ANY LINGERING DOUBTS we had back in 1966 when the Dipper took us into Independence were quickly dispelled. Barbados bounded forth with all the pent-up energy of a penned-up filly. Sugar production reached unprecedented heights, manufacturing bloomed, tourism flourished.
We exported yams, furniture; garment factories abounded. The masses got better wages, built wall houses, drove cars, installed amenities. Education created opportunities.
Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end. Our pride made no wanton boast. It felt good to be a Bajan. These fields and hills beyond recall were now our very own.
Fifty years later that claim is but a sick joke. On everyone’s lips, the country gone; nothing works any more; we lost the plot; we dogs dead; we bit the dust big time. What the hell went wrong?
The dairy industry was Barrow’s pet project; Pine Hill Dairy a model company. Government’s Hope Dairy in St Lucy was the showpiece. Heads of state General Gowon and Sir Seretse Khama visited and were suitably impressed.
Keith Allen was manager at the Hope. A modest man but supremely efficient. His philosophy in life: “Egg ent got no right at Big Rock party.”
Big Rock party. Therein lies one of our biggest blunders. I can’t believe our leaders since Errol Barrow are overawed by foreign white people. Can’t believe that, like the pigs in Animal Farm, they want to walk like them. Can’t believe they’re so thirsty to win elections, they will sign anything to get their hands on the white man’s handouts.
Whatever the reason, they sold our independence down the river like nobody’s business. Take the human rights pressures to which we’re gradually kowtowing. George Griffith boldly declares: “human rights are non-negotiable.”
But whose human rights are these? Did we have a say? Or did the Europeans decide for us? Why is female genital mutilation condemned as a human rights violation but not male genital mutilation (circumcision)? So that millions of boys can’t enjoy mastication like the rest of us?
“Human” rights, whether it be buggery or no capital punishment, are simply what white people want to happen. They don’t give a damn how many mothers now weep for sons shot to death because no strong message can be sent to the perpetrators.
Big Rock Party. We signed on to World Trade strictures so we can’t protect local industry. Dog eat dog and slave labour wages suit the Europeans. Our economists say we should shed no tears for the loss of local companies to overseas investors. Profits are all that matter.
They’re wrong. First off, most local companies do care about preserving local jobs, looking after faithful employees. Foreigners couldn’t care less.
Secondly, a foreign entity may buy a local company to run it and make money. It may also buy it to shut it down and eliminate competition with its own products. Is this what has happened to some of our prime tourism locations? To vast acreages of agricultural land? Will it happen to our brewery, our dairy? Who’s going to pay local wages when others elsewhere will work for a pittance? Like Flow’s move to Jamaica.
We are Egg at Big Rock’s party. Check FIFA. Check the IAAF. Crookery in high places. Big-ups taking bribes. You think other international agencies are any different? And we’re putting Freundel Stuart and Mia Mottley up against them?
After 50 years we’ve stagnated into morbid non-achievement. We can’t hang murderers. We can’t even bring them to trial. Honest, hard-working Bajans can’t afford a piece of land; but squatters can build houses illegally over critical water resources in the Belle. Town Planning does nothing.
After 50 years we can’t blame colonial rulers for rampant crime, for letting our water supply implode, for garbage mismanagement, for not tackling unhealthy lifestyles, for co-education and its devastating effects on boys, for frustrating government inefficiency, for allowing thieves to demoralise struggling farmers, for stifling innovation.
But all is not lost. Go read the Dipper’s “Mirror Image” speech. His dream: “that the people of Barbados would be able to run their own affairs, to pay for the cost of running their own country…”
Let’s leave Big Rock’s party. Set our own agenda. Back our innovators. Consider the ideas of Bizzy, Elombe and Mohammed Nassar. Ditch Government red tape.
Send for the Dipper.