IT IS DEEPLY ironic that the current Government of Barbados will be throwing a year-long party to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Independence, when it has systematically reversed and intellectually delegitimised the key features of the Independence project. Thus since 2013, the Government’s main argument has been that the social democracy of the post-colonial period is no longer feasible and necessary.
The deep irony in all of this is that, despite the Government’s claims to the contrary, is the fact that its rejection of the post-colonial development model has not been independently determined, but was imposed upon it by external forces. Also ironic is that the celebration will serve as a reminder that the main “highlights” are in the past, and have recently been dismantled.
Had the reversals been domestically driven, the Government would have, by now, articulated a concrete alternative to the social democracy which it has enthusiastically dismantled. However, when a government is unable to think for itself, the people can expect little by way of the expression of a new vision. In short, Barbados’ 50th anniversary celebration is happening when Independence has been scrapped of its intellectual meaning and practical expression.
This is why the 50th anniversary “party” has assumed such importance. The Roman circus has historically been a politically successful substitute for concrete material achievement. It is clear that a huge propaganda effort is being undertaken to drown the concerns of the 5 000 laid off, the thousands of educationally disenfranchised potential students denied by the dismantling of the Barrow project, and more recently the victims of the crumbling water and wider physical infrastructure in the feel-good 50th anniversary party.
A progressive and self-assured government would have been seeking to instil in a Caribbean population the value that man cannot live by partying alone. Such a government would have resolved that true Independence, and a genuine cause for celebration, would have come from the preservation and expansion of the concrete achievements of the past: the main ones in Barbados being the system of free education up to tertiary level, as well as the near-comprehensive social system.
Instead, however, in the absence of concrete achievement, the Government appears committed to creating “good feeling” as a replacement for “good reality”. The “constituency football” approach has now been translated into national policy. While some may applaud this as “good politics”, it might be useful to remind those willing to listen that propaganda is most effective when subtle and not crude. It is best when masked. A suffering public may resent the fact that they are being offered a fete while their concrete material conditions worsen.
The Government would be well advised to use the 50th anniversary moment not only to host circuses but to engage in deep, meaningful and honest discussion on the road thus travelled and the new challenges ahead.
Tennyson Joseph is a political scientist at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, specialising in regional affairs. Email tjoe2008@live.com.