to grow up, or his father, Nigel, went unmentioned.)
When I was living in Guyana, Andaiye told me once that if I grew to be an unworthy man that it wouldn’t be for lack of effort on behalf of her and the rest of the (remarkable) women in my mother’s group of friends. Her observation was incredibly blunt, incisive and honest. It was not malicious, but rather as a truthful assessment of the standard to which I should hold myself.
She viewed the world as it was, without pretense, but also without cynicism and the firm belief that it could be better. She had such a generous spirit, full of kindness and compassion. Her wit was quick, dry, withering and funnier than almost anyone else I’ve ever known. She was a mentor and an inspiration to me.
So many of these women I grew up with: Andaiye, Karen, Jocelyn, Vanda, Danuta and, of course, my Mum, built my identity as a man, as a human being. I’ve witnessed the quiet, unheralded, revolutionary work they have done throughout their lives and the effect it has had on the women, children and men they’ve worked with.
This necessary and vital work reflected the necessary and vital work that women do all around the world, because they recognize that it is the work that needs to be done.
I will truly miss you, Andaiye.
Blessings, thanks and praises, and one love,
Bonita
Guyana, June 2, 2019
***
The death of Andaiye on Friday last (May 31) has hit me hard at several levels. There is much to write about Andaiye [aka Nfn Andaiye– “Nfn” = no first name ] as a historical figure. Born in then British Guiana in1942, a few months after Walter Rodney, she played a key role in the politics of Guyana and of the Left in the Caribbean, and in the history of Caribbean feminism. Not least among her contributions was her unsung role in rescuing the manuscript of Walter Rodney’s *Making of the Guyanese Working People* after his murder, and editing it into the form which was published. The outpouring of tributes from around the world makes clear what she meant for so many: http://andaiye1942-2019.com. For the moment though I will limit myself to the strictly personal, some memories I have of her and of working with her. I want to remember the dry wit and humour, the deep warmth and sincerity and humanity.
I knew her from my earliest childhood, as “Auntie Sandra” was a close friend of my parents, as were her father Frank and Hazel. For a child, one’s parents’ friends and friendships, are like prisms in which you discover your parents as adults, and construct an idea of what being an adult might or could be. Andaiye is tangled deeply in the network of people who made me. She was one of other “Uncles” and “Aunties” like Neville and Marilyne Trotz, Rashleigh and Jackie Jackson, George Lamming, Josh and Ruby Ramsammy, Miles Fitzpatrick whose visits to my Guyana childhood house were sources of excitement and stimulation. And when we buried my mother ten years ago in 2009, Andaiye was there, with Neville and Marilyne, Jocelyn Dow, Rupert Roopnaraine who travelled to Barbados from Guyana to be there.
I knew her again as a teenager, when in the late 1970s and early 1980s, she with other members of the Working People’s Alliance stayed frequently at our house en route to elsewhere, or when they needed to rest and recover. I remember particularly vividly August 1980, the summer after the murder of her comrade Walter Rodney (“Uncle” Walter) when she was part of a group of WPA people who stayed as a group recovering from the horror. I have the flashbulb memory of that night when Hurricane Allen passed through Barbados of them drinking and talking and joking throughout the night.
I knew her then as an adult in my early 20s in the mid 80s when we worked together on the collection and edition of George Lamming’s addresses, essays and interviews. She was liming with George up at the Atlantis Hotel. I used to spend a lot of time up there sitting on the private balcony at the back where they stayed drinking rum and talking. We had only made the preliminary collection of George’s texts when the diagnosis of cancer came. While she was no longer able to work long hours, she played an active part in planning the organisation of the book, and with Karen DeSouza rescued from a cassette tape the piece “A Visit to Carriacou” which is one of the jewels of that collection. She spent a lot of time during the chemo at my mother’s house.
Andaiye was a master practioner of the ‘screw face’, appearing to look disapproving, when suddenly the wicked smile would break like the sunshine through storm clouds, and something dry and biting would curl from her lips. She had no time for bullshit, pretension, vanity, or at least she could spot it from a mile off, and drop a tease into your tail to ward it off. She was a human being to model yourself on– she spoke to people focussing on them, equal to equal, however much age or education they had. She was a mind to model yourself on: she thought and spoke with extraordinary clarity and simplicity, while having that capacity to master and muster facts when speaking in public which is a peculiarity of the Guyanese radical political tradition (from Cheddi, to Eusi, to Walter to her … take a look on you tube for her intervention on Sex Work). In private, this was matched by a directness and an “I’m not so sure…”, which would precede a very clear steer towards a simpler and more intelligent way of doing or saying something. She shared with my mother a dislike for half-assedness and any acceptance of mediocrity. But always with that warmth. She was animated by a deep sense of love and caring for people, here and now, and in the future.
Richard Drayton
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Andaiye
One feels a profound sense of loss at news of Andaiyeâs passing. This for many reasons. On a personal note, she has been a âpresenceâ for as long as I can remember, because of the friendship of our parents. Looking back to my childhood, I recall the many stories about Sandra Williams at that time â in retrospect, she was precocious, assertive, articulate and apparently unafraid to express a point of view, despite the seeming âpaucityâ of her years. When she left Guyana, I was awestruck by the news that she had gone to the University of the West Indies ( I knew very few university educated women at the time) ,then later, even to my greater amazement, my mother announced that Andaiye was doing a stint at the Sorbonne in Paris â to my mind, a Guyanese teenager with uncertain prospects, Sandraâs accomplishments seemed exceptional, even exotic.
By the time she returned to Guyana in the early 70s, I had taken off on my own lifeâs journey elsewhere, but even from a distance of geography and time, I continued to be regaled by stories of this exceptional woman. Having audaciously re-christened herself as âAndiayeâ, she represented the dawning of a new feminism in Guyana and elsewhere – independent, intellectually gifted, creative, willing and able to speak truth to power. It isnât that there were not many Guyanese women before her with these gifts, but invariably those women of earlier generations were established to a degree in the ambiance of a successful husband – a womanâs presence often a reflection of âthe otherâ . Andaiyeâs cohort of Guyanese women were different â they could choose to be or not to be linked to another; they decided the option of motherhood but felt no shame in not choosing to bear children. They were ready to stand shoulder o shoulder with compatriots – men, women, and âotherâ to fight against racism, injustice, poverty, hopelessness, crude despotism. Their generation of women, born in the 1940s and 50, inspired the next generation born in the 1960s and 70s. And those in turn have inspired daughters, who are already forging their own independent pathways and are laying the groundworks for yet another generation of girls (and I should add a different construct of boys).
What has inspired me most of all has been Andaiye existential struggle to live. Her readiness to wage war against the force that will ultimately destroy us all, Death. I was inspired by her determination to live in spite of whatever seemingly unconquerable darkness surrounds us. Our fate seemingly enmeshed in a world in which the bellicose, the racist, the intolerant, the vulgarly wealthy seems to prevail. Andaiyeâs courageous fight in the face of the odds against her physically and the realities of the world in which we live must motivate us to reach deep within ourselves and re-commit to carry on her struggle for justice, integrity, a fairer society and the ascendancy of truth.
Eon Nigel Harris