Persons urged to attend Emancipation Rally at Argyle

It is one of our poets, Esworth Mc G Keane, who wrote in his poem, L’Oubli

“we thrive upon forgetting, fresh

dreams our breath…”

As the 2016 anniversary of the Emancipation of enslaved persons in the British Caribbean draws near, a national festival of remembering should be held.

As part of the Emancipation month activities, the Emancipation Festival Committee is planning a march and rally in the Argyle area during the early evening hours, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday, August 1,2016.{{more}}

Along the Windward districts of St Vincent, British colonialism invested in slave plantations to enrich the merchant/planter industrial sectors in Britain. They extorted riches from the labour of African bodies, from the soil of the islands, and from the territory of the indigenous Kalina people. Here in our islands, our fore-parents on the estates and off the estates were a force for freedom, which came in a one-sided form on August 1, 1838.

The “forgetting” which our poet speaks of was an educational weapon that the colonial power drove into our minds in order to defeat our connection to courage and triumph and identity. Forgetting weakens us.

The Festival Committee march and rally will hear educational addresses and see performances related to the theme. It will be an inspiring call to remember, to repair and to gather ourselves together to expand the victories of our ancestors.

The Festival Committee encourages the whole community of Vincentians to start emancipation month at Argyle; there, we will honour those who have gone ahead and pledge ourselves also to join those who today here, in the USA and elsewhere, dream of emancipation. (Contributed by Oscar Allen, Chair)