BATON PASSED

A selection of nursery, primary and secondary level students, drawn from approximately 13 schools in Barbados, joined Minister of Culture, Sports and Youth, Stephen Lashley at the Emancipation Statue yesterday, to receive a symbolic Self-Reparations Baton.

The symbolic handing over of the baton to the students gathered at the Emancipation Statue at the in Haggatt Hall, St. Michael, formed part of the celebrations to recognise National Heroes Day, which is being celebrated as a public holiday today.

Ahead of the brief hand-over ceremony, the Youth Minister addressed scores of school children who gathered under tents across from the Emancipation statue, which is also commonly referred to as the Bussa statue. He reminded them first, about the significance of National Heroes Day.

“I believe all of us are descendants of African slaves and therefore, we feel that you should be made aware of your ancestry and the rich African culture that is part of the whole cultural identity of us as Barbadians,” Minister Lashley told the students.

“We are standing a few feet away from one of our National Heroes – The Right Excellent Bussa. He was the person who led the first slave rebellion in Barbados. And although he and the persons who fought with him recognised that they may have perished… although they knew that they may have been overcome by stronger firing power, they stood up and they fought for a cause. They fought for the liberation of African slaves, because they felt that enslavement was wrong,” Lashley further noted.
“So when you pass and you see the Bussa statue, it ought to remind us of the sacrifice that often must be made, so that others may survive… they sacrificed their lives, so that you and I who are the persons who would have been following in the next generation, would have the kind of livelihood and the standard of living that we have today,” Lashley maintained.

Turning his attention to the concept of self-reparations, the Minister outlined why it is important for students to embrace such a concept.

“Unless we can have the whole principle of reparations recognised as being a key part of who we are, then we would not have been able to take forward the significant and invaluable work of our National Heroes,” he said.

“You would have heard of course that the governments of CARICOM have established a Reparations Commission and the idea
of reparations really is to look at the impact of slavery on our current development and to seek reparations or to seek various kinds of recompense, from those who enslaved our ancestors. [However], we believe that this must start with self-reparations. How we begin to look at our own lives, how we can repair in our own way, some of the injury, some of the things that are being done even today, that are wrong,” he added.

“So when I pass the baton to the schools, I want the schools to engage themselves in how can we do things better, how we can respect each other, how can we respect our communities, how can we use our education, for our own upliftment,” Lashley remarked, before symbolically passing the
baton to student representatives of the schools.