What makes love of country such a powerful force among nationals who have not lived in their birthplace for decades?
Is it the propensity to be nostalgic?
How about the desire to contribute to a good cause, such as helping to finance educational scholarships for the youth?
Can it be in the cultural underpinnings – music, food, dance or poetry?
Bajans living abroad would answer those questions with an emphatic yes and their responses probably explain why their organisations focus on Independence anniversary celebrations at this time of year or raise money for worthy causes.
And given the recent illness and death of David Thompson, the state funeral and the national outpouring of grief, it stands to reason that Barbadians in North America would reflect on the legacy of a leader who had placed the Diaspora high on his list of priorities.
That certainly was the case of two well-known associations in New York, Combermere Alumni Association and the Council of Barbadian Organisations in New York (CBONY), an umbrella body for 15 groups.
Just last Sunday, the Combermerians held a well attended cultural presentation at St Alban’s Episcopal Church in Brooklyn, where Rev. George Bonner is the Rector.
The concert of spiritual and secular music had a four-fold purpose: to provide people with an evening of entertainment; boost the Edsil Watson Memorial Scholarship Fund; emphasise the role of culture and education in people’s lives; and to pay tribute to Thompson, a former head boy at Combermere.
For 17 years Ed Watson had guided the fortunes of the Alumni Association until his unexpected death a few years ago, and what better way to perpetuate his memory than to provide young Barbadians with funds to further their education.
This year’s recipient of the Edsil Watson Scholarship was Sydnee Cumberbatch-Sealy, a student at Spellman College in Atlanta, a major all-female tertiary level school which attracts many of the brightest young black women in the country and the Caribbean.
Cumberbatch-Sealy, who is studying for a degree in mathematics, won the US$2 500 scholarship which was presented to her parents, Neville Sealy and Margaret Cumberbatch, by New York State Supreme Court Justice, Sylvia Hinds-Radix, a Barbadian and administrative judge of Brooklyn’s civi court system.
“The association and the Watson family understood what education and the youth meant to Ed, hence the scholarship,” said Ian Watson, who succeeded his brother as head of the Combermere Alumni. “We are hoping to be able to increase the scholarship to US$10 000.”
Two years ago, the association honoured Thompson at its 60th anniversary gala dinner in Brooklyn, hailing him for his immense contribution to Barbados’ development. And as Watson, a vice-president of US Bank in Manhattan, put it, “No one among us could have imagined that Thompson wouldn’t be with us today, but that wasn’t to be.”
With Pastor Wendy Mitchell providing a range of gospel music, Adrian Clarke on the steel pan, St Paul’s United Methodist liturgical dancers doing some interpretive pieces, and Gregory Hinds and Roxanne David taking to the stage, the concert was certainly an enjoyable evening.
That too was a positive outcome of the Barbados Independence Festival of Creative Arts at the Atwell Theatre of Public School 61 on Empire Boulevard in Brooklyn.
Conceived by CBONY as a mirror of the National Independence Festival of Creative Arts In Barbados, the seven-hour event forms part of the Independence celebrations in New York City.
Included on the programme was a tribute to Thompson which was delivered by Marston Gibson, a judicial referee on Long Island and until recently CBONY’s president.
“We believe that one of the best ways to celebrate our country’s Independence anniversary is to feature the creative arts and the festival turn out to be very exciting and enjoyable,” said Junior Perry, CBONY’s new leader.
“We paid tribute to the Prime Minister in word and song and it was quite fitting,” he said.
