Submitted by People’s Democratic Congress (PDC)
Long since the era of colonial enslavement in Barbados, right through the times of post-emancipation, and into the period of 1937 labour disturbances in this country, and up to this juncture of post-independence, huckstering, wayside vending, outdoor business from trays, stalls, vehicles on the streets, roads in Bridgetown and elsewhere, has been playing a very significant role in the development of aspects of the retail/wholesale business trading sector in the country; in the provisioning of investment outlays in productive capital in the commercial business sector of the country; in the producing of many business models that again and again represent the resurgence of a younger more vibrant Black entrepreneurial ownership class, and in the generating of earned income for many households and families in this Barbadian society.
Too, from the times of the insertion of British/European social cultural values and norms into this land in the 17th century, through the times of the increasing synthetization of things European and things African into the production of a distinct Bajan identity and culture in the 20th Century, right up to this period of increasing global cross cultural interweavement interpenetration in Barbados, huckstering – peddling – hustling – has been playing a marvellous but tortuous developmental role in the nexusing of the traditional and the contemporary/modern in this country – i.e. in the preservation and retention of many Bajan socio-cultural traditions in this country, along with that of the promotion and advancement of many aspects of other present-day contemporary local, regional and Western/Eastern cultural values and patterns.
But it is in the area of the quest for greater mass political freedom and greater individual liberty mediated by a sense of deep ideological consciousness and historical awareness about its heritage and its historic function, and through an avowed commitment to the realization of certain societal goals, that those people who now carry out huckstering – wayside vending – peddling – hustling – have been able to demonstrate the greatest social political significance of the profession of huckstering (outdoor business) to the Barbadian people.
For, throughout all these different historical epochs, it is this profession of huckstering and it is those persons who have been practicing this profession on a daily basis esp. on the streets of Bridgetown, that have long been and are so steadfastly continuing to be involved in countless and undying epic political battles and struggles for greater political social academic recognition of this most wonderful profession – for greater social intellectual acceptance of its associated social status and identity – and for greater acceptance by all of the historic worth of it as one of the first ever professions to be carried on by black people in Barbados.
So, today, it is in honour of the protection of certain historic social human constitutional rights in this country, like the right to freedom of association, the right to freedom of movement, assembly, etc – long fought for and won by many of their predecessors long before trade unions and political parties existed in Barbados, and long before Barbados became independent too – and too it is in great regard of the leaving of a legacy of more of those and many other rights to come, that very brave, innovative, independent-minded free-spirited hucksters and small entrepreneurs from the lower income classes in this country have been “street smart” enough, courageous enough, defiant and yet compromising enough to recognize that at many points in time in their doing business that these Bridgetown battles against many of the bigger merchant business people from the higher up classes in Barbados, must continue over inalienable rights that they must have – as political bases for ensuring their respective means of survival and development, as entrepreneurs like those bigger merchant people have too, and as political bases too over increasingly competitive and valuable commercial spaces and customer patronage.
So, hucksters, wayside vendors, peddlers, of the sort that many a Barbadian people ignorantly look down on, have been amongst the true freedom fighters of this country, and have been located within the political vanguard for greater political rights and freedoms in this country.
Make no doubt about it, it is primarily because of these heroic achievements too, that this profession of huckstering/out-door business on the streets of Bridgetown has been the only profession that we in the PDC know of that has been so long (from the times of plantation enslavement society) so constantly met with the unnecessary and wrongful use of the coercive arms of the government – and which at various points in time has had to be seen by many Barbadians as very adverse behaviour that could only have been construed as down right police harassment – and that could only have been condemned as such in that way.
While there have been many instances in the past of unruliness, disorderliness and bad behaviour on the part of some hucksters/out door business people, and which obviously would have required necessary police intervention and later legal sanction, it has been very despicable the way that the violence-dispensing distributing arms of the government have been at times ferociously unleashed against these very legitimate and productive enterprises in our society, and in spite of the great and unflinching moral financial customer support that these have had from almost every adult member of the masses and middle classes of this country.
We in the PDC are convinced that over the years many police officers have been doing the dirty work of some of these merchants in Bridgetown, as a result of the way how these particular officers have – in accordance with the wishes of these merchants – been behaving towards this long standing upstanding profession.
Surely, though, this type of lap-dog unprofessional work on the part of a few of these officers is not any excuse for the loads of irrational conduct that have been directed by some police personnel towards very productive vendors in this country.
We condemn both these kinds of behaviour!!
And what has made it worse is the ignorant behaviour of the two older wretched traditional parties – the DLP and BLP – which having been taking political campaign finance contributions and other benefits given to them from some of these business people and their representative bodies (The Swan Street Merchants Association, Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry), in exchange for their (these so-called politicians) unfairly creating more and more commercial spaces for these very greedy merchant people, and for their roles in opening more doors to greater customer patronage from them in Bridgetown – would also have been failing dastardly massively to rein in the brutish neo-colonial political behaviour of a few of these particular police officers.
In this regard therefore great note has to be taken by the PDC of some very salient perspectives on policing and policing methods that Mr. Andrew Heywood wrote in his book: Politics – that “policing can be political in two senses. First, policing which may be carried out in accordance with political biases or social prejudices that favour certain groups or interests over others, and secondly, policing may extend beyond civil matters and impact on specifically political disputes.”
Against this backdrop therefore, we wish to make definite mention of a couple of times in which outdoor business in Bridgetown, at the behest of some slimy merchants, suffered tremendous setbacks, politically, productionally, financially, socially speaking, at different times in the last three decades or so: with the destruction by police of Rockers Alley in the 1980s under Tom Adams – in 1995, with the dismantlement of the popular Swan Street Vendors Mall – and which has not been restored ever since that time – and in 2005 and 2006 with widespread police crackdowns on so-called illegal vending in many parts of Bridgetown.
Indeed, such government sanctioned police activities have reverberations from a colonial enslavement past, where in the 18th Century in Barbados, draconian laws were passed in the elite planter class dominated Assembly of Barbados, that NOT ONLY sought to control the growing numbers of hucksters who were at that time seen as a threat to the planter class’ control of the enslavement system, BUT THAT ALSO – at the behest of a vindictive Bridgetown merchant class which had claimed that hucksters were providing unfair competition to their businesses, and which had claimed that they were nuisances because of the noises and the litter they created – sought to outlaw the enslaved huckstering “in or about any of the streets, alleys, passages, or wharfs of any towns” and on “any highways, broad-paths and bays”, and those who were found guilty were to be imprisoned and to have their goods confiscated ( the immediately aforegoing was taken from a contribution by Professor Hilary Beckles, entitled An Economic Life of Their Own: Slaves as Commodity Producers and Distributors in Barbados, to the online version of the text entitled the Slaves’ Economy – Independent Production by Slaves in the Americas – edited by Ira Berlin and Philip D Morgan).
Thus, such evil schemes as were done by especially those Swan Street Merchants along with this murderous BLP in 1995, to make sure that many vendors who hitherto before these wicked schemes were implemented had been operating in the open air on the street of Swan Street, from in 1986 to 1995, were deprived of means to a living/sustenance, of sources of financial support for their families, through the revocation of many of their permits, and those who were still fortunate to be able to earn a living – were to be rounded up and be herded like cattle into the Palmetto Street Public Market and other confined spaces muchly away from normal customer traffic, have also had worrying echoes from the same damned 18th century past in this country, with those particular merchants in the 1990s saying that vendors provided a source of unfair competition, that they don’t pay taxes and such like, and with the seeming capitulation by those vendors then to such nonsense. What jackassistry!!!
Thus, too, in a way where it is said by many people that those who do not learn their past are bound to repeat the mistakes of their past, so would have such an event that happened, in 1995, been proven to be true of that long established principle, when one reads in this same contribution by Beckles, that Bridgetown merchants in the mid to late 18th Century remained dissatisfied with certain provisions of the laws regulating hucksters in the late 18th Century, and thus lobbied for tougher measures which, et al, resulted in laws aimed at reducing – via the tightening of the licensing regime – the number of hucksters who could ply their businesses – some of whom were whites incidentally, and which resulted in policies which made sure that hucksters were confined to public market place called the Shambles.
It is noteworthy too the present Market and Slaughterhouse Act, 1958, and the accompanying regulations, which today governs the business/conduct of vendors throughout the country including Bridgetown also has its roots in those heinous cruel times.
As well as it is disturbing that today there still remains a licensing regime – which really is suited for dogs and cats – that still serves to control the number of vendors who can do business so-called legally in Bridgetown.
Finally, notwithstanding that it is well established that no business sector in this country is able to get what it entirely wants from government of Barbados at any time in terms of all the enabling legislation that it needs, in terms of all the fiscal incentives, all the access that it needs to get its messages across, it is still very clear – in contrast with, say, what the Barbados Manufacturers Association, the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association, the Barbados Agricultural Society, etc, get from government, that the wayside vendors the outdoor business sub-sector of Barbados and their relevant representative associations – the Wayside Vendors Association – the Barbados Association Retailers, Vendors and Entrepreneurs, are not ever receiving the type of governmental support and assistance for a sub-sector that means so much to the national development of Barbados.
For surely the blatant tokenism of Minister of Agriculture Haynesley Benn will NOT cut it either, in so far as the minister went and set up a temporary weekend vendor market at Probyn Street, knowing full well that the area does NOT have the consumer traffic to support such a market but still would have gone and done so, thus making the same vendors appear to the laughing stock of the world of passengers exiting the minibuses in that area. This was clearly a total mess up by the minister!!
Also, vendors do need this DLP that has promised so much in past and has delivered so little including the promise that the old Fairchild Street Market will be demolished and the remaining area renovated and made into an area for the conduct of out door business.
Well, for sure vendors do not need the blasted BLP since it is under BLP governments that vendors are made to suffer their worst professionally and otherwise. To hell with the BLP!!!!
What the vendors wish is for a party like the People’s Democratic Congress or the People’s Empowerment Party or some other newer party that will really and truly seek to represent their fundamental interest in this country and that will make sure that the profession of huckstering outdoor business will be placed higher in the hierarchy of professions in this country consistent with its importance to this country’s development. and consistent with the ideas that neo-colonial massa day time government and police behaviour clearly has no place within a 21st century Barbados.
Such is utmostly needed!!
We oblige
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