Submitted by RA in the West
As Barbados is about to embark on the latest nine day wonder namely the shooting death of the young policemen and the cries from all and sundry for tougher laws, hangings, getting back to god etc. we are trapped in the circular conversation which will bring no solutions and just the usual bluster from pundits (political and otherwise).
There is only one solution (quite a simple one) for the myriad ills that plague this society however their must be great intestinal fortitude by the political directorate if we are to be successful. We are a people who have been taught to hate ourselves, the outcome of the miseducation that continually churns out societally dysfunctional persons for nation building but functional for this system to maintain and refine itself. The solution of which we speak is EDUCATION. We have gone far and wide adding various ‘reforms’ to the educational system but to no avail as we are doomed to failure continually forcing Eurocentric and now Asiatic systems, beliefs and models on African people. We have truly lost our minds – as a collective and as individuals -please ponder on that. We haven’t tried it because those who have some modicum of control over our children’s education must show more courage and actually believe that the end result will be a well-rounded citizen. This journey will have to begin at nursery school extending to tertiary education and lifelong learning – I do not mean the celebration of ‘black history month’, African Day and other nonsensical tokenism given by those who only confuse us. We must chart our journey now. The Europeans make 100 year plans we however struggle to make a 5 year one but this is to be expected as this is what the system produces and replicates.
As an example, one of my children having entered third form in secondary school presented his history book ‘The People Who Came’ to me and shook his head – skimming through I was shocked, this was a book first published in 1970 and replete with mis-information. A total Eurocentric view, Europe reigned supreme, Africa and other nonwhite peoples of the world are characterized as backward. Africans enter the picture as slaves in the ‘new world’. If we continually programme our children with self-hate, what do we expect to happen. What would happen if you teach children the truth of their existence that they were the first persons to walk this earth, the ones who created the sciences, writing systems, who built the first cities whose manta everywhere we went was ‘man know thyself’ – a testament to the life dedicated to learning.
Please have the vision to go forth and recapture our glory
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