Submitted by Anthony Davis
“Deputy Chief education officer David Clement and two other senior education officers were under a tree just outside the principal’s office during the exchange. When Clement was approached, he responded:”There is nothing to report. After an exchange between a security guard and the NATION team, which threatened to get out of hand, Clement gave an instruction to call the police if the team would not leave the compound.” – Nation 29/10/2014
There is lately the tendency of people in this country to exclude the press!
This does not augur well for our country, because those who are citizens of countries which really have freedom of the press will not want to set up business in a country which does not subscribe to freedom of the press. I would like to know what those people have to hide. From the Governor of the Central Bank to some members of the congregation of the Ebenezer Methodist Church, to the deputy chief education officer, want to curb the freedom of the press because they have their own agenda. They all want to suppress information which seems to them the rest of Barbados shouldn’t know anything about.
What irks me most is the shutting out of the press from a Methodist Church which goes against all of the tenets of that church and makes a mockery of all that Sarah Ann Gill and Rev. Shrewsbury worked so hard to attain. They must be both turning over in their graves!
Whenever I hear or see the press being shut out it reminds me of Hitler and the jackboots of his henchmen who wanted a segregated world, and the men and women on the Allies’ side who gave their lives fighting against it. Are we not celebrating Remembrance Day on Sunday 09 November, 2014? Did those Barbadians give their lives die for nothing?
We have not gotten that far yet, but we must nip this scourge in the bud!
We already have a Government whose members go into stand-your-ground mode come hell or high water. We must not become complacent in such cases, as all dictatorships start with only a few people. A Freedom of Information Act has been mooted since Adam was in short pants, but all we are getting is talk.
You want to be players with the big boys and become a First World country, but on the other hand you want to keep us under the yoke of slavery by withholding information from us because we are not – in your opinion – worthy of having it, or are too stupid to comprehend what you say/do. Former PM of Barbados, Owen Arthur, said:”Massa day done”, and you had better believe it.
Do you really think that you would be accepted as a First World country if the players in them know that you continually hide information from the people in your country, and hinder the press from carrying out its duties?
I don’t think so. We must remain vigilant!
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