Mr Peter Wickham was so eager to parade his contempt for the Commission For Pan-African Affairs (CPAA), the politics of inclusion; Mr David Comissiong and the late Dr Ikael Tafari, that he delivered himself of a Sunday Sun newspaper article in which almost every paragraph contained an error of fact!
Some of Wickham’s more significant errors were that the Commission was founded after the 1999 General Elections; that the CPAA was a “gift” to Mr Comissiong; that it was the CPAA that staged the 2002 Anti-Racism conference in Barbados; that it was the CPAA that “brought” the charter flight of Ghanaians to Barbados in 2008, and the list goes on. All of these assertions are incorrect! It is also noteworthy that the CPAA has long outlived Mr Comissiong’s six-year association with it.
What Wickham refuses to see, is that the CPAA is a product of one of the most visionary and creative experiments in the annals of Barbadians politics – an experiment in participatory governance across political party lines, that came to be known as the “politics of inclusion”.
After winning the 1994 General Elections, Barbados Labour Party (BLP) representatives made overtures to the David Comissiong-led Clement Payne Movement (CPM), and out of the surrounding discussions, the idea emerged that organisations could maintain their separate identities and political ideologies, and yet work together on particular projects that they agreed upon.
The establishment of a CPAA was one of the joint initiatives agreed upon, but it was not the only one. Other areas of collaboration were as follows:
1) The development of Golden Square – the CPM contributed the Clement Payne bust and composed the inscriptions placed on the monuments.
2) The Barbados/OECS unity initiative – the BLP and CPM jointly staged a regional conference in 1998 and shared the costs on a 50:50 basis; and Mr Comissiong served as Prime Minister Arthur’s representative on the unity Task Force.
3) The collaboration was also manifested in joint efforts to develop the new Emancipation Day and National Heroes Day holidays, and in Comissiong’s service on the Committee For National Reconciliation and the Nelson Statue Committee.
The CPAA is an absolutely necessary institution! If Barbados and Barbadians are ever to achieve their full potential they must first come to terms with Africa and with their intrinsic African-ness! For centuries, the large mass of African descended Barbadians have had notions of Black inferiority and African under-achievement inflicted upon them, and have been un-naturally separated from their African mother continent and its people. Barbados needs a powerful governmental institution to help it repair the damage done and redress the imbalance.
Peter Wickham may not understand this, but his illustrious ancestor – the great Clennell Wickham – surely did! In his booklet entitled Colour Question: Some Reflections on Barbados, the great man wrote as follows:
“The entire social and economic structure of Barbados is founded upon distinction of colour . . . . It is one of the features of British colonies in which African slaves were brought to labour for white masters . . . . What I hope to do is to get people . . . to admit that there is such a thing as a rigid colour line in Barbados
. . . and that it can only be changed by the clear sighted and fearless efforts of the coloured people themselves”.
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