How do we navigate the road ahead!

The celebration of the 188/192 anniversary of Emancipation this year with a fair and rally held at the ‘Victoria Park’, or is it ‘Independence Park’, opens the possibility of making August 1 a major event on the calendar of SVG. I was  pleased to see the reappearance of the ‘bwa bwa’ dancers (Moko Jumbie) and grand appearance of many cultural dance and singing groups, drummers and others. It was fitting that the first performance was by the Spiritual Baptists singing some of their traditional/original choruses, because they were perhaps the first group to have emerged from the bowels of slavery. Over the years different groups have had celebrations/anniversaries of a kind; among the latest were the people of Diamond who had been having their remembrance/celebrations at midnight on July 31st. I am not sure when last there was a national celebration. In 1984 former governor of SVG, Sir Rupert John had pulled together a number of senior citizens to mark the occasion. I was then in Canada but was invited by Sir Rupert to give an address on the occasion, which would have been the 150th anniversary of Emancipation.

Every year August 1st should be regarded as a sign post on that journey our ancestors had begun, to use what ever space there was to take control and build a life of their own, independent of the plantations and proprietors. When our ancestors were captured and brought here to be enslaved, they came with nothing in their hands but brought their culture which they refreshed and kept alive in their slave quarters and yards. It is that process that might have led to the emergence of the Shakers (Spiritual Baptists) soon after full Emancipation was granted. Planters such as Alison Carmichael and Sir William Young, son of the person who headed the Commission to sell lands after Britain received St. Vincent as a gift by the Treaty of Paris of 1763, spoke about some of those practices bearing in mind that they did not understand much of it, but saw what was happening through European eyes. In fact, as Alison Carmichael showed, even the songs that were sung which lampooned the planters and colonial society passed over their heads. Their cultural practices involved the food they ate, their manner of celebrations especially at Christmas and Crop Over, the drums they beat, the music of their fiddlers, and the stories they told. Let us also note that after 1807 when the slave trade was abolished over 1000 persons ‘Liberated Africans’ so called, came to SVG. Once the British abolished the trade, they equipped their navy to stop any ship suspected of having slaves and sent them to the colonies and to Africa. This meant that some of our ancestors came here not as slaves but as liberated persons. They would obviously have helped to revive some of the practices which came from their motherland.

Despite the many obstacles placed in the way they utilised the space given to them to undertake a journey to take control of their lives and provide a better life for themselves. In this article I am reinforcing a point I have been making for some time, that their journey started on August 1st, 1838. Slavery had ended but the Ownership class tried to continue to control as they had done when they established a slave society. We have also to remember that although legally Slavery had ended, Colonialism continued until 1979 when we were offered some kind of Independence but still hang on to their Privy Council. Like other former colonies that have become independent and even those that have moved to the status of Republics, we remain like Canada and others, members of the Commonwealth with King Charles III as ceremonial head of that 56 member body.

There is much more to be done. The call to rename Victoria Park is now being debated, rather talked about. I am strongly in agreement with changing the name, but it must not be dictated to us. Many have different views on what the name should be. Let us start there. There are many bumps on the way, some of our own creation. We have to utilise whatever space the global community allows us. The oil crisis which has impacted heavily on our electricity bill is one such bump on the road but created outside. We can only try to utilise as best we can the space that is still available, although it becomes even smaller with the dictates and foolish rumblings of the president of the World’s Super Power.

• Dr Adrian Fraser is a social commentator and historian