Weekly Column

Seventy years ago this week Barbados was a far different place from that which we know today. The hungry 30’s had reached a crescendo on a Monday night in July the year before. Fuelled by a decline in the price fetched for sugar, poverty and unemployment were rampant all across the country. Social services were practically non-existent and the right to vote was determined by income and property qualifications.

Small wonder then that a group of like-minded men met at the home of James Martineau on Bay Street on March 31 1938 to form the Barbados Labour Party with the stated objective “To provide political expression for the law-abiding inhabitants of this Island, enabling them to participate in the development of democratic institutions, promote the social and economic improvements of its people and assist in the extension of all principles of good government.”

Seventy years later the Barbados Labour Party remains rooted in the philosophy of its founders. But Barbados is now a very different place in a very different world. While we have come a long way as a nation, and people remain at the centre of our mission, the challenges of this century demand new approaches.

I am firm in my conviction that if we are to continue to grow as a people we must liberate to innovate. Simply put, every man and woman must be confident in their ability to contribute to their own development and by extension to that of the nation. We must know who we are and we must like what we see. The social hurdles of the last century are largely behind us, but we must not fall back through complacency or a lack of focus.

The task of governance must be to provide an environment that will allow each one to flourish and to overcome or to resist foreign values and influences that devalue the Barbadian spirit. A renaissance of the Barbadian identity must infuse the national psyche akin to the social revolution of the 1930s. There must be a national movement to re-kindle the pride in Barbadian civility and indeed, in Barbadian enterprise and innovation, no matter from whence it comes.

In a shrinking world in danger of self inflicted implosion the threat of “might is right” is once more rearing its ugly head. The realities of climate change, global financial shocks, mismanagement of food and water supplies, energy scarcity and the blurring of cultural identities will reduce us all to victims if we are not imbued with a passion that the mission, for each and every one of us, is to make Barbados a secure bulwark against international economic and social turmoil.

There are new approaches to old and new problems. Undoubtedly though, history has come full circle and the new approaches and solutions like great revolutions everywhere must be people driven if we are to succeed as a nation.

We started during our last term by enabling a new class of micro and mini enterprises to flourish. We began to implement the basic tenets of environmental economics in our 2007 Green Budget. We rewarded innovation in alternative energy while securing existing petroleum reserves in the marine environment surrounding us. We continued the job started in the eighties of allowing Barbadians to buy the land on which they lived. We managed a growing economy that permitted us to reduce the scourge of poverty. And made Barbadians believe that full employment is within our grasp by attaining the lowest level of unemployment in our history. The blueprint remains for further refinement.

We must ask you, and we will when the time is right, will you embrace the challenge? Will you join the movement? Will you accept the mission?