break the cycle

IN 2018 the conversation among black Barbadians must shift from slavery to what they are doing to themselves to remain enslaved in some aspects of their lives.

According to the Minister of Creative Economy, Culture and Sports John King, the time has come for this conversation to take place.

Speaking yesterday during the annual Emancipation Day walk, King said he is mindful that it is going to make many uncomfortable, nevertheless, it must be done.

He said that while Emancipation Day celebrations are held annually, there are some serious cracks in how “we deal with one another”.

“It is a conversation that we need to have. If we don’t have that conversation, events like these are just going to be nice events to come out and parade. But we need to have a conversation that gives us a little bit more, in terms of real meat and bones problems that we face as a race, and as a people.

“Until we have those conversations, the significance of what is happening here is still going to be kind of minuscule towards the bigger picture. I mean, don’t get me wrong, these celebrations are necessary, and these celebrations are important, but if you are looking at what we are doing to ourselves, and what we continue to do to ourselves as a people, then we have a long way to go,” he said.

“Even the concept of politics and how we try to vilify each other based on political parties or based on religion or based on the fact that you went to Harrison College and I went to Princess Margaret, or based on the fact that you live in the heights and terraces and I live in a village. If we are not prepared to have these conversations, then I would say that all of this is going to be just style and fashion. I guess it is politically incorrect for me to start these conversations, but it needs to be done,” he added.

A large crowd gathered at the Bussa Statue, Haggatt Hall, St. Michael, where the Emancipation Day celebrations began with the annual programme put on by the Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration in conjunction with the Commission for Pan African Affairs.

That service, which included prayers, speeches, and the laying of flowers, was followed by the lively march, which went to the Garfield Sobers Wildey Gymnasium.

Also participating in the celebrations were Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs Cynthia Forde, Minister in the Ministry of Foreign Trade Sandra Husbands, former Minister of Tourism Noel Lynch, Dr. Derek Murray of the Commission for Pan African Affairs, Pan Africanists David Denny and Robert “Bobby” Clarke, and General Secretary of the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) Toni Moore.

During the programme held at the Bussa Statue, there was a call made for the Newton Slave Burial Ground, located close to the site of the former slave village, to be dedicated as a national ancestral burial ground.

King told members of the media that he would fully support the proposed restoration project. However, he believes re-education needs to take place among our people.

“If we don’t get that done soon, then we could build burial grounds, we could build monuments, we could build whatever we want. But who is to stop the person who has self-hate in them from going to destroy them, because he or she believes that they have no value.

“And it doesn’t have to be the boys off of the block. You have people who are supposedly well educated, who would probably be in the newspaper by the next week, criticising and quarrelling about the fact that you decide to have a burial ground dedicated to your ancestry,” he said.
(AH)