FEARING THAT THEY WILL BE “abused” for sharing their opinions, the “majority” of Barbadians are not participating in national discussions.
And that was unfortunate, said University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus Principal Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, because Barbados needed all the “intellectual ammunition” to solve its problems.
Trust needed to replace the acrimony that now existed in some cases, he added.
“The sophistication of a society is expressed in the quality of its discourse. In the midst of a society looking for a new path, a new strategy, a new approach, in the middle of that search for alternatives, you have a conversation.
“If the conversation is full of rancour and acrimony, it is not an efficient conversation,” he said today while participating in private sector forum at 3Ws Pavilion at the campus.
“If the discursive environment alienates people because you feel that if you make a contribution to the conversation someone is going to abuse you, you will not make that contribution and the problem at the moment in our society is that the majority of citizens feel that if they contribute to public discourse they will be abused for it. That is not the best way.” (SC)
