May Day, and Public Holidays
YESTERDAY, THURSDAY, Vincentians joined hundreds of millions of people all over the world in celebrating an international holiday, International Workers Day or May Day as it is more popularly known. It was the first of two public holidays in St Vincent and the Grenadines in May, for we will also be observing Spiritual Baptists Day, deservedly so, on May 21.
While we celebrate or commemorate these public holidays, it may be opportune to take a broader look at the issue of public holidays in a more holistic sense. We have had a public holiday in March- National Heroes Day- and two back-to-back ones in April, Good Friday and Easter Monday. In June we are having Fisherfolk Day on June 9- Whit Monday- to be followed by the Carnival holidays in July, and Emancipation Day on August 1. A hefty holiday package one might say.
Given our colonial history, many public holidays were declared on the basis of the imposition of the Christian society, not by choice or free will. We are not alone in this, for our Caribbean neighbours and many other former colonies do similarly. We became wedded to these holidays by the circumstances of history to the extent that many of us consider them sacrosanct.
But more and more, as the process of decolonisation unfolds, many former colonies have been reclaiming their history and, on that basis, declaring relevant public holidays while, given the need for balance, also removing some religious public holidays.
St Vincent and the Grenadines for instance, took away public holiday status from the religious Corpus Christi as well as erasing the odious Discovery Day holiday.
However, this brings into question the balance in the allocation of public holidays especially in the context of the critical need for increasing productivity as a central element of our development thrust. We can’t have public holidays for every important occasion; this therefore requires striking a balance with a rational and sober approach, not an emotional one. Perhaps this can lead us towards a healthy national conversation on the matter.
The upcoming May Day holiday is arguably among the most universal of all such holidays. International Workers’ Day, May Day, or Labour Day is celebrated in more than 160 countries around the world commemorating the working class and their achievements. This may surprise many weaned on the Christian holidays and for whom Christmas and Easter are the biggest ones of all. For millions of Christians, Good Friday and Resurrection Day are central to their Faith, though several Christian denominations do not observe Easter.
Workers’ Day is based on the fundamental premise of production, honouring the most important productive element in this area of human endeavour.
Initially it arose from the struggles of industrial workers but today it has a much wider base, encompassing all categories of workers, a welcome unifying factor.
Sadly, in our own country, and much of the Caribbean, while the May Day holiday is maintained, we even clamoured successfully for its reinstatement to May 1, its significance is no longer prominent. The Labour Movement, while positively pursuing its narrow industrial claims, seems to have forgotten the underlying and essential element of May Day, that of solidarity. That element which underpinned the worker and trade union activity of the past seems to have been forgotten in more modern times.
As we extend greetings to workers and the labour movement for May Day, perhaps these issues of solidarity and the relevance of public holidays can become important issues for discussion.
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