Are We Independent?

What is Independence?

Most of us in Barbados offer a lot of lip service to the concept but what does it mean? The dictionary will tell us:

Freedom from the control, influence, support, aid, or the like, of others.

It seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? Would anybody disagree with the notion that we should be free from the control of others? Of course not. To suggest otherwise would imply that we are the property of others, that we are subjects or slaves. The other parts of the definition all rest on the freedom from control: influence of others isn’t always a bad thing. It is good to sometimes seek advice or guidance from someone else. However, you are still free to choose what to do with that advice, and so you are free to choose how you will let that influence affect you, so long as you are free from control. The same is true of support, aid, or the like. So a more simple definition of independence, cutting down to the root of the issue, would be:

Freedom from the control of others.
Can we in Barbados seriously say that after forty-five years we have achieve that state?
Every November Barbados is decorated with blue and yellow lights, (or to the purists among us - aquamarine & gold), and the whole island is decked with national flags and buntings everywhere. The Garrison Savannah is cleaned up and perfectly groomed in preparation for the annual Independence Day parade. The armed and unarmed forces are drilled and practiced so that on the day our citizens can take pride in the military precision and discipline of our uniformed men and women, boys and girls as they march to the sounds of the combined Royal Barbados Police & the BDF Bands.

The Governor General and the Prime Minister make their all too familiar ritualistic speeches which lack any true substance. The annual independence addresses have become a monotonous dialogue prudently expressing politically correct statements, failing to inspire a populace desperately looking for guidance. They merely rephrase the speeches of the last forty odd years. Similarly, all the other politician given a chance will mindlessly voice platitudes that they think suitable for the occasion with the intention of appearing relevant to the people who must decide their fates come election day.

But is the national celebration of Barbados’s Independence Day anything more than a meaningless tradition? Can Barbados make any serious social changes or take any political decision that conflict with the policy of her neighbouring countries or any powerful Western nation? Before taking a decision, the government has to think about how Caricom will react, how the UK will receive it and how the USA will view it. Are we going to offend the United Nations or any one of dozens of other powerful international interest groups? So, if no decision is made independently in the national interest by ignoring others' viewpoints, then,where is the independence?

If we as a country decided tomorrow that we were going to start hanging convicted murderers, we will feel the wrath of the International Human Rights organisations which are powerful enough to influence the actions of international donors and lending agencies. Barbados could not risk this in times of plenty and it would definitely be disastrous in these current turbulent economic times. Would the IADB even consider a loan for The Four Seasons Project if it was under pressure from Amnesty International?

Who can forget in 2007 at the United Nations Meeting of the Human Rights Committee, Eighty-ninth Session when the delegation of Barbados, headed by Louis Tull faced a flurry of questions from experts of the Human Rights Committee on its legal stance on the death penalty, corporal punishment, the criminalization of homosexuality and police brutality in Barbados, as it presented its third periodic report on progress in implementing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Experts critiqued everything from the scarcity of statistics on police brutality and prevention methods to the accepted practice of flogging children in public schools, as well as the lack of a national human rights commission. Several experts urged the delegation to ban the death penalty on humanitarian grounds. One expert noted a strong “founding fathers” approach on law of treaties in Barbados and the tendency to allow public opinion to dictate human rights policy, regardless of whether it was just.

Only recently, at the just concluded Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia, we have witnessed the overt attempts by Britain's Prime Minister, David Cameron to influence Barbados’s social policy by commented that those countries receiving British aid should adhere to proper human rights, including the reform of legislation banning homosexuality. Despite the efforts at damage control being done by the government, only time will tell what effect the claim by France’s President Nicholas Sarkozy that Barbados is among 11 tax havens that should be shunned for failure to conform to acceptable tax practices, will have on the economy of Barbados.

Political independence is no independence. Under the plea of political expediency, one nation is always overtly or covertly aligned with some other countries. Mere geographical territorial independence is no true or substantial independence. It is economic independence that is true independence, some people claim. Others refute this. They say that if the oil-producing countries increase the price of crude oil, we are compelled to increase our domestic petrol prices. A recession in a major economically advanced country like the United States has a telling impact on Barbados too.Then where is Barbados’s economic independence in an interdependent world that has become a global village?

Still, we steadfastly cling to the belief that Barbados has enjoyed independence for the last Forty-five years. This misunderstanding has to be corrected. Whichever way we look at it, no nation, no community, no society, no individual is independent in the true sense of the term. In our childhood we depend on our parents. During our youth, we depend on our spouse. In old age, we depend on our adult sons or daughters, sometimes even our grandchildren. Political leaders depend on the citizens to stay in office. As citizens, we are dependent on the government, for all social benefits, services and security. We are controlled at every stage of our operations. We work under certain constraints. We are restricted even in our physical movements. We are restrained. Thus, our life depends on various factors of the state and society. Where is our independence? The moment fuel prices rise there is a rise in the price of electricity and transport with the resulting price inflation for almost all the consumer goods. In this way, things are interdependent. Then, how are we economically independent?

We as a people need to reflect on our achievements and strive to progress but the blind acceptance of this concept of Independence leaves us vulnerable to the reality the confronts us in this world. Independence is a political idea and not a physical reality. It is a state of mind that was perpetuated by politicians like Errol Barrow. It was said of him that "He found Barbados a collection of villages, and transformed it into a proud nation." That is not inherently a bad thing but it is not the full story. We had a lot that we could be proud of as a people before independence.

I believe that after 45 years we need to look back to the times before 1966 when we were a collection of villages. This was a time when each family had it’s own breadfruit tree and banana patch in the back yard, a spinach vine on the paling and a small kitchen garden growing just enough for family and friends, when the few fowls in the yard kept the family supplied with eggs, the kitchen garden with fertiliser and provided the occasional Sunday meal, when the lone cow or goat supplied them and their neighbours with fresh milk. When the village butcher supplied the meat from livestock bought from the same villagers he served and each village had a tailor, a dressmaker, a carpenter, a mason that supplied the needs of their neighbours. Every Saturday the village barber set up shop under the almond tree beside the field where the children played marble cricket.

Our children made their own toys and cricket balls and bats were made by hand. Every boy could make a guttaperk and set a fly-stick. He knew how to use the gum from the trunk of the breadfruit tree to make gum-sticks to catch canaries. He knew how to catch sand cockles on the beach the use as bait to catch pot fish. He knew the best places to gather whelks and cowheels and knew how to make a fire on the beach and cook them. He could scale and clean a fish as easily as he could peel a banana. It was a rite of passage to be able to climb a coconut tree. He knew where the best dunks trees grew and when the sea grapes will be ripe. In St.Philip, where I grew up, during the school vacation children left home after breakfast and only returned home at dust and parents knew that they would not be hungry because they were “independent” enough to live off the land. Now after 45 years of independence, my teenage daughter sits at the table in the kitchen and expects me to bring her a glass of juice from the refrigerator.

In these times the village enjoyed a greater degree of “independence” than most of us do today.

I am not advocating the rejection of progress. All that I am asking is, that as we reflect on the last 45 years of Barbados as an “independent nation”, think not only of what we have achieved but consider what we have lost. Many of the things that have made us Barbadian have become lost to our children over the years and I am afraid it will take a determined effort to reverse this trend. When we ask our children to be proud of our nation, what are we asking them to be proud of? As Errol Barrow so eloquently put it back in 1986. “What is their mirror image?” Do they know what it is to be Bajan? Maybe someone should write an e-book on “How to be a Bajan”. Maybe then, if you sent an email, BB or SMS broadcast and advertised it on Twitter and Facebook, our children may read it on their Kindles, Ipads, Blackberrys and laptops.

If you think seriously about it you will realise that we are less independent than we were in 1966 and growing more dependent daily.