ALLOW ME TO discuss this week’s launch of the 50th anniversary celebrations of Independence.
I have often heard musicians state that Barbadians are the hardest audience to please.
I am definitely in agreement with this sentiment after scrolling through my various social media accounts. With Bajans, “You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t”.
I really do not envy the job of a politician. It is like balancing a ball of expectation, constantly asking, “Who do I please today?” I am personally too forthright for such an undertaking and would find myself not being politically correct in many situations.
I assume that the Freundel Stuart administration played the balancing ball game and decided that the best decision was to host a launch in Independence Square earlier this week. There isn’t a priest in Bombay who could fly to Barbados and tell me that the backlash would not be worse if a decision was made not to host the launch of the celebratory event.
I could only imagine. “Wuhloss! We ain got nuh memory of this auspicious occasion! This government too wuffless tho!” “Wuh kinda classless people dem is dat cant lick two sticks tuhgedda and give a li’l concert to launch 50 years ah Independence activities?”
Yes, our government has several serious and pertinent issues to address for 2016. Namely, the lack of water in St Joseph and other areas, the ridiculously high tax on mobile data, the logistical issues with garbage not being collected, many still waiting on income tax returns, to name a few.
We would expect that the aforementioned will be urgently addressed. However, we cannot constantly look at issues in a vacuum. The wheels of a car do not stop working because the windshield wipers no longer exist.
Some people argued that the venue was unsatisfactory. Have we realised that this was simply a launch? Where should these Independence celebrations have been held? In the wharf? In Heroes’ Square with Lord Nelson? Surely not in Independence Square at the feet of the “Father of Independence.”
If we can do annual launches for Crop Over and NIFCA, I see no objection to a launch of activities to celebrate 50 years of being an Independent nation.
Allow me to show you how many of us think:
Friend: They could’ve used that money for something else.
Me: Do you know how much money was spent?
Friend: No, but I could only imagine.
Me: Imagining is never as good as knowing. What is there to tell you that this production was not heavily sponsored?
Friend: Probably, because a group of us was saying how cheap the fireworks looked. They should have spent more money on those.
One cannot please Bajans!
Toni Thorne is a young entrepreneur and World Economic Forum Global Shaper who loves global youth culture, a great debate and living in paradise. Email Tonithorne@hotmail.com.