Resistance, Resilience, Redemption

PRIDE OF PLACE this week must go to the Spiritual Baptists Day, celebrated this year for the first time with an offi cial public holiday and part of an historic week of activities by the local Spiritual Baptists. I have therefore postponed my concluding part of last week’s column on plans

for Carnival 2025 until next week and request your understanding, dear readers.

The designation of May, 21 as a public holiday in honour of the Spiritual Baptists is no ordinary act.

It is the only public holiday decreed since independence on a denominational basis and is steeped in our historical experience and determination to maintain and develop our cultural traditions. It continues in the vein of our long struggle to throw off the yolk of colonialism and the negative influences of the enslavement of our African ancestors.

We have ushered in a new version of what we traditionally referred to as the 3 Rs – reading, writing and arithmetic on which our formal colonial education was based. Our new 3Rs are based on RESISTANCE, RESILIENCE and REDEMPTION.

The public holiday declaration continues in the vein of anti colonialism, by righting the horrendous historical wrongs against our people, even in the field of worship. Lest we forget, or are ignorant of the fact, slavery and colonialism did not only have very negative physical and economic effects on people of African origin, but there were also very dangerous mental effects as well. Even one’s own personal right to religious freedom, to religious beliefs and practices of one’s choice were denied.

Imagine the people who enslaved us, who preached about the virtues of the freedom of religious beliefs, deliberately used legislation and social discrimination and ostracism to deny the children of slaves the right to practise the religion of their forebears, including the use of the African drum. What a shame it was more than a century later to see governments in the Caribbean employing similar repressive methods against the Rastafarian religion!

That we have today not only reclaimed our independence but can legislate for a Spiritual Baptists Day holiday is a tribute to our resolute commitment to RESISTANCE, in spite of the odds against us and the tremendous sacrifices we have had to bear.

It is also testimony to the second of our three Rs, RESILIENCE.

That enduring commitment facilitated our survival in the face of the colonial massacres, deprivations and repression to steadily make gains, including the right to vote for our own political representatives, a step along the route to national independence. It is that same spirit of resilience which permits us to bounce back from climatic and economic setbacks such as those with which we are very familiar in recent times. It has enabled us to retain survival strategies of our ancestors and develop some of our own relevant to current circumstances and be able not just to survive, but to thrive as well.

So, Spiritual Baptists Day also matches the third R, which signifies REDEMPTION. It is redemption for all the pain, the blood spilt, the wounds inflicted, the sexual abuse of our women and young daughters, and the economic deprivations which we have endured for centuries.

For these Rs we must eternally be grateful to those in the forefront of the struggle to reclaim our freedom and dignity. The Spiritual Baptists were in the forefront of the protracted struggle four our liberation, and the declaration of the May, 21 holiday is but a partial compensation for all they have suffered over the years.

They had to shelter behind enrolling in other denominations as a cover for their own independent way of worship. Some had to flee to Trinidad to escape repression. The denomination could not develop their own institutions as other approved European religions were able to do. They deserve official support for any initiatives in this direction. Let us always honour their sacrifice and offer our respect and admiration.

• Renwick Rose is a Social and Political commentator.