Minister of Home Affairs, Wilfred Abrahams

The majority of Barbadians will awake to the news government paused its asinine plan to rename Independence Day to Barbados National Day. Although some of us understand the sterile rationale for the decision, how can our leaders forget the human considerations to making decisions that involve human beings? It is obvious the budding legacy of Prime Minister Mottley’s government will be the number of initiatives and projects which had to be paused, cancelled or were poorly implemented.

The blogmaster does need to be prolix to articulate the stupidity of the decision to rename Independence Day. It must be an insult for sensible Barbadians to be forced into having this kind of a debate. Perplexing is how the largest Cabinet in our history approved the decision – or did they. How is our government so detached from public sentiment to have mismanaged a simple matter of celebrating two important events on the national calendar?

It makes some of us wonder about the capacity of this government to govern in a post Freundel Stuart period. A government it bears reminding that won at the polls twice with an unprecedented result. If we cannot manage and execute on non complex matters, what about the weightier tasks required to manage a country? To be a fly in a room when members of Cabinet have to negotiate deals with foreign investors, representatives from the IMF and IDB to mention two. It is the season to recall bajanisms – lord, much belly.

Continuing a lowly blogmaster’s lament.

The many ‘UNsassembled’ steel houses imported from China, IDB survey, questionable assurances about the state of the NIS (unable to produce audited financial statements for how long)?, new national ID fiasco, continuing the tradition of ignoring Auditor General’s comments, spike in violent crime, escalating lawlessness on pothole roads, a deer in headlights approach to executing growth plans -how about a relevant Energy Plan to respond to a spiking oil import bill and waste to energy solutions?. ‘Cant name all’.

That said, fake outrage by some of us should not be allowed to flow under the radar. The buck stops with the people in the system of government we practice. In an environment where WE the people voted for members of a single political party, what better time than during the month of Independence to reflect on the best path to take to a Republic.

79 responses to “A Time to Pause, Reflect, Change”

  1. NorthernObserver Avatar
    NorthernObserver

    @David
    Unsure of your source for Mr.Jones comments, but an article in BT suggests he is ‘in step’ with other ideas
    “CPDC, through this advocacy campaign, is aiming to build a case for Caribbean debt relief as a priority, and also restructuring of existing debt based on the region’s inherent climate and economic vulnerabilities.”

    The niceties aside, debt relief/restructure = debt forgiveness. For those who miss it, this is the plan.

    To this end Jones said “wealthy, heavily polluting nations owe a climate debt to us, the Caribbean, and all other Small Island Developing States around the world”.

  2. Official visualizer Avatar
    Official visualizer

    Dedicated to that Dirty Cash
    💰💸
    Money is a tool
    Money is options
    Money makes friends
    Money breaks friends

    Takeoff was the most anonymous member of Migos by a country mile, the nephew of Quavo.
    After the tragic news of the killing of rapper Takeoff outside a bowling alley in Houston, many questions remain unanswered.
    “We [were] rapping about [Lamborghinis] and money and cars before we even had Lambos, and then we got Lambos,” Quavo explained.
    Quavo & Takeoff -Tools https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0q9_JXSe1E


  3. @NO

    The source is today’s Nation newspaper.

  4. NorthernObserver Avatar

    Then the articles on Mr Jones address, Nation vs BT come from a different angle. Your ‘source’ stated just Barbados. I ‘think’ the BT piece (Nov 3) may be more insightful into current thinking and direction.

  5. Privileged Rappers Avatar
    Privileged Rappers

    Broke Boys
    Privileged Rappers
    Major Distribution
    Rich Flex
    Pussy & Millions
    Mind on pussy and millions,
    mind on pussy and billions
    They say more money, more problems
    Bring on the problems (Will)


  6. @ David the Blogmaster.

    I like this new format which is great on my 15 inch touch screen laptop.


  7. You Tube

    Royal Barbados Police Force Band in ConcertIFolk and Calypso

  8. Donks, Gripe,and Josh Avatar
    Donks, Gripe,and Josh

    Critical Analyzer on November 3, 2022 at 6:11 AM

    This sort of thing happens when you have sleeping opposition parties and advisors too afraid to speak truth to power.

    These simple failings is why the DLP will probably hold another 30-0.

    ———————————————————
    Critical what do you want the DLP to do? The electorate obliterated the DLP twice in four years despite the party’s best efforts to explain to Barbadians the country needs an
    opposition in Parliament.

    The electorate in their wisdom gave Mottley’s party all the seats in 2 elections. It is criminal on your part to blame the DLP for the dictatorship traits the PM is revealing. The Independence change of date is the latest disregard by the BLP of voters who gave them all the seats. The DLP in fact should be applauded for trying their best to carry on as an organized political entity while having no representatives in the House or Senate.

    It is a despicable state of affairs the voters who voted overwhelmingly for the BLP have to deal with. The DLP did tremendous work to transform Barbados into a leading developing country punching above its weight. It is criminal to cast them aside without one parliamentary seat for the 40,000 citizens who voted for them. The snake oil leader basks in the glory of a one-party state flaunting the true colors the DLP warned about. Indeed, former boss Arthur and former colleagues Payne etc. also warned the electorate. The voters blanked the Dems twice anyway.

    You Critical know the electorate will forgive the foolishness, the mistakes the demagoguery of Mottley and give her another 30 seats next election. How can you blame the DLP when they are stripped of political strength and resources to even run their crumbling office. Their plight contrasts to the BLP’s squander of millions on overpaid ministers, consultants and spongers.

    Billionaires on and offshore fund the BLP. How can the Dems compete? Even so they try. They’ve agitated for the firing of the education minister over the IDB disaster and petitioned for the walk back of the Independence Day fiasco among other issues. Honest observers recognize the Dems make an effort to keep the government on their toes, but human and financial resources are thin. Mottley is in the drivers’ seat and the electorate take what she dishes out. After all it is the electorate who decided they wanted no opposition in Parliament.


  9. No one here notices how brilliantly our Supreme Leader controls public opinion! The state and the country are drowning in debt, but the naive commentators on BU and other social media only lament about totally irrelevant bank holidays.

  10. William Skinner Avatar

    Rename Harrison College , Republic College and rename Queens College, Sandra Mason College.
    In that way, we would honor our first President.
    Republic Day Awards should be as follows:
    Rihanna Fenty award for culture
    Sir Garry Sobers Award for Sports
    Alan Emtage Award for Technology and innovation.
    All of these awards should be for citizens under the age of eighteen.
    Peace.


  11. @William Skinner on November 5, 2022 at 6:16 AM

    You forgot Mia Mottley. No other person has shaped our island´s fate over the past 400 years as much as she has. Her tenure includes hurricanes, volcanic ash, IMF, DLP and other vermin.

    Therefore, Tron predicts that we will soon have a Mia Mottley Day and her portrait will decorate a $1,000 banknote.


  12. @Tron

    Are you hinting hyperinflation is inevitable?


  13. Given our horrendous foreign debt, one day we will receive a new currency, the “New Barbados Dollar”. The $1000 note will then be equivalent to the current $50 Barrow, so that all citizens will see our beloved Supreme Leader every day.


  14. We fully deserve to be made mock sport of, by bloggers such as Tron and Lawson.
    How a set of people in such a BLESSED place could find ourselves in our current predicament can only be explained in spiritual terms…

    To whom much is given, a lot is expected.,
    However when BLESSED people INSIST on modeling themselves on brass bowls, the spiritual laws of Karma have NO CHOICE but to step in with appropriate corrective actions.

    Owen in one of his moments of sobriety, warned us PUBLICLY of the supreme leader’s inclinations. Bushie also joined in expressing concerns…

    The records point to the dismally poor results out there for all to see, of her stewardship over the past 30 years in public life…. in EVERY endeavor – except for her personal enrichment and empowerment.

    Yet, like some brass bowls of old did, when they chose Barabbas over the most special bushman who EVER lived, Barbados has CHOSEN such leadership, now 60-0.

    It is easy to follow the multitude to do shiite, but having made up our shiite beds, we had better be prepared to sleep in it….

  15. African Online Publishing Copyright ⓒ 2022. All Rights Reserved Avatar
    African Online Publishing Copyright ⓒ 2022. All Rights Reserved

    That’s what they voluntarily, without any prompting voted for, although warned, if you don’t vote for these low class nobodies, you have no problems, because you will survive ON YOUR OWN anyway..but they went right ahead and voted for mediocrity, so that’s exactly what they are getting..

    i only feel for those innocents trapped in a dangerous go nowhere system for how many more decades….but…..not for the swollen headed idiots who continue to perpetrate it on THEMSELVES….and trying to lure sensible people into their misery loves company..

    they look good, no sympathy…and they ran out of apologiies and excuses…and are real quiet these days, seems they even lost the appetite to cuss me.


  16. In the 2018 elections, the BLP use of social media was superior to that of the DLP. I fear we will see the same in 2027.

    Ronnie O just put out a very nice message on the Wilfred (WA) Abrahams’s screw-up. But instead of using his own picture he uses that of WA and so it appears as if the statement to was by WA. First impressions and the message are different.

    Old or new media, Ronnie O and company must use it more effectively. The message and its packaging must be in agreement.


  17. Beginning to wonder if the blogmaster hired Wilfred Abrahams.


  18. @ TheOGazerts,

    whY Ronnie Y? whY not Ronnie Y?


  19. Power of patriotism
    Crafting identity from nostalgia or recalibrating it for the future?
    The following article was submitted by cultural practitioner Dr Denise J. Charles as a letter to the Editor.
    For as long as I can remember, I have always loved the end of the year for the celebration of Independence followed by the much-loved Christmas season.
    As a child, it held an almost magical fascination as we sang at my primary school,
    “I say B, I say B A, B A R, B A R B, B A R B A D O S: BARBADOS!”
    As I grew older and became happily “indoctrinated” with mottos like Pride And Industry, the National Pledge, the National Anthem and all the images, icons, memorabilia, and nostalgia surrounding
    Independence, I, like many Barbadians, was understandably hooked.
    These feelings of excitement and patriotism became deeply ingrained in my psyche and continue to play a very powerful part in my own self-definition and identity.
    Blue, yellow and black
    When I think and say “Barbados”, especially during the season of Independence, what follows is not only a tremendous sense of pride but the blue, yellow and black, the cultural expressions, the foods, the donkey cart memories, the fireworks of the 1970s when I was a child and the God Bless Bim On Independence Day, I Vow To Thee My Country and other songs of patriotism.
    A part of this cycle of nostalgia which I value is also borne out in my treasured collection of old Barbados stamps and old coins passed down to me by my now deceased grandfather, Ernest Toppin (1887-1987).
    Since I often use this time of national emphasis to reflect on the growth and development of this land that I love, several years ago, when November swung around, I questioned the overpowering role which nostalgia plays annually in our Independence celebrations. And for those who will “come for me” at this statement, let me assure that I am a bona fide student and lover of history who understands the role the past plays in identity formation. I am also as sentimental as they come and love ruminating on the past. From our past we should hopefully appreciate our struggle and where we want to go. But are we using the past as a vehicle for change every November, or are we just basking in the emotional comfort of the familiar and resting there on our national laurels?
    I also questioned then, as I do now, the value of being overtly nostalgic at the expense of progress or change. I agree that we need to teach the younger generations about coal pots, jukking boards, chattel house origins and the making of conkies.
    Added to these tangibles is our intangible cultural heritage (ICH), which includes our beliefs and practices, oral expressions, traditions, rituals, and festivals which shape our everyday living and define who we are, especially in an ever-changing digital, postmodern age.
    Innovative ideas
    These things are admittedly of great value and must be maintained. During our season of nationhood, how much emphasis are we placing on imagining and reimagining a future Barbados even as we cling for dear life and identity to the past? Where are the competitions which should challenge our youth at this time to use innovative ideas to reimagine a Barbados of the future, including its role in the metaverse?
    Where is the energy to craft new identities which are not only grounded in the distant past but which are positively influenced by new and present discourses and understandings of our place as a small island developing state in a dynamic 21st century world? This is no call to do away with our time-worn values but a call for greater national empowerment which can be accomplished by seeing ourselves outside the lens and limits of disenfranchisement, which in some respects overpower much of our nostalgic leanings.
    With each Independence season, it is as if Barbadians desire that Barbados parks itself at the altar of 1966 indefinitely. Yes, that year was significant, and we will forever be indebted to our Father of Independence the Rt Hon. Errol Walton Barrow, National Hero of Barbados.
    Shaping of a nation
    His role can never be minimised. When we lift him up that does not minimise the struggle of Sir Grantley Adams, also a Barbados National Hero, nor does it eclipse the sacrifices of the enslaved and then the working classes, who also sacrificed to influence the shaping of the nation we have today.
    Our future and who we will continue to evolve to become as a nation is not a competition between notions of Independence and now republicanism. These are different parts of one process or continuum towards social and economic enfranchisement. This discourse cannot be drawn along party lines as this great nation belongs to us all and is loved by us all.
    Let us, therefore, use this time and season of remembrance of our nation’s birth as a time to not only gather strength and emotional comfort from the past, but let us use it to galvanise us to march powerfully with purpose and without fear into a new future. As my primary school song referenced here ended with much gusto, let us all chant in unison “I love you, BARBADOS”.

    Source: Nation

  20. African Online Publishing Copyright ⓒ 2022. All Rights Reserved Avatar
    African Online Publishing Copyright ⓒ 2022. All Rights Reserved

    I just heard some disturbing Caribbean news roundup by Win Callender that went as follows:

    “Lawyers in Guyana stage protest, their rights allegedly violated by police.”

    “Babies dying in Jamaica and those responsible and accountable not lifting a finger, only giving excuses and lies.”

    politicians lying, what a surprise…guess it happens everywhere.

    “Politicians publicly telling lies to the people about some mess re removal of one of their liars.”

    “Another gaggle of political liars in St. Lucia doing very little or nothing while the roads need repairs, people struggling, the usual blueprint found in Barbados and across the region.”

    useless politicians as usual, but it happens everywhere.

    and of course the local wicked distraction that backfired about independence day in Barbados…a mirage in and of itself anyway.

    so…yall been using a slave master system for 100 years post ongoing emancipation, don’t know how that makes sense, but it is what it is, you did not create said system, but pretend that ya did, now it’s KILLING YOU, destroying you, setting up evil plans for you and your children, grandchildren, future generations etc with the help of LYING POLITICIANS and you STILL WON’T ABANDON IT…so sentimental and nostalgic.

    people are fed up of you and your slavehood, now morphing into gayhood… oh well….not my problem..enjoy your much loved demise and destruction..

    but many, many have waken up and seen reality, those will definitely survive.

  21. African Online Publishing Copyright ⓒ 2022. All Rights Reserved Avatar
    African Online Publishing Copyright ⓒ 2022. All Rights Reserved

    “Politicians publicly telling lies to the people about some mess re removal of one of their liars.”

    that one happened in the BVI.

  22. African Online Publishing Copyright ⓒ 2022. All Rights Reserved Avatar
    African Online Publishing Copyright ⓒ 2022. All Rights Reserved

    The word is out and spreading like wild fire across the earth.

    “never trust your lying criminal governments ever again, it could mean life or death for you and your families.”

    does not apply to fowls, imps, pimps or Slaves.

  23. African Online Publishing Copyright ⓒ 2022. All Rights Reserved Avatar
    African Online Publishing Copyright ⓒ 2022. All Rights Reserved

    The Bishop of Canterbury, some months ago, warned the churches to stay away from governments, and he was right, when you are right, you are right.


  24. Could have been us.


  25. TheOGazerts, you are not only doing a bad imitation of AC, yuh dun declare yuh is a DLP supporter.

    The thing that got me is that you always promoting and supporting the DLP, but duz get vex with Enuff, John2 and Lorenzo for supporting the BLP.

    Hypocrite!!!!!!

    Now you retire you on here more regular than the video man and the fake pan Africanist. Shyte man, yuh becoming a nuisance.

    Go on the DLP’s website and promote Ronnie Yearwood.


  26. Hi Frank,
    “Now you retire you on here more regular than the video man and the fake pan Africanist. Shyte man, yuh becoming a nuisance.”

    I gave you 5 ⭐’s even though the part about “the video man and the fake pan Africanist” was hurtful.


  27. Page 16 BarbadosToday online

    ” The lighter side of Mr.Waldron ” by Rollins Howard

    Nice tribute to a good man. May he rest in peace.


  28. I called his name a couple of weeks ago!! When I left HC in 1975 he was a young rebel. When I returned many years later to assist with a Heart Foundation Fair, he was a dignified and potent officer of HC. Flakes was a great guy, very human.

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