“Those institutions are the explanation of all of the transformation that you see in Barbados today.”
Freundel Stuart, Barbados’ Prime Minister, was referring to role of trade unions and mass political parties which he said had served as the engines of growth by propelling economic and social development since the 1937 riots.
Stuart credited the social disturbances of the late 1930s with helping to launch “what we know as modern Barbados”. That, he added, was where the existence and the policies of the trade union movement and political parties came in.
Although the Prime Minister didn’t mention the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) by name, only citing the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) he probably had the BLP mind when he said the DLP joined the list of “parties” when it was formed on April 27, 1955, that several years before and after, the BLP had managed Barbados’ affairs until 1961 when, led by Errol Barrow, the DLP won the Government.
That bit of political history seemed appropriate enough. Stuart was addressing more than 200 Bajans attending the recent 25th anniversary celebrations of the Friends of Barbados (DLP) Association, the ruling party’s New York arm, which was launched in 1987, several weeks before Barrow’s death.
In providing the audience at El Caribe Country Club in Brooklyn with a lesson in political science, Stuart hailed the DLP for its introduction of free secondary education half-a-century ago, saying that it had “the effect of transforming Barbados from an agricultural economy to the modern nation that it is, the No. 1 developing nation in the entire world”.
Actually, Barbados, which occupied that top position for decades, was surpassed last year by such developing countries as Argentina and Chile.
“It is true that we have reached a stage now where people take the free secondary education they get for granted, and for the simple reason that they don’t know a Barbados in which they have had to do without it. It is the duty of those of us who know that Barbados to teach our younger people what Barbados was like when parents, poor parents, had to pay for the education of their children in Barbados’ secondary schools,” he insisted.
Sticking to the anniversary theme, he spoke about the 45th anniversary of the introduction of the National Insurance Scheme, again by the DLP, and he described it as “the best and most reliable social security scheme anywhere in the entire English-speaking Caribbean, thanks to the hindsight, insight and foresight” of the DLP in 1967.
“We will be celebrating that as well,” he said.
And that would occur alongside the 75th anniversary of the 1937 Riots, he explained.
Milestone
But the Prime Minister didn’t stop there. He stated that another milestone was the outlawing of the term “bastard” in the 1975 Succession Act introduced by the DLP, asserting that had it not been for that “revolutionary” measure, he “would still be a bastard”.
In addition, Stuart suggested that the Succession Act “made available to women, single women who cohabited with single men for five years or more, the same rights as women who were actually in marital relationships”.
“(You) can’t want for a more revolutionary measure than that introduced by the Democratic Labour Party.”
However, Sir Henry Forde, a legal luminary who was Barbados’ Attorney General between 1976-81, serving in the Tom Adams administration, challenged Stuart, explaining that bastardy was outlawed by the 1980s Status of Children Reform Act.
“I piloted that act through Parliament in 1979,” Sir Henry pointed out.
Just as important, he said that the Family Law Act of the early 1980s, which he had presented to Parliament, was crucial to the elevation of the status of women and children in the country.
The six-hour anniversary celebration spearheaded by Heather Stuart, president of the Friends of Barbados, also included presentation of awards to several Barbadians. They included Justice Sylvia Hinds-Radix, administrative judge for Brooklyn’s civil courts; Dr Peter Jordan, president of the 12 000-student Tarrant County College – South in Fort Worth Texas; Professor Alfie Gill, a retired adjunct college professor and a founder of the DLP; Neville Bushell, a veteran radio broadcaster in New York; Vincent Welch, the first president of the association; and Lennox Price, current consul general who led the DLP branch for 14 years.
“It is worthy of noting that throughout the years, you have served the Barbadian community well in a number of ways, including the awarding of scholarship grants and contributions to charitable causes both in the diaspora and in our homeland,” Price told the members.
Also attending the function were Robert Morris, Barbados’ Caricom Ambassador; George Pilgrim, DLP general secretary, and Derek Alleyne, director of the Barbados’ Urban Development Commission (UDC).