A GUY'S VIEW: YHWH is our only saviour

“Chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people. Action, self-reliance, the vision of self and the future have been the only means by which the oppressed have seen and realized the light of their own freedom.”

“Before we can properly help the people, we have to destroy the old education... that teaches them that somebody is keeping them back and that God has forgotten them and that they can't rise because of their color.. we can only build... with faith in ourselves and with self-reliance, believing in our own possibilities, that we can rise to the highest in God's creation.”
– Quotations from Marcus Garvey, “Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey”.

African countries are removing statues of Mahatma Gandhi. They have now decided that his obvious racism against black people makes it unconscionable for him to be glorified in their midst. The question that has not been sufficiently addressed is why any African institution, nation or people would erect a statute of Mahatma Gandhi or any non-African in the first place.

The willingness of African peoples, whether on the continent or in the diaspora, to worship non-African people speaks volumes about their self-esteem, or lack of it, and the completeness of their brain washing. Why don’t others do the same to distinguished Africans?

Local nationalists point to the statue of Lord Horatio Nelson in our capital city with disapprobation, but as distasteful as this might be for them, the erection of this statue does not fall into the same category of the worship of a non-Africans by Africans. No African had any input into the decision to erect the statue of Lord Nelson in Bridgetown. That no African-Barbadian leader could remove it speaks not necessarily to the ineptitude of our post-colonial leaders, but to the residual power of a different group of people.

No other people is as ready as we are to look for saviours in others. And when our designated saviours look like us, they are usually like us only in physical complexion. This unfortunate truth discloses a certain self-abasement and a negative world view which many of us hold. We need saving from this mode of thinking more than anything else.

At the moment of our latest financial downturn, it was easy for the de facto powers among us to persuade us to turn our backs on any home-grown recovery programme and agree to a foreign saving programme that would subject the least able among us to severe suffering. Rather than hold strain for a few years and allow a compassionate correction programme to work, we were told that immediate money in our pockets should be preferred. Now, the International Monetary Fund instituted programme is wreaking havoc among the poor and the little money we had in our pockets has disappeared through increased taxation.

Like in the good old days of slavery, a few who have been smiled upon are living well while their brothers and sisters are sucking salt. There is a great injustice in that outcome. This mentality of the devil take the hindmost is an unfortunate feature of our history. But it need not be so.

What we really need is self-respect and confidence in what we can do for ourselves, both at the individual level and as a people. How do we combat reduced income resulting from being pushed into higher tax brackets; the imposition of a gas tax, even if we do not drive; a sewage tax, even if we are not connected to a sewage system; a garbage tax, even if we do not benefit from adequate collections of our refuse?

How do we live with no income, due to being employed in the last ten years under the Democratic Labour Party regime and are therefore being punished for that avenue of provision? How do we apply the Midas touch to $5,000 so as to turn it into a sustainable business? I am not sure how many of us still believe in the god Dionysus.

If you are a pensioner who invested in Government paper to help provide for your evening days, how do you survive the abrogation of the contract you entered and having your expected return substituted by an unsustainable dribble of interest and invested principal?

These are difficult times which demand the making of sensible and sometimes complex decisions if we are to survive our current economic environment. The decisions we must make now require courage, faith and reliance on no benefactor external to ourselves.

Our history should have taught us that we can rely on no one but ourselves. History should also have taught us that no IMF programme is kind to the population of the implementing country. These are historical givens which should form the framework for what we need to do going forward. It is clear that the poor and nearly poor among us will not be helped by Government or private business moguls. So what do we do? We need to look within ourselves.

There are Barbadians of every stripe who will come to understand that if this country is to be successful, while the usual divisions which separate us after 4:30 pm may remain untroubled, the larger national interest must find expression in productive ways before our daily separation. This is not an outcome that is beyond us. Our common end has to be what is best for Barbados, but there must be a recognition that each group will have its particular interests. It is possible for various groups to work together in their own interests, while not working against the interest of another group.

While no one will look to us to save them, we must look to no one to save us, not even one who looks like us. We must all raise our voices and come to the picket line to ensure that we are not left behind.

Recent experiences have taught us that we must be eternally vigilant, for even those who stand before us as our leaders will betray us when it suits their private interests. The absence of vigilance will take away our vision, and where there is no vision the people perish. Many of us are suffering now and may even perish because of a lack of vision.

The lumpen proletariat must defy the prophecy of the originator of that term and pull together to ensure that, regardless of the extent of our suffering, we do not perish. At all costs, we must guard our rights and protect our heritage of national pride and industry. We must think for ourselves and not fall for sweet talk.

Barbados Advocate

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