OVER THE NEXT 48 hours, Barbadians will be undertaking the last of the month-long activities leading to the climaxing celebrations of our nation’s 47th anniversary of Independence.
There can be little doubt that the manner in which our people approach these festivities will be conditioned once again by the straitened economic circumstances that have been the context of the celebrations for the last five years. In addition, these secular celebrations will be followed immediately thereafter by the biggest of our religious celebrations – in the form of the Christmas season.
Celebrating Independence does not and probably never will attract the same level of commercialization that, ironically enough, has in modern times come to mark the birth of Jesus, the primary figure in the Christian religion. But at the same time it is to be admitted that participating in events highlighting our nationhood would still require a certain degree of expenditure for those events to have the desired impact.
In this regard, the emergence of the Community Independence Celebrations, which annually span the entire month of November, has done Barbadians a huge favour. This set of activities, under the theme Come, Celebrate Barbados, should considerably reduce the compulsion of some to attempt to meet expectations that are somewhat in line with those that are currently associated with the coming of the Yuletide period.
As a result, Barbadians can experience a lessening of pressure by embracing the true essence of the Community Independence Celebrations by fully engaging themselves in these activities. After all, they spring from the bowels of, and are about, the communities in which they live, work and socialize. So locals need not seek to merely be attendees at the perceived more glamorous but at the same time more expensive “national” happenings with which they would have been heavily bombarded by marketing hype.
Creating and participating in Independence events in their domestic settings will allow people to relieve themselves of economic stress. Beyond that, Barbadians will also be generating, and keeping among themselves, the attending economic spin-offs while showing greater appreciation for all the people, places and things that characterize their communities and represent vital strands in the perpetuation of Barbadian culture, while building stronger community spirit and cohesion.
So Barbadians have a grand platform and opportunity to enjoy spirited and meaningful Independence celebrations simply by looking around them and reaching out to their neighbours to share their creativity and love of community and, by extension, country. Lack of lots of money should therefore be no excuse for not amply celebrating our Barbadianness. The ways, means and spirit for so doing are to be found in ourselves.
