Westminster ‘choking we’

SCHOOL WAS IN session in The City on Saturday as the Pan African Coalition of Organisations held its fifth University of Independence Square initiative.
The subjects included the “dysfunctional” Westminster political system; the “misuse” of Government funds; the “problem” of charging fees at the University of the West Indies and a brief history of the origins of the ruling Democratic Labour Party.
President of the Clement Payne Movement David Comissiong said the purpose of the meeting was to use the public space to engage in serious discussions on the crisis Barbados was facing. His contribution included what he said was the prevailing nature of the old colonial system.
“We are still under the old colonial system where the average black man was a worker and his or her place was not to participate in business ownership or significant pieces of land, characterized by a Westminster form of governance, usually a two party system which divided the people and confined their participation to the five minutes in an election booth once every five years,” he said.
Comissiong said Independence sparked some good things but Barbados was still plagued with an economy too dependent on tourism.
“In Singapore, they understood tourism was a stopgap measure as the future had to be built on industrial development but we in Barbados made the fatal error of not focussing on industrial development and it has come back to haunt us. Westminster still choking we,” he said.
Comissiong said the people of Barbados had been reduced to “hailers of the Barbados Labour Party or the Democratic Labour party” without being able to make a meaningful contribution to politics, adding there was no reason critical issues could not go to national referendum.
The event included entertainment and other contributions from Robert Clarke, Kinaya Barashango, Cheryl Moore and Trevor Prescod. (CA)