Step up the anti-colonial process

VINCY NATION! Best of greetings for our country’s 46th anniversary of the reclamation of National Independence.

To the younger ones and those not possessed with a clear grasp of history, 46 years might seem long

but in the context of the development of human society, it is but a drop in the ocean. We are among the “just comes” in the league of nations. Just think that there are some countries with over 6,000 years to their existence as Egypt for example while others, including another African country, Ethiopia, as well as long-existing civilizations like India and China also have thousands of years to their historical record.

So, we pale in comparison even when we consider that Britain had imposed its colonial rule over this country for more than 200 years.

Yet as we assess our progress over the past 46 years, any unbiased observer can only conclude that, in terms of human development, we have done more for ourselves in less than half a century than those who ruled us for all those years have done for us. I am old enough to recall that when the youth of this country pressed the independence button in the seventies, the worry among broad sections of the population was that how were we going to maintain ourselves when we separated from Britain.

We had to battle all those fears, of being “on our own”, never even giving time to check that our parents had to make that step to adulthood and did so successfully.

Yes, we made it, “with a little help from our friends” as a famous song goes. It has not been easy for at the level of human development, where health, housing, education, sanitation etc. were concerned, 1979 was a far cry from today.

Those advances, and our acknowledgement of this progress have multiplied our confidence a thousand-fold. The days when we were ashamed to say that we are children from “a little piece of rock” in the Caribbean have long gone, as are the days when you did not want people to know that you born in Fancy, Petit Bordel or Old Montrose. We are all proud Vincy, taking our places alongside proud Lucians, Trinis and Antiguans in the line-up of Caribbean civilisation. Just imagine that as we prepare for the “Big Day”, and incidentally gear up for upcoming elections, we are discussing our entry into the category of nations ranked as “first world” in the index of human and social development! Could any of us who were around in 1979 even dream of that? Whether we are in the club or just outside it, is beyond the point, for 40 years ago no country like ours could have dared to be so ambitious. It reminds me of an old quotation that one of my comrades, the late Caspar London, used to repeat, taken from the great Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi Minh, “Dare to struggle, dare to win”.

It has been that determination to face the odds, to invest in our people, especially the youth, and to use the right to frame and pursue foreign relations policies which have allowed us to engage in relations of solidarity and equality, not subservience and submission, and from which we have benefitted tremendously. It is true that we have made huge sacrifices but given the number of natural disasters- from volcanic eruptions to hurricanes, from drought to flooding, and even global epidemics such as COVID- could we have been on the threshold of the “First world club” without the solidarity and assistance of our friends?