Conventional wisdom holds the passage of time is inherently nerve-racking.
According to the sages, as time passes, the glorious opportunities of youth fade into the rear-view mirror; the once bright future is filled with dread and disappointments are around every corner.
But if that’s true about people, what then is the fate of a country like Barbados which last week observed its 47th anniversary of Independence with church services and other celebrations at home and abroad, including New York.
Up until recently time was on Barbados’ side, or so it seemed. Less than a decade ago Barbados was hailed as the “best managed black society in the world”; a former United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, described it as a country that punched above its weight; and it was ranked by the UN itself as the leading developing country when it came to standard of living.
Not so anymore. Barbados has a mountain of debt on its books to be repaid; its Wall Street credit rating has been reduced to junk bond status; and a published report in this paper indicated the other day that the Government was considering laying off workers.
Against that backdrop, that more 600 Bajans assembled a week ago at St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Village of Flatbush in Brooklyn. The priest in charge of the mission church and host of the service was Rev. Sheldon Hamblin, a Bajan who welcomed the congregation.
The occasion was a Service of Thanksgiving organized by the Barbados Government offices in New York, and the worshippers, religious ministers, choristers and others who participated were in a reflective mood.
Contributing to that frame of mind was the Prime Minister’s message to the Bajan diaspora, read by Lennox Price, the Consul General in New York.
“Today Barbadians continue to be optimistic about the future even though our challenges now revolve around improving our social and health services for an ageing population, managing development of the island’s infrastructure, coping with climate change, promoting sustainable development, and overcoming one of the most brutal economic downturns Barbados and the world have ever experienced.
“Barbadians abroad play a pivotal role in broadening the scope of Barbados’ international outreach,” Stuart said.
The programme included hymns, scripture readings, performances by organist Peter Mayers and the Barbados Independence Choir, musical renditions by Michael Smokey Roett And Friends,” a quartet, prayers by an array of priests and laity, the presentation of Barbados and United States colours by members of the Barbados Ex-Police Association, and an award given to Dr Oneal Parris, president of the Barbados Cancer Association of America, in his absence – it was coordinated by Rev. Eddie Alleyne, a rural dean in the Episcopal church in Brooklyn, and by Rev. Oral Walcott.
There was also a stirring sermon delivered by Rev. Dr Marcus Lashley, an Anglican priest and psychologist in Barbados who once lived in New York City.
Actually, the preacher, a lecturer at the University of the West Indies in Barbados and Codrington College, seemingly went out of his way to offer the congregation a set of mixed blessings.
There were praises for Bajan tenacity and commitment but critical observations about the way things were going at home these days.
He focused on the positive attitude of a white figure he called “Mr Sandman” who didn’t allow the waves that washed the sand away from the groyne of the boardwalk in Christ Church to deter him from “feverishly moving sand from one side of the groyne to the other”.
The priest and psychologist also hailed the entrepreneurship of Bajans who in the face of a hostile economic environment were trying to make life better or achieve some goal they set themselves.
But there was another side, he said. The country was in “crisis” and it was “divided” along racial, class and financial lines and many people who should know better were offering excuses for the situation in which Barbados found itself.
“I am not sure about you but I am actually now quite sick of the term ‘global recession’ and the other one ‘forces external to our economy which are bigger and more powerful than we are’,” he said. “Somehow they have become excuses for mediocrity, complacency and a lack of industry.”
