The way forward…..community activism… Let’s hope he has the stamina to go to all the areas of BIM.
Good luck, Ronnie. Barbados needs people with vision. Without vision the people perish. We as a nation are on the precipice of disaster, the dark clouds are closing in while we are partying.
@Hal
Hopefully you will say good luck to Rawdon IF he throws his hat in the ling?
David
We have seen the likes of these appear, disappear, or be consumed by personal ambition.
In all cases these ‘missives’ were merely parts of misinformation campaigns to mislead the people of Barbados that some new economic medicine was not the snake oil it sounds like, tastes like, looks like.
We should not be so easily misled by ‘imports’ from ‘over-in-away’, packaged in meaningless credentials and unable to speak to the shifting fundamentals of their own old formations which seek nihilism under some rubric of an uninspired youthfulness.
We have yet to hear any discourses about a future dealing with interplanetary industrialization, human longevity derived from bio-medical breakthroughs and its proven value for delivering the greatest level of relative success across time.
Instead, these would-be new boys (girls) on the political block continue to regurgitate meaningless, tired, political-economy stanzas, which prove that they are merely credentialed, mis-educated.
In sum, there has never been any measurable differences between generations of politicians or would-be politicians in Barbados.
However, we are afraid that those who now see themselves as heirs to the political kingdom may well be worst than their predecessors, by a country mile.
@Pacha
A reasonable expectation on your part. Are the locals ready for a plebiscite and all that goes with it? One senses that there is a gap between what is required for a developing SID to sustain itself in a global space. Surely you have read that ALL Caribbean islands have now attained junk credit ratings? We are fighting a large problem away from a parochial place.
David,
Good luck to him. I have the highest respect for his paternal grandfather, but he too must prove himself. So special favours.
David
Maybe we have to rid our minds of this small-island-state mentality. Small-mindedness generally. Have you seen anybody from a SID with a smaller brain than somebody from elsewhere? So why an implicit difference in orientation, expectation.
And if we’re looking for leadership, which we question, why would we continue to look for the same types of people who believe we want to hear about adding and subtracting in political-economy terms, as we had before.
Lastly, is it not worthy of consideration that the global economy model is seen by those at the centres of world powers to have reached its nadir and can go no further.
And how are these mis-educated people, who religiously follow the textbooks, as Bible, being promoted here, are to help with these issues?
Again can’t fault your erudite comment. Our people are educated at Western universities, we read the recommended text books. One must wonder though to what extent the best leadership is possibly in an environment fashioned by preferential tariffs of the 70s, 80s and early 90s. We have not been able to craft policies to compensate for the financial hole as a result of so-called globalization. In summary we have produced a generation weaned on wanton conspicuous consumption and we have not been able to design sustainable viable approaches and or educate our people to creatively adjust at the household level.
David,
The idea of a free market of ideas is to think for yourself, and to learn from each other. Not just repeat what some old professor ha repeated from his 1960s notes when dinosaur ruled the earth. That is the difference. Listen to the economic narrative in Barbados and you go right back in time.
David June 25, 2017 at 9:11 AM #
Again can’t fault your erudite comment. Our people are educated at Western universities,
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The majority of our present members of Parliament were educated at UWI just like the majority of the leaders of our fellow Caribbean states…….what does that say about UWI….is it a western text book using Uni?.
…….If so we are in deeper doo doo as the next bunch are equally so educated.
I
David
Throw his hat in the ring? For the St.Thomas by-election? lol
@enuff
You are sufficiently aware that if the elders of the party line up behind Rawdon if he wants to run that room will be found for him to run.
Agree?
Hence my comment; but the Senate is a door to serving in the Cabinet too, which is the most important thing right now.
Point taken but given his pedigree and training wouldn’t you want him on the frontbench?
After 50 years of free education and we are still looking for Moses.
…..even to the extent of being ready to anoint his grandson whether he wants it or not or even if he is capable or not.
…..Bimmers just object to hard work…….easier to let somebody do it……which is why we are in ducks guts all the time.
The Cabinet is my frontbench.
If we are aspiring to a relevant democracy you want your best people in parliament leading the policy making narrative not so?
David,
What is his pedigree? What is his training? He is Tom Adams’ son, for heavens’ sake; and he is a fund manager. What is special about either of those.
We must grow up at some time.
Hal
Totally agree,well said…..though you omitted that he is the grandson of the bajan Moses.
Hal why you must always come across as bitter and condescending?
Vincent,
He is the grandson of the greatest man in our modern history (read the thread properly) and the real father of our constitutional independence. But Grantley Adams was also the son of a great headmaster of a great school.
What really concerns me is that we are at a dark place in our history when this government, nine months out from a general election, is not going to do anything radical, and the other parties, including the party of Sir Grantley, remains dumb to the social decline in our society.
Our academics have abandoned any search fore the deepest truths in our history and our public intellectuals are not the most systematic of thinkers in the modern world.
Our popular culture avoids ideas, preferring to promote mediocre personalities, including those who the nation believes have inherited entitlement.
This is what we have done with our education, praising Crown Princes and planning for their coronation. I thought better of BU.
@ Enuff (Whoever you are)
That is your perception, not my intention. I have no apologies to make.
@Hal
Do you understand what pedigree means in this context? Rawdon Adams grew up in a house where he heard discussions from political players, books strewn about in the house on related topics, relationship would have been forged with local and international players, general the benefit of being close to political animals etc. It does not mean this would make him a top drawer MP BUT it gives him an edge.
David,
What is so different about him and Mia? What is the edge? Barbados is a nation of political animals – always has been. He has got to prove himself, there is no entitlement for the sons and daughters of the Bajan political royalty.
compared to Mia……
@Hal
Such an illogical comment but you are entitled.
David,
We have had words about this kind of romanticism before. What is illogical about what I have said?
Our nation is in serious crisis and you are favourable to the return of a son of petite-bourgeois privilege. But I believe in the power of ordinary working Barbadian to change the course of their history, a belief in the irreversible power of education and community cohesion, and not that of the bed one was born in.
We must rid our culture of deference and de-theologise some of the ‘big’ family names that have cluttered our social history and led us down the social and economic cul-de-sace we now find ourselves in.
The reiteration of nonsense does not give it a new discursive power every time it is repeated. We need new, dynamic and creative ideas to catapult us in to the 21 century. We need faith in knowledge, and not in certain families.
You ought to know better, David.
.
The good observation here is that we have a son of the soil willing to mobilize public discussion on the issues. It will be up to member of the public to participate in the fora he facilitates. Time for aggrieved bajans to up de ting!
David
Is it not unwise to weight this business about ‘son of the soil’ with too much importance?
How have such calculations helped in the past?
Our experience has been that they have served to avoid brutal assessments.
@David at 11:22 AM re “Such an illogical comment but you are entitled.”
As was asked what is illogical about @Hal’s remarks on Tom’s son?
I am personally always amazed how facile it is to see-saw with political debate depending on location of one’s sentiments.
Young Adams would need to prove himself as any other…hundreds of his peers from Kolig and other schools have gone on to make good after uni and scores of that group also lived in households where they were exposed to the hurly-burly of politics or intellectual stimulation at an early age from the Bajan glitterati in their midst because their parents were leading figures.
So what is the freaking special dispensation about Rawdon at this juncture?
Am I missing something!!!
@Enuff, indeed @Hal often does come over as ‘bitter and condescending’ too often, but in the case above this didn’t come over that way to me.
It was a rather straightforward – even if forcefully worded – query!
Chucke……………Stranger things have happened…..Hal,dpD and I are of one mind….ad idem on the scions of the political class being gifted sinecures……hmmmmmm.
@Dee Word
Let us explain it for you and Hal.
Hal suggested n his comment that because Mia has a similar lineage to Rawdon therefore there is likely to be a similar result to what he appears to believe is an ineffective Mia. His conclusion is illogical. The simple point here is that Rawdon maybe able to bring some some things to the place given his exposure and training. It does not mean anything more.
@Pacha
The reasonable position to hold is to create a welcoming environment for ALL. It is up to the citizens to probe as much as is practicable to inform decisions about who should represent.
Ok David, thanks for the clarification. I did not come away with your interpretation.
Seems that you keyed on his 11:16 and 11:18 posts and not his 11:07 AM which actually suggests just the opposite of your interpretation.
But be that as it may…to interpret as we experience the written word is a gift of life which we should all cherish.
You have explained upon what your view is based…so all good.
Yes, @Vincent… It was beyond shocking that I agreed so totally with Hal. The bane of my anonymous existence. LOLL.
David
Unlike a representative poll, the welcoming which has been extended to all, has been so biased that you have gotten the same results over and over again.
@Pacha
How do you propose citizens shortlist the talent recognizing that we operate in a so called democracy?
Hal Austin – What is so different about him and (compared to) Mia? What is the edge? Barbados is a nation of political animals – always has been. He has got to prove himself, there is no entitlement for the sons and daughters of the Bajan political royalty.
David – Hal suggested n his comment that because Mia has a similar lineage to Rawdon therefore there is likely to be a similar result to what he appears to believe is an ineffective Mia. His conclusion is illogical. The simple point here is that Rawdonwas ineffective? maybe able to bring some some things to the place given his exposure and training. It does not mean anything more.
@David
I know you like putting words in my mouth to reinforce your point, but where did I say, or imply, that Mia was ineffective? Which philosopher taught you logic?
DID KING SOLOMON HAD ANY DEGREES? LETS SAY, BA, LLB, QC? ALL KING SOLOMON ASK GOD FOR WAS, WISDOM, KNOWLEDGE, UNDERSTANDING….TO BE INTELLIGENT, TO BE LEARNING, TO BE COMPASSIONATE….ITS NOT WHERE ONE COMES FROM, BUT WHERE THERE ARE GOING.
David
We never start with the assumption that a short list is to be a precondition.
It appears a productive session it was today.
https://www.facebook.com/1672606826381050/videos/1675172569457809/
Bajans should get out and listen to Ronnie Yearwood. We badly need a new politics.
Local historian continue to miseducated the youth.
In 1912, a British amateur archeologist named Charles Dawson wrote to London’s Natural History Museum claiming to have discovered the missing evolutionary link between apes and humans in a fossil he had dug up in Piltdown, Sussex. This was the beginning of the Piltdown Man hoax, one of the most successful and consequential hoaxes in scientific history. Dawson’s Piltdown Man was conclusively established as a hoax in 1953, after decades of leading scientists down the wrong path of evolutionary study.
Mbo people ( tribe from Cameroon)
In 2013, discovery of a previously unknown Y-chromosomal haplogroup, dubbed haplogroup A00 was announced. First found in the Y-chromosome of an African American male (Albert Perry ). This haplogroup was identified in eleven Y chromosomes of Mbo males (out of a sample of 174, corresponding to 6.3%).The discovery of this ancestral division of “haplogroup A00” from A0-P305 pushes back the estimation of the age of Y-chromosomal Adam, the most recent ancestor through direct paternal lines of all humans currently alive to 254,000 years ago.
Mitochondrial Eve is believed to have lived between 100,000 to 200,000 years ago and is the common woman ancestor of all humans. Evidence show thatMitochondrial Eve lived within the sub-Saharan region of Africa.
How white skin evolved in Europeans: Pale complexions only spread in the region 8,000 years ago, study claims
By Ellie Zolfagharifard For Dailymail, 06 Apr 2015.
The original migrants to Europe from Africa arrived 40,000 years ago.
Up until 8,000 years ago, early hunter-gatherers largely had darker skin….
The first Europeans looked dramatically different to many of the fair skinned populations that live there today.
In fact, new research suggests Caucasians were a relatively recent addition to the area, arriving on the continent just 8,000 years ago.
They joined a much darker-skinned population who were the original migrants to Europe from Africa, arriving around 40,000 years ago..
The British, with the “Modern” Germans, were the originators of revisionist history. It was they who first began to write Blacks out of history after the “Race/Religious Wars” of the late medieval.
Thomas Cromwell was responsible for destroying 97% of Britain’s artifacts during the mid-1500s (presumably almost all of Britain’s Black artifacts). But some few have survived from all over Europe, albeit undoubtedly Whitenized.
Britain’s black history has been shamefully whitewashed
There were many African settlers in Britain even before the Romans, says David Olusoga — a fact that all standard histories have conveniently ‘forgotten’.
Ivory Bangled Lady of York
One of the richest inhabitants of fourth century Roman York, buried in a stone sarcophagus with luxury imports including jewellery made of elephant ivory, a mirror and a blue glass perfume jar, was a woman of black African ancestry, a re-examination of her skeleton has shown….The Guardian, Feb 20/ 2010.
Beginning during the renaissance and even earlier, European artists took to depicting historical people, as they hoped or imagined them to look, and in doing so, they made everyone White.
Ever since their ascension to power, Caucasians (Albinos of Europe, formerly Central Asia) have busied themselves creating fake artifacts and writings to support their “Imagined Fantasy History”. And when the opportunity arose to establish their dominance over the “Normal” world of Humans, by violence and Genocide, they greedily took it. Then, after gaining dominance over the “Normal” world of Humans, they went about the task of using their total control over media and all types of communication, to teach and spread their false “Fantasy History”. The main object of their revisionists history was their former masters in Europe, the Black elite. These they simply Wrote-out-of-history, and attempted to destroy all of their artifacts, while at the same time, Writing themselves into their places, and creating fake artifacts to support their lie.
There are hundreds of statues of medieval Black knights, mostly in ancient religious sites, all over Europe, and especially in Germany. Their “Coats of Arms” exist in the hundreds, perhaps thousands.
Anne of Denmark had ordered a play “The Masque of Blackness” (1605) in praise of Black beauty which did not fade. The play was performed by members of the court and it explained how Blacks, The Sun People, came to Europe to look for a milder sun. In the play was a personage of The Niger River. The costume design shows a tall Black woman. Strange as this might sound; it took me after all three years to believe my own findings: Anne of Denmark which we know as a blindingly blond woman was almost certainly Black. As the whole Stuart dynasty was Black of skin.
When one looks for portraits of Charles II Stuart “The Black Boy” one finds many which show a White man, with long black hair and mustachio. But if one persists there are portraits which show black skin. Especially the National Portrait Gallery site shows many portraits of a Black skinned boy and later a Black adult. Still there is a lot of variations, but I have one pitch black portrait which show his classical African traits under a huge afro-like wig….Egmond Codfried , “Blue Blood is Black Blood” (1500-1789).
LORD THOMAS FAIRFAX, first Lord Fairfax of
Cameron, (Scotland).
The best portrait of Fairfax is a miniature by HoaInitii.
In complexion he was so dark that He was nicknamed ‘Black Tool.
The Moors:
In 711 A.D , a Berber army led by general Tariq ibn Ziyad, invaded Iberia (Spain) and overthrew the White Visigoths (Western Goths): Who were one of two main branches of the Goths, an east Germanic tribe, who over the period of only one hundred years, had migrated from eastern Europe, thru Greece, thru Italy, and finally down into the Iberian peninsula.
. In his book, “The Day The Universe Changed,” the historian James Burke describes how the typical European townspeople lived:
“The inhabitants threw all their refuse into the drains in the center of the narrow streets. The stench must have been overwhelming, though it appears to have gone virtually unnoticed. Mixed with excrement and urine would be the soiled reeds and straw used to cover the dirt floors.
This squalid society was organized under a feudal system and had little that would resemble a commercial economy.
In Iberia (Spain and Portugal), the Berbers, now known as Moors, created a highly advanced civilization and culture, famous for it’s art, architecture, and centers of learning.
By the beginning of the ninth century, Moorish Spain was the gem of Europe with its capital city, Cordova.
At a time when London was a tiny mud-hut village that “could not boast of a single streetlamp” (Digest, 1973, p. 622), in Cordova “there were half a million inhabitants, living in 113,000 houses. There were 700 mosques and 300 public baths spread throughout the city and its twenty-one suburbs. The streets were paved and lit.” (Burke, 1985, p. 38) The houses had marble balconies for summer and hot-air ducts under the mosaic floors for the winter. They were adorned with gardens with artificial fountains and orchards”. (Digest, 1973, p. 622) “Paper, a material still unknown to the west, was everywhere. There were bookshops and more than seventy libraries.” (Burke, 1985, p. 38).
This rich and sophisticated society took a tolerant view towards other faiths. Tolerance was unheard of in the rest of Europe. But in Moorish Spain, “thousands of Jews and Christians lived in peace and harmony with their Muslim overlords.”
In another of James Burke’s works titled “Connections,” he describes how the Moors thawed out Europe from the Dark Ages. “But the event that must have done more for the intellectual and scientific revival of Europe was the fall of Toledo in Spain to the Christians, in 1105.”
The intellectual plunder of Toledo brought the scholars of northern Europe like moths to a candle. The Christians set up a giant translating program in Toledo. Using the Jews as interpreters, they translated the Arabic books into Latin.
“The subjects covered by the texts included medicine, astrology, astronomy pharmacology, psychology, physiology, zoology, biology, botany, mineralogy, optics, chemistry, physics, mathematics, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, music, meteorology, geography, mechanics, hydrostatics, navigation and history.” (Burke, 1985, p. 42)
Beginning of the End
In Iberia, many of the ousted White nobles took refuge in the unconquered north Asturian highlands. From there they aimed to reconquer their lands from the Moors: this war of reconquest is known as the Reconquista. It began in about 900 A.D. when a small Christian enclave of Visigoths in northwestern Spain, named Asturias; initiated conflicts between Christians and Muslims. Soon after, Christian states based in the north and west slowly; in fits and starts, began a process of expansion and reconquest of Iberia over the next several hundred years. The end for the Moors came on January 2, 1492: the leader of the last Moorish City “Granada” (located in southern Spain) – surrendered to armies of a recently united Christian Spain (after the marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile). This ended the 800 year reign of the Moors in Iberia.
Christopher Columbus seems to have been present; he refers to the surrender on the first page of his Diario de las Derrotas y Caminos.
At the end of the Reconquista, it is estimated that about a third of the Moorish population had been killed or enslaved, another third immediately left; while a third tried to live in Christian Spain. However, for most Moors, the persecution and forced conversion to Catholicism of the Muslim population during the time of the Christian Reconquista, caused a mass exodus. Many found life under Christian rule intolerable and passed over into north Africa. This is considered the main reason why the number of Muslims had shrunk to a relatively small fraction of the total population by 1500.
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