My message to you today is to look back across the sweep of this country’s history and determine what it is you see as a beginning back then, of which you want to be a continuation now. I invite you to adopt the spirit of resourcefulness, courage and conviction of those who understand that every nation, at some stage in its history, has to decide whether it will die on its feet or live on its knees. – Prime Minister Freundel Stuart
The quote is from the Prime Minister’s speech commemorating the 1937 Riots. He first challenges us to look back at our country’s history and determine which trailblazers we want to emulate.
As stated many times before, my heroes are the sugar plantation workers who plied hoes, forks and cane bills, grew much of their own food, lived happier than many now (my opinion) in modest homes with few amenities and little money.
And on the factory side, their brothers who worked eight-hour shifts on and off throughout the crop, stacked 224-pound bags up to the sky in bond houses or toted them on lighters out to ships.
These are the people who built Barbados’ infrastructure, roads, airport, Deep Water Harbour and earned our labour force an unparalleled reputation for honesty, hard work and pleasant manners.These are the people of whom, at the PM’s behest, I would want to be a continuation. Sad to say, they get no day of remembrance, no statues. And the very sugar lands which by right they should have inherited have been allowed to fall into the hands of exploiters who care only about selling out this country and making money.
On the other hand, there are some who claim to be followers of Clement Payne but they disregard his exhortations against violence, do a poor job of educating, and concentrate almost entirely on agitating.
Despite our changed conditions, they see themselves as a continuation of the rioters of 1937, the rebels of 1816.
To each his own.
However, the sword can be turned against its wielder. And if our Governments keep celebrating violence against authority, they run the risk that radicals might suggest it be used against them.
The Mighty Gabby has opined that people may riot in these difficult times. Dr Tennyson Joseph seems to agree but goes further to reveal that Marx taught him how “violence is the midwife that gives birth to the new society”.
One shudders to think that Dr Joseph is here condoning violence. We are a democratic society with elections mere months away. If we are disillusioned with the Bees and Dees, we can elect any other party. There already exists David Comissiong’s PEP. Perchance we may see a WCP alliance of Wickham (Peter), Charles (as in Morris) and Miss P. So why the nonsense about violence? Have we not seen revolts recently around the world with thousands being killed, countries polarized and, at the end of it all, only the names at the top being changed?
Besides, who would they riot against?
Our businesses are now nearly all foreign-owned. And while it is true that my friend Haynesley Benn entered the Government as a black man but is now the whitest among us – if the picture on his campaign house in Mile-And-A-Quarter is to be believed – surely our black politicians have not morphed into Caucasian plantocrats as did the pigs in Animal Farm?
My plantation-worker heroes would laugh at what this generation is calling “hardship”. They never had bottled or natural gas, cooked on three rocks, no radio, no electricity, no telephone, no furniture from Courts, no fridge, [just] khus khus mattress, crocus bag front door mat, bathed with a tot of water . . . and found time to joke, sing and banter.
So let me disagree strongly with my Prime Minister, a man I like, that at some time “every nation . . . has to decide whether it will die on its feet or live on its knees”. No, Mr Stuart, we need neither die on our feet nor accept a homosexually submissive position.
No way! Instead of Marxist claptrap, let us teach our children to “adopt the spirit of resourcefulness, courage and conviction” of their plantation ancestors, those superheroes who could make love and a living out of nothing at all.
• Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator.
