Question: How many Cave Hill lecturers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Answer: We don’t know yet. They’re still in the dark. University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus principal, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, is concerned about the level of respect the institution is getting. And the “orchestrated attempt to cast the university in a negative public light”.
Sir Hilary has worked unceasingly to upgrade and expand the Cave Hill facility. He deserves better. To his greater credit, he has shown that far more can be achieved through cooperation and conciliation than by confrontation and criticism.
It is not unusual these days to see him embracing the members of the white business community, awarding them doctorates, maybe even congratulating them on a recent knighthood.
They respond in kind. Said philanthropist Eddie Edghill recently: “He is a man well suited for that position . . . someone who has the interest of our Bajan community at heart.”
Not for nothing do they fondly regard Sir Hilary as the “Nelson Mandela of Barbados”.
Mandela himself said: “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.”
Sir Hilary has made that a reality.
But he must also realize that if you jump in the ling and start sharing lashes, people will defend themselves.
If a university lecturer’s column repeatedly attacks our business community leaders as backward and moribund, should he not expect retaliation? Especially since those leaders are still doing well for themselves and frequently assist the university? How does it look, for instance, for the column to be denigrating agriculture one week while the principal is lauding a gift of land for agriculture the next?
Last week, the column seemed to disparage the other end of the spectrum: the hewers of wood and drawers of water, to wit, “humble and hard-working people, your everyday average labourers, good people but not proud”.
This could be a vital flaw in the University’s thinking. Yes, we need graduates for management and technical roles. But for every graduate, a firm may need 300 to 400 hewers of wood and drawers of water at different levels.
Moreover, the best managers are those who came through the ranks and know every job inside out. Bizzy Williams, reportedly, used to haul canes at Foster Hall.
Last Saturday, Sanka Price told the story of a wife who was calling a handyman for all sorts of jobs. I wouldn’t be surprised if her husband was a Cave Hill graduate.
Wives aren’t stupid. When they see a plumber get $300 to change a toilet diaphragm in 20 minutes, they may be tempted to let him endorse the cou-cou and keep the money for a pair of shoes. They probably wouldn’t, however, if those plumbers didn’t wear short pants. But once they get a glimpse of his 12 inch Stillson wrench, walla walla bing bang in dey!
So, Mr Eddie Edghill and his wife have given 40 acres at Dukes to the university for Food Security and Entrepreneurship. Sir Hilary dubbed them Barbados’ “latest economic heroes”, and rightly so.
But how best to use the land? That will need careful thought in these tight economic times.
Here’s a suggestion. In 1977, my wife and I, first class and upper second class honours respectively, took possession of our 14-acre farm, a bare piece of land with no buildings.
We lived in a bus, built and prospered. It was a humbling experience. We learnt the joys of hewing wood and drawing water. And the value of not looking down on people no matter their calling.
So I say let Cave Hill freshmen spend their first year on the Dukes farm. Let them hear Mac Fingall sing the worker’s lament: “White collar man, tell me what makes you superior?” Let them watch the video of Scottish indentured servants building shelters the same day they landed.
Let them hew in Dukes Woods and draw water from nearby Porey Spring. Along with modern agricultural techniques, let them learn the working class tasks our forefathers mastered in the home and field and realize that today’s crass materialism isn’t necessary for real happiness.
In this way they will become true PHDs: Proud Hewers and Drawers, ready to take on the world.
• Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator.