That Multi-racial Advertisement is Dangerous to Society

Posted on August 30, 2022 by David

334

Submitted by Fatimah Farah Mohammed-Ali

This Trinidad and Tobago Republic Bank “Kern and Alana’s love story” advertisement is an attack on all Black women. Most of us are already struggling to survive as single mothers. Our Black men are often absent fathers in the home which is the main cause of so many of our sons, brothers and nephews being gunned down every day with their blood soiling the streets. Every day, two and three Black men are murdered like dogs. There are few Black role models for our young sons in the home.

And on top of that, you have our young black successful men leaving and making a new home with other women. The bank advertisement shows a fatherless young man living with his granny. He works hard making a backyard garden to eat food in the kitchen. He studies hard at university. He graduates. He buys a car. And after all that sacrifice and care with his grandmother, he gets a job and wants to settle. And who does he choose to marry? Certainly not a black woman. He is too ambitious and bright for that.

Where does this situation leave the Black woman? According to a 2018 U.S. survey, black mothers are four times more likely to be single and serve as the primary breadwinners of their home, as granny is depicted in the advertisement. The headline of a nbcnews item published in 2010 reads: “Blacks struggle with 72 percent unwed mothers rate”. The article begins: “Debate is growing within and outside the black community of how to address the rising rate of unwed mothers. Seventy-two percent of black babies are born to unwed mothers, government statistics say — and changing that is a complex issue.”

There is a clear link shown between family structure and delinquent or gang behaviour. Children who grow up in a single-parent household headed by the mother appear to be most at risk. This finding was published in an article entitled “Black Single Female-Headed Households and their Children’s Involvement in Gangs” published in 1992. These kinds of advertisements are setting a trend and promoting a model that is destructive to the black community with a negative impact on society with respect to an increase in crime by black youths.

See Relevant Links:

https://www.facebook.com/republicbanktnt/videos/571173347999237

My Wedding – Your Next Chapter

Historical Fragmentation: The 612 Year “LIE” of African Slavery

Posted on August 10, 2022 by David

131

Submitted by Terence Blackett

Historical Fragmentation: The 612 Year “LIE” of African Slavery – Rewriting the Backstory Airbrushed from the Conventional Socio-ReLIEgious Discourse

“Negroes have no rights that the white man is bound to respect…” (Dred Scott Decision 1856 – Roger Taney US Chief Justice)

The diabolical institution of African incarceration and the economic slave trade foisted on the souls of Black men, began as a long-held grudge match between the Roman Catholic Church during the Dark Ages of medieval European domination, and the Judaic-Christian, African churches who were untouched for more than 1000 years from putrid, Papal profligacy and puerile, pagan pugnacity.

For all the reLIEgious scholars whose hubris was to whitewash the Black Presence In the Bible by their insidiousness – a history lesson 101 is required.

In 606 BC, after Sennacharib – the Black Assyrian king dragged off the 10- tribes Northern kingdom of Israel, many who escaped that ruinous debacle made their way to Africa to live as free men – carrying the Law of Moses and their families with them – in migration patterns that stretched from Morocco to Central Africa.

The 2^nd conquest of Jerusalem was bulwarked by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, destroying the southern kingdom in 538 – 587 BC and taking the two-tribe kingdom of Judah & Benjamin to Babylonia for 70 years – as prophesied by Jeremiah, but this too has been airbrushed from the records, given the fact that many Black Judahites and Benjamites, escaped the horrendous pillage – making their way to Africa, as a growing community of Black diasporic Israelites had already built thriving communities there.

Then in AD 70, for the 3^rd time, before the final rape, pillage, murder and sacking of Jerusalem, many Black Jews who were now Christian converts, had heeded the warnings of the prophets and words of Yeshua Messiah (THE CHRIST), and migrated to the African continent before Roman General Titus left the city in a heap of rubble and ruins.

From 538 AD onward as shown by Papal history, it was during the conquest of Europe by ecclesiastical/reLIEgious Rome, that bishops, cardinals, monks and priests tried to convert the continent of Africa, but in places like Ethiopia, Somalia et al they met with stiff resistance. Many reLIEgious scholars refuse to accept authentic Black facts that although Africa had its traditional culture – there was also a parallel Judaic-Christian culture that was birthed even before the Ethiopian eunuch, who was Queen Candace’s treasurer (a very rich man) was able to proselytize his nation with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, after his conversion and baptism by Philip the Evangelist (post his Sabbatical to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish feasts of either Passover, Pentecost or Sukkot). Again, some reLIEgious scholars and albino-centric commentators suggest that the Ethiopian eunuch was a Gentile, when in fact there is no logical basis in fact to support that assertion, given that Ethiopia already had diasporic Jews living there for centuries and today, we see the remnants of those Jewish/Israelite communities – bar those who re-migrated back to what is now modern Israel.

This rewriting of the historical record is not new or is it being purported in any way to obfuscate responsibility for what has been criminally etched in the anthropological, historical and epistemological records, teleologically upending genealogical accuracy – with the burden of proof on those who think that they can somehow try to debunk what was clearly airbrushed from the timeline of ancient records.

So let’s begin!

Gibbs (1988) suggests that “It is not sufficient simply to have an experience in order to learn”, for much of our learning has been skewed with “LIES” “MYTHS”, “HALF-TRUTHS” and a vainglorious amount of historical “SPIN doctors”. Issues of territoriality, the vagaries of mixed up priorities, the frivolous nature of nationalistic politics, based on albino-ethnocentrically based group identity politics and narratives; the pre-eminence of triangulated issues based on ‘how to get to solid truth’, in the negotiation processes of the historical discourse – notwithstanding, the inherently insalubriously complex nature of working within the crosshairs of competing human interests that oftentimes include personality clashes, and the foibles of untangling the psychological conflict that exist between races, is often at the heart of the vortex of fallen human nature, and the spiralling madness we see so evident in our world.

Yet in the beginning of time, the Black man genetic superiority was sacrosanct. A landmark 2016 Scientific Study traced man’s modern migrations after they left Africa, by the utilization of genetic parameters, resulted in mind-boggling findings. Black people were literally found in every nook and cranny of the world, from South to North; East to West – occupying lands that so-called Caucasoid historical scholars cite was not Black occupied.

Most Biblical scholars even patently deny the archaeological as well as the paleoanthropological evidence that our ancient Hebrew Israelite forefathers (most notably) Moses were all predominately Black folks who came into the land of Israel. From the Dura-Europos synagogue paintings (in the above link) shows Moses and the Hebrew Israelites crossing the Red Sea pursued by Pharaoh: (circa 303 BC – 256 AD). The evidence is overwhelming, where images are shown of Moses confronted by the “Burning Bush”; including others like the prophet Jeremiah, and/or Ezra the Scribe & priest along with a myriad of other historical tokens that explicitly prove Black civilization ruled the world from the day JEHOVAH made man upon the earth. It is often asked: “Was Abraham a Black man?” Answer: “Yes”! Yet it does not seem to settle the argument.

So the discourse on historical fragmentation that resulted in the moribund nature of exhausted imperial racist policies, which still tries to raise its necrotic head, in the gesticulation politics of postmodern Western culture, and from the societal seismology that currently rumbles from within the so-called hallowed halls of academia, to the pews of the church – it appears the only way to completely sink this Titanic mess, may very well be through some fundamental social revamp (and/or perhaps, violent tectonic overthrow of a system that is now pass-its-sell-by-date), and the complete re-ordering and restructuring of 21^st century capitalist society. However, do not hold your breath!

In his seminal work on slavery and Catholicism, in the book, “Life of Christopher Columbus” by Sir Arthur Helps, he argues: “From the time (1444) Europe may be said to have made a distinct beginning in the slave trade, henceforth to spread on all sides like the waves of the troubled waters. For slavery was now assuming an entirely new phase. Hitherto the slave had been merely the captive in war. Now, however, the slave was no longer an accident of war. He was no longer an accidental subject of barter. He was to be sought for, to be hunted out, to be produced, and this change accordingly gave rise to a new branch of commerce” (p. 19-22).

It must be duly noted that the socio-reLIEgious and evolutionary praxis of slavery began within the Portuguese and Spanish context, as well as in the future American colonies during the 1500’s; however, scant literary treatment and airbrushing much of the sinister roles these Iberian nations played in these amoral commercial wars that were fought over the issue of “discovery”; the malevolent acquiescence of human property (chattel labor), gold, tobacco, cotton, sugarcane and a sleuth of traded goods that made European kings, queens but most importantly, the Catholic Church “Filthy Rich” (operative word being – #Filth) cannot be denied This is why “MIGRATION PATTERNS” into Europe today is really “POETIC JUSTICE”.

Sir Arthur Helps, in another one of his books – “Spanish Conquest of America”, Vol. 4, p. 401 cite: “Some slaves were brought to Europe by the Spaniards in the 14^th century and a small trade was continued by the Portuguese… In the next few years, (after 1441), a small amount of Negroes continued to be exported into Spain as servants.”

Statistical scholars estimate that between 1441 and 1521, as many as 156,000 African slaves had arrived on the Iberian Peninsula. For those however, who would seek to whitewash, and try to Photoshop evidentiary proof of the trade in Black flesh began before 1619, with the additional 300,000 Africans who arrived in the Americas between 1502 and 1619 – using it as a prop and cover to limit the impact of England’s nefarious role in the African Slave Trade, by using the common, cultural matrix of racial perception – a photo lens to trade in the commodification in human flesh, as capital – have failed miserably in their quest.

When Pope Nicholas V issued his Papal Bull (CRAP), ‘Dum Diversas’, which granted King Afonso V of Portugal the right to reduce to “perpetual slavery” all “Saracens & pagans and other infidels and enemies of Christ” in West Africa – to then follow up in 1454, ‘Dum Diversas’ with ‘Romanus Pontifex’, which gave Portugal the reLIEgiously sanctioned right to conquer and enslave all peoples south of Cape Bojador. Through the ‘Edict of Discovery’, Spanish & Portuguese monarchs could then send out their armies and conquer the lands of Africa, at the end of a sword, musket or cannon, (“REVENGE” and payback as stated at the beginning of this piece), and to bring back the best from these lands, which was indeed human cargo, as slave labor. From the Catholic Encyclopaedia XI, p. 445* and onward can be found the tyrannical, imperialistic, capitalist aggression against other human beings that continues right up until today in the 21^st century. (*Above citation wiped)

In the book, “Island of Cuba” by Alexander von Humboldt, p. 51 are these words: “The death of the indigenous peoples due to hardship from mining gold and growing cash crops resulted in their almost extermination.” Also, in the Concise Encyclopaedia of World History by Carlos Ramirez-Faria, “St. Vincent & the Grenadines was sighted by Columbus in 1498. The land was peopled by the Caribs, the Amerindians who contributed the word “Cannibal” to European languages. (This was not historically proven as it may have been a tactic used for indiscriminate slaughter of the native people). St. Vincent was occupied by the British in 1762, seized by France in 1779, and restored definitely to Great Britain in 1783. The Caribs were deported by the British to small islands in the gulf of Honduras.”

To juxtapose the same historical thought from Seymour Dresher – the albino-centric bias in the above statement is nauseating as seen from his book on the same issue: “Econocide: British Slavery in the Era of Abolition” which says: “St. Vincent was unquestionably part of the “old” British slave empire in 1797. It was one of the so-called neutral islands, ceded to Britain by the Peace of Paris in 1763 and reconfirmed as a British possession by the Peace of Versailles in 1783. Its peculiarity, before 1797, lay in its retarded development as a slave colony. This was due to the presence of a powerful community of independent non-Europeans. The “Black “Caribs possessed large tracts of territory amounting to one-third of the richest and most cultivated soil on the island… So dangerous was the British situation that the planters allowed troops to be recruited from among their slaves… After their defeat, the Caribs were deported from St. Vincent to the island of Roatan in the gulf of Honduras, leaving the richest land in the island vacant.”

As Europe was emerging from the Black Death (aptly coined) of the medieval period, and economic slavery had not yet taken a foothold, as a means of recouping from the ravages of millions dead, and the abject poverty of lost wealth – post pandemic, Europeans monarchs and the Papacy had to “Build Back Better”. History shows that along the Iberian Peninsula of the Mediterranean, where Christianity existed a certain class of affluent nobles and wealthy reLIEgious persons had already enslaved primarily Jews, Muslims, Gypsies, Slavs, and a few others. The Jews and African Moors however were seen as beyond the realm of redemption and were therefore subject to a form of perpetual slavery, as the end justified the means.

In England however, there was a contradiction of sorts, given that on English soil, any slave during the 1500’s into the 1600’s were actually a “free man”, until Queen Elizabeth I wanted them out of England under the pretext that they were taking food and shelter from the English subjects of the monarch – while, English pirates, marauders and slavers were free to ply the slave trade in the Iberian Peninsula, in Mediterranean waters, the Caribbean, South America and finally, (the ‘Yet-To-Be’ United States of amnesia and paranoia) – and wherever they was a need for chattel labor. The real profiteering came full circle around 1619 and onwards, when AmeriKKKan colonists began their cruel, evil trade in the human butchery of slave labor. The English were quickly followed by the Dutch, French and Belgians who rebuilt their dilapidated countries on the backs of Black blood, sweat, tears & grievous labor! (ENOUGH)

(To be continued)

Semper Fidelis

Holocaust Denial as Tourism

Posted on March 30, 2022 by David

153

Submitted by Tee White

I’m not one to visit the so-called great houses here in Barbados because I see them as shameless monuments built on the crimes committed on this island against our enslaved African ancestors during the holocaust. However, recently I had some visitors to the island who specifically asked me to take them to Sunbury Plantation Great House in St Phillip. To be a good host, I agreed.

My experience there confirmed all my worst fears. The most shocking thing to me was the way in which those who market tours of this plantation house as inspiring “a vivid impression of life on a sugar estate in the 18th and 19th centuries” deliberately and systematically erased from this story even the existence of the enslaved African people on whose labour the entire operation of the plantation rested. Nowhere in any of its publicity did it even acknowledge the existence of the majority of people that actually lived and worked on this plantation. According to the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery which is based at University College, London, between 1817 and 1832 the number of enslaved African people living and working on Sunbury plantation never fell below 200, yet the story of their lives has been erased completely from the story of this plantation.

So determined is this effort that even in the post-slavery period, there is no acknowledgement of existence of the workforce that continued to maintain the plantation. An example of this determination can be seen in the inscription on one of the exhibits which reads, “With no running water at the time, ladies of the house would bathe in this bath in water up to their hips that would have to be hauled in and later emptied by hand”. With this phraseology, we don’t need to know who hauled the water in and later emptied it by hand. After all we don’t care about them and their lives. We only care about the ‘ladies of the house’.

This attempt to simply disappear from history the lives and experiences of the enslaved Africans, who are the ancestors of the majority of this country’s population, is a racist insult and slap in the face to their descendants. It’s time to stop whitewashing our country’s history and if tourists can’t stomach the fact that plantations were a crime scene, then maybe they shouldn’t visit them.

Indians NOT Considered Black and Excluded in Reparations Talks

Posted on June 16, 2021 by David

Submitted by Sherry Hosein Singh

Some misguided Indians claim that they are Black, ignoring the fact that they are really Coloured or Brown. They blindly see only two colours in an artist’s palette: black and white. They even foolishly brag that “if you not White, you Black”, again failing to see that Chinese and Hispanics cannot fit into these extreme race categories. On the other hand, Blacks categorize Indians as Blacks for political convenience.

For those Indians who insist that they are Black, here’s is a slap in their face. The Black Consciousness Festival was celebrated last week (11-13/6/21) with a focus on Reparations for Slavery, not including Indentureship.

The presenters were People of African descent and Indigenous descendants from the USA, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Haiti and France. Its release stated: “The conversations around reparations are important as they seek to build awareness and raise consciousness for our healing and for our agency in this space to chart our destiny as persons of African descent.

“The Black Consciousness Festival provides a global online platform for the celebration and sharing of vital histories and stories that boost the awareness and impact the pride, power and practices of People of African descent.”

The speakers from Trinidad included Earl Lovelace and Nicholas Ward. Guyana was represented by Sule Collymore. Indo-Trinidadian Historian Professor Brinsley Samaroo was not invited to speak although he boasts that he was in the forefront of the 1970 Black Power Movement in Trinidad, locked in arms with Makandal Daaga and Khafra Khambon.

Indo-Guyanese-born Professor, Dr David Dabydeen’s name was also not on the programme, although he is the author of books with titles such as The Oxford Companion to Black British History; Black Writers in Britain; 1760-1890; Hogarth’s Blacks: Images of Blacks in 18th-Century English Art; A Reader’s Guide to West Indian and Black British Literature; The Black Presence in English Literature; and Slave Song.

This second edition of the Black Consciousness Festival Series was done in collaboration with the Africa Film Festival in Trinidad and Tobago.

Sincerely,

Ms. Sherry Hosein Singh

Racism: Time Bomb Continues to Tick

Posted on June 14, 2021 by David

Submitted by Pachamama (as a comment)

There is a political project being planned in Guyana by the Hindu-fascist PPP .of Jagdeo, aimed at covering up its racist conduct.

The PPP wants to dismiss 300 workers from the water authority,, the overwhelming majority of whom are Black.. They seek to replace them with Indians as they have a history of doing and have done since de rasssoul assholes in Caricom interfered in the elections to favour them.

To cover their apartheid policies the PPP is raising the spectre of Rodney as a distraction as they seek to combat complains about their behaviours, as made to the United Nations.

The argument to be made by the PPP is that the UN complaints are invalid because Walter Rodney, an Afro-Guyanese, is being lifted up. However, Black people in Guyana never had much love for Walter Rodney. They generally thought that he was an asshole, puffed up with a sense that he was the brightest man in the world.

Wrong on both counts.

As a youngster Walter Rodney was second to none in this writer”s estimation. However, his family is in no position to ask the PPP government of Guyana to rewrite the clear and true history of the circumstances surrounding his death.

The truth is settled knowledge. Rodney was trying to overthrow the government of Forbes Burnham and was plotting with a military man who was making a bomb with shrapnel intended to wreak substantial collateral damage.

Having arranged to test the bomb against the outer wall of the central prison complex it ended up in his, Rodney’s, lap and detonated, seemingly prematurely or at the betrayal of the military Confederates in this coup. Burnham had nothing to do with these events but currently this schema by the PPP could also cause a fissure within the opposition APNU coalition which comprises Burnham’s party and Rodney’s party.

About this plot to overthrow Burnham, Dr. David Hinds, a WPA member of Rodney’s party, at the time, spent years in jail and has since confirmed these events. Another senior member, of the WPA, we seem to remember his name as Roopnarine, we think, wrote a book detailing events much as we’ve tried to broadly outline.

This writer accepts the mantel of lacking hope in anything officialdom says to us. Doubled with experience of evaluating such plots, our central position is always to assume that everything is a fecking lie until proven otherwise.

David, your Caricom leaders, and the Caribbean, have no ideas about the demons they have let loose in Guyana. We trust that should the worse happen those same interfering misleaders will be military targets.

WOKE-ISM AND THE WHITENESS OF CANCEL CULTURE

Posted on May 12, 2021 by David

130

Submitted by Pachamama

A sign of the nature of these times is the imposition of a new etymology. Whether it is ‘woke-ism’, on the one side, or ‘cancel culture’, on the other, the willful misguidance is no less profound. “Whiteness” is generally defined as being a political construction, a fiction.

In this piece we will attempt to tease out, or even capture, an ‘ahistorical’ moment where a faux progressivism pretends to confront long-held establishment lies, wickedness – across the board.

This convergence of interests should properly be the province of academia and particularly those from the Frankfurt School of critical social theory. Unfortunately though, It has long-failed to help us rethink or reform the social critiques of Marxism, as they had promised, even as Marx gave the ‘soft touch’ to racism and slavery; has not led to the rejection of mainstream political views; its tepid criticisms of capitalism have made it no less vicious; there has been no substantive ‘liberation’ of humanoids anywhere; while domination and exploitation continue at an algorithmic pace.

Some, with rightness, may suggest that woke-ism is deeply culturally bound. Others are reticent to jettison certain unrealities. Others are entrenched in the misbelief, or fear, that there will be some meeting of the minds at a point of moderation. Yet others wrongly look to this divine age of technological innovation to deliver mankind. In reality they intend that establishment systems should only be tinkered with on the margins if at all, but never radically transformed, far less prevent the new formations of the old systems of subjugation now reemerging as more virulent manifestations of technological oppression.

It is however clear that the perceived meanings of woke-ism and ‘Whiteness’ can never comfortably coexisted. For the first is predicated on the existence of what is real, presumably, while the other is entirely based on a deep and wide culture of unreality. An unreality not based within the longer evolution of humanoids.

Those who suggested that the removal of Horatio Nelson from the top of Broad Street was an attempt to ‘cancel’ their ‘culture’ are ideologically well-connected to the Proud Boys and other White supremacist forces in the United States of America, and elsewhere. We include Black lackeys in high places, like ‘a Johnny’ Muh Boy as the quintessentially modern-day house niggers! But still, its mere removal only flirts with the symbolic. The same is true about removals from landscapes elsewhere as well.

And for the lack of historical memory, eminently demonstrated by many on the side of Black Lives Matter, prevents a better understanding of their own arguments. This requires, amongst other things, taking a hard look at the ways in which that movement has been appropriated, internally and externally, by a wide range of interests included the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States of America, no less. It’s a ‘crying shame’ that even the marketing and recruitment of CIA agents, as an historically racist organization, have now fully appropriated wokeness.

There was a time when ‘whiteness’ meant something entirely different. It denoted somebody who was spiritual. It had nothing to do with pigmentation or ‘pinkness’. At that time all the ‘white’ people were Black, there was nobody else around.

But etymology is a linguistic bitch. People who argue that others seek to cancel their culture are ignorantly doubling-down on all the crimes committed in the name of the political construction which is Whiteness as if seeking to eternally be in a march to war against 90% of Earth’s peoples.

When those who represent ‘Whiteness’ talk about the cancellation of culture, or the irrational moderation of just demands, a level of credibility should be brought to the table based on the real and continuing cancelling which White people and their agents have committed for millennia. In the absence of such an accounting there can be no legitimate claims to a genocidal culture still being constructed and maintained on the bones of others.

Race Issue: Barbados and Everywhere Else

Posted on April 8, 2021 by David

468

During the sitting of the Senate of 25 March 2021, Senator Rev. Dr. John A. Rogers delivered an interesting presentation. He referred to the heinous event history recorded as the Atlantic Slave Trade and its relevance to Barbados formulating fit for purpose policy to protect our future well-being in a volatile global space. The blogmaster recommends those interested in pursuing serious discussion to take the time to listen to Roger’s presentation from around 30 minutes of the video.

…it revealed that the top one percent of households globally own 43 percent of all personal wealth, while the bottom 50 percent own only one percent. That top-tier one percent amounts to 52 million people who are all millionaires in net wealth (after debt).
Top 1 percent of households own 43 percent of global wealth

In a related event this week President Joe Biden had reason to say in response to Georgia’s new suppression law that it is antithetical to who Americans aspire to be. The issue of race is not a Barbados condition, it is a human condition, a condition that has created an US versus THEM condition. It is also a zero sum condition that benefits the capitalists. When we we learn.

The Senate – Thursday 25 March 2021

The blogmaster has been around the block long enough to know the divide and conquer mentality of imperfect humans based on gender, class AND race will be with us until the end of time. However, as a people we will be forced to co-opt creative approaches to mask and contain the prejudice, bigotry and yes- racism of many who will walk beside us because the establishment is vested in the system.

Crypto Racism in Barbados EXPOSED

Posted on February 4, 2021 by David

1,026

This video raised its ugly rh head in Barbados last evening.

The more discerning among us are aware racism and bigotry are unwelcome human characteristics present everywhere humans exist. We accept human beings are imperfect creatures. However, it does not mean when these unsavoury qualities show its ugly head that civil society should not promote relevant policies and other measures as requires to nurture tolerance and educate fellow citizens in the interest of growing a wholesome society.

The mouthings from the person in the video is the result of many things which Barbadians have known and been tardy to addressing over the years. Crypto racism has been discussed often enough in this forum- for years. It must be addressed in a structured way. Spouting balderdash is easy for some but it will take much more to excoriate the scourge of racism and bigotry that has metastasize over centuries.

#primeministermiamottley

#civilsociety

Comment for 100 marks.

EXTERNALLY- induced Schizophrenia

Posted on December 29, 2020 by David

Submitted by Rasjaziel

Whenever there is a harvest on the slave plantation it is the slave-master who will be going to the bank to continue his process of wealth accumulation.

So how come it is the slave that has always been the leader in Harvest celebration?

The landless X-Slaves were brainwashed to celebrate Crop Over

Read full text – https://rastafarivisions.com/wordpress/schizophrenia/

The Indian community in Barbados: business, religion and race-relations

Posted on December 22, 2020 by David

330

Submitted by Dr. Kumar Mahabir

**Sabir Nahkuda (L) and Suleiman Bulbia (R)**

Barbados is located in the Caribbean near Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and Martinique. It is 34 kilometres (21 miles) in length and up to 23 km (14 miles) in width covering an area of 432 km (167 square miles). The present population of Barbados is 287,000 persons (just more than a quarter-million people) based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data.

Five things that have made Barbados world famous: Rihanna, the international singer, songwriter, actress and designer, was born in Barbados; so too is Sir Garfield Sobers, the greatest cricket all-rounder of all time. And the Honourable Mia Mottley is the first female Prime Minister of Barbados. Barbados has also produced the oldest rum in the world from its Mount Gay Distillery. There are also its pristine, peaceful beaches.

Barbados has the head office of the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) which is under attack these days for its grading system. Prime Minister Mottley is also the Chair of CARICOM (the Caribbean Community) which played a critical role in restoring democracy to Guyana during the recounting of votes following the March 2020 elections.

The following are HIGHLIGHTS of an ICC ZOOM public meeting held recently (25/10/20) on the topic “The Indian community in Barbados: business, religion and race-relations.”The Pan-Caribbean meeting was hosted by the Indo-Caribbean Cultural Centre (ICC). The meeting was chaired by Sharlene Maharaj of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) and moderated by Sadhana Mohan of Surniname.

The speakers where HAJJI SULEIMAN BULBULIA, Secretary of the Barbados Muslim Association and the Muslim Chaplain of the UWI, Cave Hill Campus; and SABIR NAKHUDA, author of the book Bengal to Barbados: A 100-year history of East Indians in Barbados (2013) – extracts of which are reproduced below.The discussant was DR KUMAR MAHABIR, an anthropologist from T&T and an Organization of American States (OAS) Former Fellow.

Affectionately called “coolie-man”

East Indians (Indians) have helped shape the social, religious, cultural and economic landscape of Barbados. To understand these impacts, the focus must be on the itinerant traders (affectionately called “coolie-man”).

For the itinerant trader, the main driver of undertaking an economic enterprise is to generate income. But his business had several unintended consequences, many of which were positive for the Barbadian society for over 100 years.

The “coolie-man” became more than a friendly trader in the neighbourhood; he became a member of the family, a counsellor and an advisor at times. The “coolie-man” in Barbados has many anecdotal stories (positive and negative) which have entered into folklore of the island and have been immortalized in local songs.

The experiences of those who benefited from access to goods on extremely favorable credit terms, at a time when buying cash was the only available option for the poor, is noteworthy. Credit to the average Barbadian was unheard of, and many residents had to struggle on the meagre earnings they received to get along as best as they could.

In the Foreword to the book Bengal to Barbados, former Prime Minister of Barbados, Freundel Stuart, wrote: “… for many years, I experienced directly, the impact this important group made on the village in which I grew up in the parish of St. Philip. I saw these men alleviate the financial distress of many people who lived in Marchfield, St. Philip.

“They took care of back-to-school requirements for parents who could not afford to buy school uniforms by extending generous credit terms to them. At Christmas, the poorest households benefited from credit terms no less generous.”

Unlike the early Indians in Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, St. Vincent, Grenada and other Caribbean Islands who went to work in the sugar plantations in the 1800s, Indian indentured labourers were not brought to Barbados. Those who came never intended to come to Barbados, but eventually ended up in Barbados and made the country their home.

The early Indians came from three different parts of India. The first Indian came to Barbados circa around 1910 from the Hooghly District in West Bengal: Bashart Ali Dewan initially went to Trinidad from India where his father-in-law was residing. He stayed there for a short while and then – for some unknown reason – moved to Barbados. Other Bengalis followed, and Bashart Ali Dewan and these pioneers stayed in the Bridgetown area of Barbados.

From inception, members of the Indian community have continued to practice their culture and religion. The Sindhi-Hindu community made part of their homes into mandirs [temple] until the opening of the first Hindu temple in Welches, St. Michael on the 22nd of October 1995.

The Muslim community continues to practice their faith individually and collectively. In the early days, the Friday jummah [congregational prayers] were performed at private homes at Wellington Street and Cheapside in the city. In 1951, the first masjid [mosque] was built in Kensington New Road.

The ‘Other’

Posted on July 12, 2020 by David

This week will see the convergence of four historical events of note, which interestingly relate to a few present realities: the birth anniversaries of Nelson Mandela and American civil rights activist, Ida B Wells, as well as the end of the Rwandan Genocide and the anniversary of the publication of Adolf Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto, Mein Kampf.

What do all of these events have in common? In one way or another, they relate to the dangers of ‘othering’, i.e. treating a person or a group as “intrinsically different and alien”, in order to justify their oppression. To be sure, identity formation is a crucial aspect of human socialization, and large chunks of our identity are related to group association. However, the problem arises when that group association becomes toxic, such that you cease to see members of other groups as human, instead, simply as ‘other’.

Herr Hitler thus sold the idea to the German people that the Jews were so different that they were dangerous and that is why so many persons could justify assaulting their Jewish neighbours and looting their stores, because they were no longer neighbours; they were ‘other’.

Mandela spent his life fighting a system predicated entirely upon the notion that blacks and coloureds were so inherently different from and alien to whites, that the races must be completely separated and blacks legitimately oppressed.

Ida B. Wells was a crusading activist and investigative journalist, best known for bringing to the attention of the world, one of the worst aspects of Jim Crow southern USA: lynching. Most know that many black men were brutally murdered because they were falsely accused of sexual misconduct. Few however know that most lynchings of blacks were for far more trivial and heart-wrenching reasons, including “unpopularity”, “miscegenation”, “bad reputation”, “writing insulting letter”, “quarrelling with white man” and “gambling”.

Turning to Rwanda finally, it is said that most of the 1,000,000 people killed and 500,000 women raped during the genocide, were murdered or raped in their own villages by persons who were their neighbours. How does one suddenly brutalize your neighbour with whom you had coexisted all your life? Because they were indoctrinated to believe that those Tutsis were ‘other’, and not worthy thus of their humanity.

No human being, expect the most perverse or warped, is capable of inflicting or justifying the infliction of the type of inhumanity aforementioned on another human being. They can only justify such if they are able to tell themselves that these victims are not like them, they aren’t their siblings in humanity. They are ‘other’.

Therefore, when we speak about racism in the present day, what we really speak about is institutions designed to perpetuate prejudice and discrimination, but also which strive to sow divisions between racial groupings. So we have blacks and whites who view each other perpetually with suspicion because we have contrived this artificial separateness.

In Guyana and unfortunately across the region, you have persons willing to justify a massive assault on democracy and electoral fraud, simply because the fraudsters look like them.

Therefore, in this region and anywhere in the world, we have no hope of healing the wounds of the divisions of race, ethnicity, religion, class and gender, unless we comprehensively eradicate ‘othering’.

Does that require deep, structural change? Absolutely.

But is it equally important for every single person to break down within themselves these toxic notions of ‘otherness’? Undoubtedly.

We often forget that institutions are composed of people. Therefore, while ways can be found to fundamentally alter institutions through legislation and such, there is no guarantee that that can solve the problem of human behaviour. That challenge is best solved when each person resolves to represent the desired change themselves.

Is that an easy task? No. Whether we admit it or not, each and every one of us, of all races and creeds, has some prejudice, conscious or subconscious, which affects how we view and treat to others. The battle ahead therefore is internal. If we want to build the best Barbados, we must rise to the occasion. The alternative is too bleak to consider.

Indian Lives do not Matter – violent incitement against Indians

Posted on July 6, 2020 by David

Submitted by Dr Kumar Mahabir

On her Facebook page, well-known ruling People’s National Movement’s (PNM’s) political activist, Juliet Davy, of Trinidad and Tobago, created and shared a blood-curdling video recently.

No one in the mainstream media even made reference to it except for an Afro Opposition United National Congress (UNC) radio talk show host, Barrington “Skippy” Thomas. The video was captured for posterity by a UNC activist, Garth Christopher, who is racially-mixed (25/6/20).

Not even a single Indo-Trinidadian made a public comment, except for journalist Niala Maharaj who has been living in the Netherlands for the past 40 years.

On her blog (30/6/20), Maharaj wrote: Between the BLM [Black Lives Matter] movement and electioneering in Trinidad, Indian-bashing is getting to be the new normal on Facebook. No one blinked an eye last week when a video repeatedly made the rounds with a PNM activist urging ‘Africans’ to jump over the walls of Indian-owned properties, rush into their houses, and ‘deal with them’.

The majority of Afros (Africans) support the PNM while mainly Indos (Indians) back the UNC.

Are Indians really docile and afraid to speak out, even those in the UNC against whom the threat was made specifically? No leader in the PNM distanced the party from, and denounced the violent incitement of Davy.

I instantly reported the matter to Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith via his Facebook page but I did not even receive the courtesy and comfort of an acknowledgement. He is known to scan and respond to every shadow that jumps at him on social media. Beyond a shadow doubt, Davy has committed a seditious act and she should have been investigated, arrested and charged.

A seditious act

The Sedition Act (1920, last amended in 1976) states that a seditious intention is a plan to engender or promote (i) feelings of ill-will or hostility between one or more sections of the community on the one hand and any other section or sections of the community on the other hand; or (ii) feelings of ill-will towards, hostility to or contempt for any class of inhabitants of Trinidad and Tobago distinguished by race, colour, religion, profession, calling or employment (Section 3).

A person is guilty of an offence who has been found to have communicated any statement having a seditious intention. Subject to Subsection (3), a person guilty of an offence under this section is liable (a) on summary conviction to a fine of three thousand dollars AND to imprisonment for two years; or (b) on conviction on indictment to a fine of twenty thousand dollars AND to imprisonment for five years.

Is the Black-dominated Police Service (TTPS) racially and politically biased? In April last year, the police, led by Inspector Wayne Stanley, executed a search warrant at Radio and TV Jaagriti for an audio-visual clip. In the clip, the late Hindu and Indian civil rights leader, Sat Maharaj, is reported to have said that Tobagonians are lazy and the men are rapists. The matter went to court.

Sat’s stereotypical description pales in comparison to that of Davy’s violent instigation: “Is many of you holding it back; many of you holding back. … What we really need to tell them is how they mother really make them. That is what we really need to tell them … We suppose to jump over they fence, run up inside they house, hold them, and deal with them seriously.”

In August last year, Opposition Minority Leader in Tobago, Watson Duke, was arrested for a speech he had made in 2018. As part of the speech, Duke reportedly said: “I am sending the message clear. Let [PNM leader] Rowley them know that the day they come for us in WASA, we are prepared to die and the morgue would be picking up people.”

Duke was arrested, charged for sedition and released on TT$250,000 bail while Davy remains unscathed.

Hinds unscathed

On a political platform in Mafeking Junction, Mayaro, on November 16, 2016, PNM Minister Fitzgerald Hinds urged his mainly Afro audience supporters:

“I said to my colleagues, as a younger parliamentarian then, I said the UNC is badly wounded. We need to finish them out. Kill them dead. I want you to understand that on November 28 [local elections day], you have the opportunity to drive a PNM balisier deep into the hearts of the wicked UNC vampires. Take a stake with a balisier on top and drive it deep within their heart and finish them off once and for all.”

His audience howled: “RAYYY!”

Hinds has never been questioned by the police, arrested or charged for sedition for having publicly expressed “feelings of ill-will or hostility” against a section of the community (The Sedition Act, Section 3 (i) and (ii)).

As with Davy, no leader in the PNM has distanced the party from, and denounced his hateful and violent racial and political instigation.

In the Castle of Establishment

Posted on July 3, 2020 by David

229

Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley signalled to the Nation she is in favour of removing Nelson statue BUT a national conversation should be a prerequisite. The Prime Minister maybe of the mind we need to seize the opportunity – given to us with the rise of #BLM – to bring as many Barbadians to the same place in thought to what it means to remove a colonial symbol offensively planted in Heroes Square in 2020. Surprisingly a significant number of Barbadians could care less if Nelson statue is moved. The sentiment by this group is captured in the mouthing of Minister of Tourism Kerri Symmonds delivered in Parliament last week –

I am now at an age and stage in life where I am not interested in the optics. You could pull down a thousand statues and it will fill nobody’s belly. I am interested in filling people’s bellies, I am interested in making sure that people have comfort when they sleep at night, that their children have satisfaction that they are going to inherit something in the land of their birth, and until we come to that point we are having an artificial debate…

So let us come to the point where we are dealing with the substance. Psychologically, it might make things better in terms of the optics, it may make people feel there has been an achievement. That can be debated. I am neither for nor against quite frankly, but my feeling is that we cannot take our eyes off that ball called substance. That substance is how do we economically empower the working class people of Barbados so that they and their sons and daughters can be those people who are the guardians of the commanding heights of this country’s economy…

Minister of Tourism and International Transport Kerrie Symmonds

Symmonds’ infantile statement was balanced by a more relevant position shared by the Barbados Private Sector Association headed ironically by White Barbadian Edward Clarke. For a long time Black Barbadians have come to accept that although in the majority the economic power on the island resides with a small group in Barbados. Back in the day former Minister of Labour Don Blackman coined the term “White Shadows”. Up to now the White Shadows group or to use a more euphemistic reference- power elite, have been happy for Barbados to wear the label of being a crypto racist society. Who wants to rock the boat if the waters are deep and choppy? It is only the ignorant and dishonest who will not acknowledge that White privilege has its origin in a colonial past that gave birth to today’s ‘establishment’. The work of building an equitable society continues and it must start with addressing embedded biases nurtured in the minds of our people for centuries. BOTH Black and White.

The blogmaster is of the view the national conversation, if it materializes, must be had in this context.

See statement from the Barbados Private Sector Association:

Barbados Private Sector Association: Moving Forward Together

Added 29 June 2020

Chairman of the Barbados Private Sector Association Edward Clarke (FILE)

“The members of the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA) continue to be engaged together with other Social Partners in the process of rebuilding our economy and society following the Covid-19 pandemic’s significant impact. At the same time, the BPSA too is cognizant of the present global, social and economic realities which could impact our small developing nation’s ability to achieve “the future we want”, for all citizens and residents and the generations to come.

“Given the need and opportunity for us to ‘reconstruct and rebuild’ nationally, occurring at this time of global conversation on racial tensions and inequities, attention must also include a focus on imbalances that currently exist in our country. It is therefore timely, and necessary, to honestly look at the society we live in with a view to progressing Barbados to become a model of inclusiveness, diversity and equality of access for all. Undoubtedly, this process must necessarily include discussion on racial division and economic enfranchisement in Barbados.

“BPSA recognises the benefit of consultation and dialogue and regards these as being critical if any meaningful positive national change is to be achieved. More importantly, such consultation and dialogue must be of a calibre to develop an implementable plan to address, with success, the issues including any inequalities and inequities. It is anticipated that such a plan would be underpinned with a commitment from all stakeholders to be part of the change process.

“We also signal BPSA’s support for the removal to a more suitable environment the statue of Lord Nelson which was erected on March 22, 1813 to commemorate the anniversary of the British Royal Navy’s victory in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Indeed, the renaming of Trafalgar Square to Heroes Square renders the current positioning of Lord Nelson, overlooking the seat of our National Heroes, incongruous.

“BPSA stands ready not only to be engaged in the dialogue but also for each of us to introspect and to answer all well formulated, collective calls to action drafted with the input of every voice of our nation.

“We therefore call for discussion and engagement on these matters of national concern with a view to agreeing specific and tangible actions, as collectively, we journey to achieve ‘One Barbados’.” (PR)

Source: Nation Newspaper

Caribbean Against Apartheid in Palestine…

Posted on July 2, 2020 by David

Submitted by CARIBBEAN AGAINST APARTHEID IN PALESTINE [CAAP]

Media Release

This month Israel’s Government plans to formally steal large swathes of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, culminating decades of gradual de facto annexation through the appropriation of land, forcible displacement of the Palestinian population, and the transfer of an Israeli settler population into the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Israel is only able to maintain its regime of occupation, colonisation, and apartheid, over the Palestinian people, because of the United States of America’s complicity in the process by both its diplomatic as well as military support.

On Saturday the 4^th of July 2020 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m “Caribbean Against Apartheid in Palestine” in conjunction with the “Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration”, is planning on having a joint picket outside of the American Embassy, calling for the end to the oppression of Black and Palestinian Peoples by the United States of America.

For over seventy years Palestinians have been daily murdered by the forces of Zionism while courageously standing up for their rights to be free from racism, colonialism, occupation, and oppression. All people committed to human rights need to stand with them. We must show solidarity with them, just as we did against apartheid in South Africa.

Lalu Hanuman, Attorney-at-law and Secretary of Caribbean Against Apartheid in Palestine, said “It is apt that there is this joint action on BLM and Palestine, as Zionism, like the Ku Klux Klan, has a supremacist racist ideology”.

Further information from Tel: (246)-420-2022.

Sir Hilary Beckles Raises His Voice on Reparations and Juneteenth

Posted on June 20, 2020 by David

102

The following two media releases were sent to Barbados Underground – David, Blogmaster

If YOU Are Black, YOUR Name is George Floyd

Posted on June 18, 2020 by David

Submitted by The Mahogany Coconut Group

As Black progressives and other informed, enlightened citizens, seek to identify with the George Floyd protests in America, it is becoming embarrassingly clear that the region’s educational systems, have failed to explain the importance of the historical connection between Afro America and the Afro Caribbean.

The MCG, unapologetically, aligns with all those people and individual countries, who are actively protesting the brutal public execution of Afro American George Floyd. Those who believe that this should be of no concern to the region, are to be forgiven for it is really not their failure but the societies from which they come, that have refused to enlighten them.

We cannot be diplomatic, and sugar coated, on this sordid or any other issue that seeks to justify and defend, the continued murder of Black Americans by those who are supposed to execute and defend the law. We are at one with the Trinidad and Tobago calypsonian, the Mighty Stalin, who in one of his vintage calypsos stated: “We took the same ship on the same trip.”

The collective failure of the region’s educational system, to have comprehensive Black history taught from the primary school onwards, must carry a tremendous amount of blame for how we see ourselves physically and mentally. Should we remain in this barren state, we would never understand why, due perhaps only to pure historical fate, that George Floyd could have been any Afro Caribbean man, in another time and place.

We go further and predict that if we don’t teach our current and future generations about the historical ties and connections we have with our Afro American brothers and sisters, history would repeat itself in a different form but with more dire, brutally destructive consequences.

The MCG therefore joins with all protests and protesters from all countries, racial and ethnic groups, in expressing sincere condolences to the family of George Floyd and all those who are left to grieve because of his brutal inhumane murder.

William Skinner, Information Officer, MCG

Caricom Engaged in Racial Distancing

Posted on June 17, 2020 by David

210

The average Black West Indian should be aware of the The Middle Passage. As a youngster the blogmaster recalls his effort to visualize Africans shackled and crammed into boat to be transported from Africa to the West Indies and sold into bondage. It case we forget there was a dark period in the history of the world Blacks were legally regarded as ‘chattel’, no better than a mule or donkey.

The lineage of Black people living in the Caribbean means there will always be an inextricable connection between the West Indies and Africa. It is unfortunate our people have allowed North American and Eurocentric influences to permeate our psyche to wreak havoc to our identity.

It was reported last week that 54 African countries signed a letter asking the United Nations Human Rights Council to schedule a debate on police brutality against Black people around the world. It is a matter of record the killing of George Floyd in the USA has triggered a Black Lives Movement reminiscent of the 50s and 60s when MLK, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey and others were at the forefront of the fight for civil and political rights of our people.

…In a letter written on behalf of 54 African countries, Burkina Faso’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva asked the UN’s top rights body for an “urgent debate” on “racially inspired human rights violations, police brutality against people of African descent and the violence against the peaceful protests that call for these injustices to stop…

As a proud Black man the blogmaster must share his disappointment at the lack of a strident response to the killing of George Floyd by CARICOM. All reasonable people agree it is a manifestation of institutionalized racism in the USA and global citizens have been galvanized to protest the need for urgent reform.

A scan of the official website of Caricom.org reveals no adequate communications posted to capture the prevailing sentiment of the people living in the region. Our Caricom leaders under the current chairmanship of Mia Mottley have failed us at a pivotal moment in the history of the world. Our nexus to Africa created the opportunity to add our voice to those of the 54 African countries who represent the Mother Country. How are we expected to forge and improve relations with African countries but are miles apart on how to correctly react to the matter of the Black Lives Movement? This has nothing to do with jumping on any bandwagon. Again the idea of cognitive dissonance keeps recurring. What message are our leaders sending to the masses?

It is no wonder we have to tolerate individuals who lack the understanding of the moment by insisting we should let the USA fight this matter alone. Why are White people protesting around the globe? Some of us have family residing in the USA. Some of us have relatives studying in the USA. Some of us may have reason to travel to the USA. Most of us are Black. Most important, a strike against humanity is simply that and should evoke the same response in humans everywhere.

Even the Germans are protesting for crissakes!

The poor response by Caricom to describe it mildly is a disappointment and although the perfect scenario is to strike when hot, it is not too late to offer redress. Now is not the time to be apolitical. Now is not the time to engage in racial distancing.

Black Lives Matter – Part 2

Posted on June 16, 2020 by David

Submitted by Grenville Phillips II

Black persons in the US can be sorted into three main groups. Caribbean immigrants, African immigrants, and the American descendants of enslaved people.

While all of them can claim to be victims of colour discrimination, only the American descendants of enslaved people, are owed reparations from the US government. It is that group that is normally pushed aside by other groups, as those groups clamour for the attention of US politicians.

Are Caribbean descendants of enslaved people owed reparations. Of course, and we received those reparations at our Independence. What we chose to do with them is our responsibility.

We received entire islands, including their infrastructure and institutions. But our leaders betrayed our trust and burdened us with unnecessarily high taxes and debt.

Our leaders taxed us to live on our own land, which was already paid for by the blood of our enslaved fore parents. They also instituted corrupting no-bid contracts, where taxpayers may pay between two to five times what a contract is actually worth. But these problems can be solved by voting for better persons.

Black Americans have yet to receive their reparations. Instead, they get to see other people redefine their issues to benefit themselves. They get to see Caribbean and African immigrants claim the US slavery existence as their own, as they lobby US politicians to give them reparations, to which they are not entitled.

They get to see Caribbean and African immigrants displace them in affirmative action places at schools and jobs. They get to see their community leaders receiving trinkets, to keep them voting for the Democratic Party.

Democratic Party governors and mayors have been implementing Democratic policies, without resistance, for decades. Yet, black Americans in those cities have remained at the bottom for generations – poor and hopeful.

Democratic policies have been proven not to work for black Americans. Yet, Caribbean and African immigrants are trying to shame black Americans, into continuing to support a party that has consistently failed them.

There is finally some momentum to getting the US to pay the debt owed to black Americans. Not with talk, but with permanent action. By some cosmic comedy, Trump appears to be the President who has done more for black Americans than any other president since Lincon – by any relevant measure (see Part 1 for details).

There will be a reckoning for Caribbean and African immigrants, whose activism on behalf of the Democratic Party, has held back most of their black American cousins, from prospering in the US economy.

If they trapped generations of black Americans in poverty in ignorance, then they need to repent. If they promoted proven failed Democratic policies, to selfishly take what rightfully belongs to their American cousins, then the only black lives that seem to matter to them, are their own.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Lack of ‘Exposure’ Creates Vacuum for Some Barbadians in the Black History Debate

Posted on June 13, 2020 by David

173

Submitted as a comment by Lyall to the Open Letter to Prime Minster Mottley and Minister King

Captain Hutt taught me History at HC. I was therefore someone who learnt that history from the viewpoint of the English teacher class, by rote. For many years I had no need to check the truth or otherwise of what I had been taught, as History played a miniscule part in my life until the Sir George William’s / Concordia University fire in Montreal and the activities that led up to it. I later on visited Ghana where I saw first hand the places and trails where my African ancestors were caught and enslaved and then shipped under unspeakable conditions along the Middle Passage to Barbados. I also spent some time in Hull, England, another hub of the Slave trade, where racism was palpable even just 20 years ago.

These experiences forced me to progressively reevaluate Black History and, after an initial cognitive dissonance, accept that chattel slavery and its fruit and most of its manifestations is responsible for much of what is wrong in many aspects of life and governance of present day Barbados.

I think that my experiences also allow me to understand the standpoint of many of my acquaintances, friends and colleagues, of my age, who have had the benefit of seeing both sides of white/black relationships in Metropolitan countries. I see the postings of several BU posters who appear to be resident in Canada, the US and perhaps England, which show that exposure to life in metropolitan countries, forces an understanding of the black side of history that is largely missing from those who lack such experience and have remained in Barbados and who must depend on local sources to inform their views. Lack of such exposure in the Bajan who has largely stayed on this rock tends to lead to such persons staying with what what they have been taught by rote several years ago.

There is another type of BU commenter. The commenter who always espouses the decadent views of the Bajan white class, whether they themselves are black or white. Some of these BU commenters are totally predictable in the stances they take. Some even totally mimic Trump or Rush Limbaugh. You know who I mean.

Open Letter to Prime Minster Mottley and Minister King

Posted on June 9, 2020 by David

595

Open letter to The Hon. Mia Amor Mottley, Q.C., M.P. (Prime Minister) and
The Hon. John A. King, M.P.(Minister of Creative Economy, Culture and Sports)

Dear Prime Minister and Minister of Culture,

Minister of Culture, John King

Prime Minister Mia Mottley

I am sure by now you are aware that people in Bristol removed the statue of slave trader, Edward Colston, and deposited it in a nearby river. With this act, people in that city sent a clear message to the world that they would no longer tolerate the glorification of accomplices in the commission of crimes against humanity and those who grew rich from their sordid involvement in human trafficking.

In the present climate when there is a heightened global awareness of the need for zero tolerance towards racism and its symbols, it is unconscionable that in Barbados, a country where over 95% of its citizens are descendants of enslaved Africans, that a monument like Colston’s in Bristol, sits in the heart of our capital city. It is an affront to the people of Barbados and to those all over the world who are standing up to speak out against racism that Nelson’s monument continues to sit in the heart of Bridgetown. It is long overdue that this odious tribute to racism be removed.

There are no longer any excuses that can be made for your government’s failure to remove it. I am therefore writing to you as a concerned Bajan to call on you to do the right thing and remove this affront to the people of Barbados and to all those who today are courageously raising their voice against racism.

It would be very fitting, if it was replaced with a tribute to Nanny Grigg and to the many thousands of unsung Bajan women whose self-sacrifice, ingenuity and struggle have played a decisive role in our people’s progress from the pit of degradation that the English slave masters threw us into.

Yours

Tee White

The Death of George Floyd

Posted on June 9, 2020 by David

108

Submitted by Nathan’ Jolly’ Green

George Floyd was no innocent when it came to crime; he was from an early age, becoming a career criminal.

Unable to find work in Texas as an ex-prison convict, he moved to Minneapolis in 2014 for a fresh start after release from prison in Houston, having served time for aggravated robbery with a firearm [deadly weapon].

On the day of George Floyd’s death, Floyd was arrested by police officer Derek Chauvin, at whose forcible detention he met his death. An end that most decent people would declare unlawful and a disgrace, regardless of what we now know about Floyd’s past, and perhaps latest alleged behaviour.

Following a complaint from a store clerk, Floyd was approached and spoken to by two police officers outside the store while sitting behind the wheel of his car. Floyd was then pulled from the vehicle and handcuffed by the two police officers.

https://www.fox9.com/video/688157

The police officer Derek Chauvin had knelt on his neck, after trying to get him into the back of a police car, which Floyd refused to enter. Floyd was arrested for allegedly paying for cigarettes with a fake $20 bill.

Some newspaper stories state that “None of the officers could have been aware of Floyd’s more than a decade-old criminal history at the time of the arrest.

But George Floyd and officer Derek Chauvin had worked at the same club, the El Nuevo night club in Minneapolis. Derek Chauvin as a security officer, and Floyd as a bouncer.

There is a distinct possibility that George Floyd and officer Derek Chauvin were acquainted, and the officer may have even known Floyd’s criminal background and that he was dealing with a man capable of violence.

The owner of El Nuevo Rodeo confirmed it was likely Derek Chauvin had “crossed paths” with George Floyd during their time working at the club. It turns out that Floyd, a former bouncer at Minneapolis bar El Nuevo Rodeo, was a long-time co-worker of Officer Chauvin — who knelt on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes until he died.

Local politician Andrea Jenkins, who sits on Minneapolis’ City Council told NBC affiliate WRAL-TV “He knew George,”. “They were co-workers.” Jenkins went on to say to MSNBC that Chauvin and Floyd both worked at the same bar for years as well.

Chauvin and the three other officers involved in Floyd’s arrest have been dismissed from the force, a spokesperson for the Minneapolis Police Department confirmed. The case has now been turned over to Minnesota Attorney General, Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s governor, announced over the weekend. Chauvin has been transferred to a maximum-security facility.

The Floyd family believed that 46-year-old Lloyd had left behind his past in Houston after being released from prison stemming from a 2007 robbery, in which he plead guilty to entering a woman’s home, pointing a gun at her stomach and searching the house for drugs and money.

The financial cost of demonstrations, peaceful but angry, is acceptable whatever they should be. But the cost of billions of dollars in the looting and burning of property and vehicles is not. Neither is the violence, the murders, setting police 0fficers on fire, looting, arson, and destruction, unacceptable under any circumstances, and cannot be excused.

It was not only George Floyd who had a violent background, Police officer Chauvin, who joined the force in 2001, had been involved in several other violent incidents.

But perhaps most police officers in Minneapolis are subject to being involved in the inherent violence in the communities in which they work.

In 2006, according to a database by Minneapolis’ Communities United Against Police Brutality, Chauvin was involved in the fatal shooting of a man who stabbed two people before reportedly turning a gun on police.

In 2008, Chauvin shot a man who allegedly reached for an officer’s gun during a domestic-violence call. (The man survived the shot.)

In 2011, he was one of five officers placed on a standard three-day leave after the non-fatal shooting of a Native American man. The officers returned to work after the force determined that they had acted “appropriately.” (Another officer, not Chauvin, fired the shot.)

Communities United Against Police Brutality also faulted Chauvin indirectly for the deaths of three people that Chauvin and another officer were chasing after a crime in 2005, were struck by a car.

Minneapolis’ Office of Police Conduct complaint database shows seven complaints against him, although all are listed as “closed,” “non-public,” and resulting in “no discipline.” The city’s Civilian Review Authority, which lists complaints before September 2012, reveals five more complaints, which are also closed and resulted in no discipline.

A prisoner at a Minnesota prison sued Chauvin and seven other officers for “alleged violations of his federal constitutional rights” in 2006, although the case was dismissed.

Since the death of George Floyd, a GoFundMe for Floyd’s family has raised more than $7 million.

Black Lives Matter, so do all lives, some politicians in the Caribbean have treated the citizens as if the only lives that matter is their own, and those of their family. People have been processed, metaphorically speaking, as if they had a knee on their neck and the whole country is choking to death. With black police beating black people, worse than any white policeman behaves in America. The politicians allow it to happen and condone it by saying nothing.

Black Lives Matter – Part 1

Posted on June 8, 2020 by David

118

Submitted by Grenville Phillips II

The US owes black Americans, who are descendants of those enslaved, a debt. From their emancipation, black Americans have suffered open discrimination, without resource, until the late 1960s.

Black Americans tend to be given the scraps in education and jobs. Other groups easily push them aside as they get US politicians to address their concerns.

Europeans, Asians, Latinos, Muslims, and those who practise homosexuality, bisexuality, and gender-change, have gotten politicians to address their wants. But the critical needs of black Americans are ignored.

The recent protests are an opportunity for black Americans to receive what is owed. The US has tried to pay it since emancipation, from giving 40 acres and a mule, to desegregating schools, to outlawing colour discrimination, to instituting affirmative action. Most Blacks should be much further ahead, but they are being kept back.

Welfare programs have forced generations of black Americans to live in the worst, and least healthy housing. That forced their children to attend the worst, and lowest achieving public schools. That deprived their children from qualifying for the affirmative-action places at colleges and work.

The curse for many urban black Americans, is to become just another generation on welfare, with the hope that their children will do better. The trend over the past 50 years is that most of them will not.

Stuck in depressed areas, can make crime appear to be a viable option to making money. Statistically, black Americans in depressed high-crime areas, will likely have more conflicting interactions with the police.

The US prisons have a disproportionate number of black Americans, who will likely spend most of their lives there. This is because the US passed three-strikes laws, where the conviction for a third offence is a mandatory life sentence. So, what is the solution?

First, the US should fund the education of all black Americans, to the fourth generation. Second, black Americans should be allowed to send their children to higher performing primary and secondary schools. Third, the three-strikes law should be abolished, or limited to serial murderers and rapists. Fourth, those serving mandatory 3-strike life-sentences should be resentenced.

Black Americans can only benefit from the debt payments if they receive them. Black Americans have been blocked from receiving their payment. Fortunately, removing this blockage is within their control.

Black Americans should not vote for the party that: passed the unjust three-strikes law, forced them to attend the worst public schools, blocked their children from attending better charter schools, and enabled generational welfare.

Donald Trump can be crude. Many of his supporters are left in dismayed frustration at some of his insensitive cringe-worthy statements. Trump provides the media with a consistent stream of appalling statements, which they publish almost every hour of every day. This steady negative diet has pushed his opponents into an emotional realm beyond anger.

Jesus said that we may know people, not by what they say, but by what they do. So, what has Trump done to repay the debt? The intuitive answer is that, compared with the actions of Presidents Clinton and Obama, Trump has only added to the amount owed. But what is the truth?

Trump signed the most comprehensive sentencing laws, to correct the unjust three-strikes laws that disproportionally targeted black Americans. Trump also signed a bill that would permanently give more than US$250M every year, to black colleges, universities, and other institutions that have a large percentage of black students.

It was actually Clinton who signed the unjust three-strikes law that led to mass incarcerations, and Obama who maintained it. They also forced black Americans to attend the worst public schools, and enabled generational welfare.

It was the Democratic party that: resisted desegregating schools, established colour discrimination, and actively opposed Republicans like Martin Luther King.

Black Americans have tended to be tricked, misled, and harmed by their charming community leaders, who received trinkets in return for keeping blacks in line. From the chiefs who sold them into slavery, to the overseers who forced them to work on plantations, to the community leaders who mislead them to vote Democrat.

Black Americans owe it to themselves, and their children, to investigate which party has always kept them in bondage, and which has always tried to liberate them.

There were 1.3 million black Americans who woke up and voted for Trump in 2016. By his actions, and any other relevant measure, that investment was not wasted – but he just will not stop saying stupid things.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

He Was Born With a Vampire on his Back

Posted on May 24, 2020 by David

Submitted by Ras Jahaziel I Iktor Tafari

HE WAS BORN WITH A VAMPIRE ON HIS BACK, so he believes that God put it there.

Moreover, he was schooled and churched to see his landless-ness as normal.That is why today’s X-Slaves do not recognize the fundamental injustice that is inherent in their landless-ness.

What lesson might be learned from the Covid-19 Curfew if you happen to be a landless X-Slavewhose fore-parents were robbed and worked to death,and therefore left you WITH NO INHERITANCE except the name of the Slave-Master that raped them on a daily basis?

Read full text @Rastafarivisions.com

African Liberation Chapter 4

Posted on September 22, 2019 by David

Submitted by Ras Jahaziel

Today with the aid of the history microscope, it is quite easy to see that slave control is the demonic reason why the overwhelming majority of today’s x-slaves have been deliberately kept bound in the punitive and subjugating chains of landless-ness.

Read full test at Ras Jahaziel’s Website – Rastafarivisions

The Four Horsemen: Augmented Reality of White Supremacy in the White House

Posted on August 30, 2019 by David

Submitted by Terence M. Blackett

How Malthus, Darwin & Galton Sowed the Epistemological Seeds of Modern Race Hate That Will Lead to WWIII

“It was the rise of Athens, and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable…” Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War

It was once said that if you told the truth, you would shame the Devil. Others believe in Protagoras’ famous maxim that says: “man is the measure of all things”. However, conventional wisdom has being turned on its head, as far too many have suspended the veracity of reality, for an alternative, augmented fake version of a narrative that says: ‘white privilege and white superiority have been the harbinger of progress, development & freedom given the white man has made more of a contribution to the development of the Western ideal than anyone else in the last 2000 years’ – yet sadly, the words of Scripture breaks through the stifling amnesia and mindless paranoia to remind us all: “Men would rather believe a ‘LIE’ instead of truth,” resulting in a world where strong delusions exist – perpetuating ongoing cycles where the mighty oppress the weak; the rich & powerful dole out the bread the devil kneads – creating a febrile, toxic, warlike atmosphere, as human beings lob from one crisis to another! Meantime, we are falling like flies from STRESS, OPIOID USE & a world in utter turmoil & the wanton wretchedness of the elites – a form of sheer madness that has morphed beyond palpable.

University of Connecticut philosopher Michael P. Lynch argues that the creation of modern, mainstream media socio-construction makes the ambit of societal understanding that much more vague and complex given the vagaries of fake news v true; authentic, reported news that is fair and balanced. Professor Lynch acknowledges that we have entered the era where the glass ceiling of objective reality has been shattered to bits and what we are left with is a circus side show (as we are currently witnessing in Britain with the BOZO government) of what he calls “the slide into despotism” based on our shared knowledge, the shenanigans of political intrigue & the negative effects of technological advancement.

In 1963, during those difficult years of the Civil Rights Movement, author, activist & scholar James Baldwin was prompted to respond forceful to Yale philosophy professor Paul Weiss on the Dick Cavett show, amplifying what it means to be Black in AmeriKKKa – with what can only be described as a masterclass in the art of debunking malicious subterfuge, while offering up an education in the matter of what it means to be a Black man in today’s so-called, white, privileged world. Actor Joe Morton’s clip here [55] years later, patently spells out the socio-politically engineered dilemma currently seething within the bowels of the (DIS) United States of Amnesia & Paranoia – where an age-old diabolicus of imperialistic tyranny still runs amuck in the dishevelled halls of the US government, but more so, within the Executive Branch, run by notably, the most “LYING, BIGOTED, RACIST, & CORRUPT” president ever selected to that office.

White privilege has become a pandemic virus ruminating within US society and infecting Britain, Europe, Australia et al! These social conditions can only lead to one set of individuals who refuse to own their behavioural attitudes to others – different from themselves. Therefore, political incorrectness would dictate that in putting an apocalyptic spin on Messrs. Bolton, Pompeo, tRUMP & Pence (BPTP) only shows the cataclysmic nature of what ‘hatred of others’ eventually creates.

As this current US Administration is the latest circus in town and its principal players are all globalists with a penchant for imperialist-type polyTRICKS – where weaker nations get labelled #Sh*tholes; Latinas are rapists and Muslims – the scourge of the earth!

In The Atlantic, a piece on ‘Augmented Reality’ brings home this poignant issue of white supremacy in Donald Trump’s White House – where the author cites Brian Wassom, who regularly writes on augmented reality – notes: “if apps can recognize a particular shade of melanin, and replace it with another, racists could one day live in their own version of…utopia.“

Today nations are spending over £1.2 trillion every year on weapons of mass destruction just to kill innocent people – while millions go to bed hungry for lack of basic provisions. As one reads the news wire in social media, it is pretty much like reading the prophecies of Scripture – as you must understand them before they happens. Hence the reason why we must read & understand the history before it actually happens based Ecclesiastes 1:9!

If World War I & II meant anything to folks like my grandfather (WW2 Vet) who lived through those PRE-APOCALYPTIC crises – yet they felt the world was witnessing Armageddon and YESHUA – The Messiah would soon follow in His return to earth. That time has since passed and today we are living on the brink of World War III.

We are standing on the THRESHOLD of great and solemn events! The current, ongoing dubious war against terrorism, rages on many fronts and in many countries with the constant threats of engineered terrorists’ attacks – notwithstanding a “DIRTY BOMB” in the wrong hands could plunge the world into #WW3, causing profound fear to enshroud humanity, that men’s hearts would literally fail them. Yet we know (even if in denial) the world is about to be plunged into such a catastrophic abyss that it has never before seen or imagined and from the Scriptures comes undeniable PROOFS staring most of GOD’S people in the face but Satan has done such a job of keeping us in a tragically obtuse mindset of “PEACE & SAFETY” – when sudden destruction finally comes, it will take us completely unawares.

Emerging phenomena and unexplainable calamities will bring about such morbid fears (no words can express); unbelievable upheavals and dizzying financial & economic stress that our insecurity levels& the emotional tectonics will mirror the “PERPLEXITY” that Messiah spoke of in (Matt. 24:4-51; Luke 21:25).

As we have just witnessed another circus that is the G7 there in France – the end of August 2019 patently mirrors the 1 September 1939 when the first bombs began to fall in WWII. Any social historian worth his salt sees the correlation between our current TRADE WARS, CURRENCY WARS & GREAT DEPRESSION brought about World War 2! Today, trade wars, currency wars & another looming GREAT DEPRESSION stalks earth’s horizon and few are truly prepared for WWIII.

Drawing from apocalyptic literature, the FOUR horsemen paints a truly minacious picture of a kind of dystopian future world which makes HollyWeird films like 2012 look like child’s play. Our ongoing fascination with Sci-Fi movies: war & violence will one day soon come home to roust – as the nation’s fold themselves together like thorns for war (Nahum 1:10).

Amongst the principal architects of this fast approaching WORLD WAR are those Luciferian emissaries mentioned at the top of this piece: BOLTON, POMPEO, tRUMP & PENCE – a gaggle of devils hell-bent on imperialist global control based on the Kabbala wizardry of those who occupy the hell-hole that is the SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN aka THE DEEP STATE!

Why does AmeriKKKa keep attacking other nations remain the fundamental question that must be asked given what General Wesley Clark exposed in 2007. The general’s expose strikes at the heart of the US military industrial complex and their fomentation of perpetual wars appear to be the governing ethos of both AmeriKKKa and her proxy allied fighters like Israel who has just dropped bombs on Lebanon. Did Lebanon attack Israel causing provocation?

Professor Peter Beinart, in a piece in The Atlantic challenges the stereotypical nonsense being spewed by certain apologists whose penchant is to justify war & aggression by any means necessary (case in point, John Bolton). Of all the Washington Hawks – he is undoubtedly the worst. Bolton wants a war with Iran and he is itching for it (maybe Israel will scratch his itch). However, the Pentagon is looking further afield to China & Russia as the next axis of evil given Trump’s tweets & comments about both Russian & Chinese moves away from sanctions (as in Russia’s case – who is creating GOLD BACKED CRYPTOCURRENCY to side-step US sanctions) and China’s decoupling from the US trading dollar platform – all reasons to foment war!

In a 241 page book document by the Brookings Institute, it cites the prevailing logic behind the US strategy towards Iran where “Bolton’s main objective, designed to start WWIII by falsely blaming Iran for nuking Israel” (while the MSM refuses to cite the many instances of Israeli attacks on Syrian, Lebanese, Iraqi & now Yemini targets. Bolton is looking to justify use of the Samson Option in response, like Hitler before him, who exterminated Ghazaryan “ENGRAFTED” Jews & others – while Aryans form the elite face of the planet – the nemesis race of both Luciferian Ashkenazi Jews & freeloading Freemasons – both of whom are inherently Neanderthals by nature – all coexisting within the SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN!!!

Like Bolton, Mike Pompeo has done himself a huge favour by clearly outlining publically that he is a LIAR, CHEAT & THIEF: what he calls the “GLORY OF THE AMERIkkkAN EXPERIMENT”! What a clutse! Thankfully, Pompeo has merely highlighted what some have always known about US poLIEticians & the elites who comprise the “DEEP STATE” – a cabal of loyalists, lobbyists & LIARS; powerbrokers who fund & control the houses of Congress – DEMOCRAPS & REPULSIVEKINS (to cite Gerald Celente).

Trump & Pence are LIARS – they know what they are doing. This is not a game! These FOOLS makes up that Chrono-Genealogy-Caricature of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse! These two men posits a veneer of religiosity only to act in ways that upend their so-called faith – for “faith without good works” is just meaninglessness CRAP wherever you find it. To prove these vile characters know what they are up to: according to the 6^th meeting of the National Space Council, Pence cites that Outer-Space is now a war-fighting domain. Is this the same Pence that believe that “I AM MY BROTHER’S KEEPER”? Surely those brothers are not Palestinians or South Americans but fellow JESUITS & FREEMASONS. So we’ve been warned in 2019, that all future wars will involve stratospheric weapons of mass destruction – while he announces the first leader of the United States Space Command. In one word: CRAZINESS! But then, the “Crazies” are out due to full moon & full spectrum dominance, with one goal in mind – removing 4 billion people from the planet, by any means necessary.

How did we get here? As I examine the totem pole of evil in our world, my firm belief centers around much of the post-enlightenment literature espoused at the time by racist philosophers & thinkers like Malthus, Darwin & Galton. Today social Darwinism, which is at the root & branches of postmodern racial & ethnic tensions in AmeriKKKa, Canada, Britain, Europe, Australia, New Zealand (90% clearly are English-speaking countries) who have expanded their so-called Enlightenment ideas about “survival of the fittest” in commerce, poLIEtics, reLIEgion, entertainment and human societies as a whole – leading to claims that social inequality, sexism, racism and imperialism had suitable justifications for their existence – given the linkages with nationalism we are seeing amongst the FAR-RIGHT in Europe & AmeriKKKa’s, coupled with fiendish imperialism, chanting (AMERIKKKA FIRST) which in reality, is a chant for: “ISRAEL FIRST” as we witness more & more regime change being floated by US hawks.

Francis Galton believed eugenics was the answer to a master race of human beings (ALL CAUCASIAN OF COURSE) who would have supremacy over the other races. Galton proposed to better mankind by propagating the notion that British elites was the epitome of racial purity. What a nefarious croq! He argued vociferously that social institutions such as welfare and mental asylums allowed inferior humans to survive and reproduce at higher levels than their superior counterparts in Britain’s aristocratic & wealthy classes. If you follow the bread crumbs, all roads lead to a form of philosophical indoctrination that remains at the heart of social engineering.

In a piece by the Scientific American entitled – “Why Malthus Is Still Wrong: Why Malthus makes for bad science policy” – Michael Shermer suggest that: “the belief in the inevitability of a Malthusian collapse. The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race,” Malthus gloomily predicted. Although Malthus’ served in several capacities over his career – he will go down in history as a white supremacist having left a similar legacy as Charles Darwin & his cousin Francis Galton who adopted much of their theorizing on “Natural Selection”.

In AmeriKKKa, Trumpian theatrics dress rehearses toxic rhetoric via Twitter about other countries & their native peoples – likening them to #Sh*tHoles while locking kids in cages and deporting their parents. Trump’s racist ideologies have been handed down through time by men like Francis Galton et al who felt that “INFERIOR RACES” were a drain on society as cited by Dr Howard Markel.

So, as a result, scientific racism in the words of Edward Burmila suggests that “Scientific Racism Isn’t ‘Back’ – It Never Went Away” – especially in the age of Trump, believers of the once-popular tenets of scientific racism are feeling “emboldened”. This type of populist tyranny is also raising its ugly head in Europe, Britain & across the world but especially in places like Palestine where Israel seeks to wipe the Palestinians off their land and off the face of the earth! This is all down to Galtonian, Malthusian & Darwinian theoretical gobble-de-gook that Caucasian folks (enlightened & ignorant alike) find themselves confronted with in the last few months of the 2^nd decade of the 21^st centuries – yet clueless of that spurious form of brainwashing!

Finally, “a speaker of truth has no (real, true) friends” (African Proverb). Why? Simple! For those of us living in domains like the US, UK, Canada & elsewhere – our foreparents didn’t go through the last 400 years (1619 -2019) to let unpatriotic weaklings like Trump, Pence, Pompeo, Bolton & now Boris “BOZO THE CLOWN” Johnson to end the freedoms, privileges, financial prowess & benefits these countries have provided – becoming our homes! In all the rhetoric, combined, these FOOLS have served a grand total of 37 days in the military – yet they push our sons & daughters to war, to return in body bags, scarred, mutilated & maimed for life! These bastards have never had to fight for anything beyond their bank accounts & business interests. In Daniel 2:21 & Psalms 75:7, we are warned that ELOHIM is THE ONLY ONE who sets up gov’ts & takes them down! It is God who judges: He brings one down, He exalts another. He removes kings and sets up kings; He gives wisdom: “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the BEAST: for it is the number of a MAN; and his number is 666!

People Who Claim to be Academics and Political Scientists

Posted on July 14, 2019 by David

Submitted by Dr Kumar Mahabir

Dear Editor,

Last Friday (July 12), the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) ordered President David Granger and his Cabinet in Guyana to resign immediately from Government and call elections within three (3) months.

This now seven-month elections’ delay has clearly brought out the political and ethnic biases of academics in Guyana such as Dr David Hinds who is also a member of the ruling coalition Government. It seems that the two Davids think alike in their insistence that the illegal government should remain in power.

At a history conference in Guyana two weeks ago which I attended, Hinds again showed his ethnic biases. He gave the feature address on the topic of Dr Walter Rodney, whom he described glowingly as a “black nationalist” and “a Pan Africanist.”

Hinds pointed out the marginalisation of certain groups such as Rastafarians in the Caribbean but did not utter a word about the alienation or tokenism of (East) Indians in regional institutions like the very CCJ, CARICOM, the Caribbean Reparations Commission, etc.

During the Questions and Answers (Q and A) session, I asked Hinds why he spoke about trade union leaders such as Tubal Uriah “Buzz” Butler and not mention even once the name of Bhadase Sagan Maraj, Adrian Kola Rienzi (Krishna Deonarine) or Basdeo Panday.

I also asked Hinds why he spoke about Guyanese and Trinidadian icons such as CLR James, Makandal Dagga, Eusi Kwayana and George Padmore and not even once mentioned the name of Cheddi Jagan or VS Naipaul, the only Nobel Prize laureate from Trinidad and Tobago.

I also asked Hinds why did he talk about cultural creations in the Caribbean such as calypso, steelpan and ska and made no reference to chutney music as well as “doubles” street food or the curried “sour” sauce and “puri” roti from Guyana.

Hinds replied about not having enough time to mention everybody [Indians particularly] in his hour-long address. Pity these people who claim to be objective academics and political scientists in the Caribbean.

Dr Kumar Mahabir

San Juan, Trinidad and Tobago

Dr. Lucas Accuses Mohammed Degia of Showing #islamophobia Colours

Posted on March 19, 2019 by David

119

Submitted by Robert D. Lucas,PH.D. CFS,

The “Nation” newspaper of the 19^thMarch 2019 published an article captioned “Upset but not shocked” under the by-line of Mohammed Iqbal Degia. Degia attributes the rise of Islamophobia in part to white supremacy. He attempts to juxtapose the Muslim experience with that of Blacks, Jews, Hispanics and immigrants (it is noticeable that he did not include gays). However, Blacks have not resorted to blowing up people and their experience is far worse then that of the Muslims. He seems to be particularly incensed by the year 1492 (when western civilization took off on an upward trajectory whereas the Islamic civilization went rapidly down hill). A psychologist could possibly attribute this reaction to under achievement by high fliers as envy (to use the vernacular). Since then, Muslims have not contributed much to the advancement of human kind apart from suicide bombs and even then, it was the Tamils of Sri Lanka who did so. According to Degia, Muslim terrorists are not really Muslim. He also complains about the western press demonizing Muslim. The Muslim press does the same to Jews and other Infidels

I have been assiduously following his weekly articles, knowing that sooner or later his true colours would emerge. The rabid dislike of western civilization oozes out of his article, so much so, that I am left nonplus by the fact that he still lives in the west. I will deal with a few points to illustrate how warp his thinking is. I have not written about Islam since 2002-2003 in the press

1.The Coptic Christians in Egypt and Christians in Pakistan are constantly being slaughtered in their Churches. I have not heard any Muslims locally condemning these actions. Given the Islamic concept of ummah I would not expect to hear from them. What about Asia Bibi and the baying crowd of Muslims in Pakistan who want to kill her?

The following links are provided for the interested reader to verify the above statement.

2.The uproar in Djakarta over that city’s Christian mayor. The Muslims in Indonesia were all hollering that Indonesia is a Muslim country and that a non-Muslim should never be Mayor. Meanwhile, London a bastion of White supremacy elects a Muslim mayor.

3.The Central African Republic is over eighty percent Christian and about sixteen percent Muslim. There was a coup by the Muslim minority aided and abetted by Chad. The Muslim razed Churches ,imposed sharia law and slaughtered hundreds of Christians. The Christians have fought back and have vowed to wipe out the Muslims and the country is in chaos now.

4.The treatment meted out to sub-Saharan migrants by Libya. The migrants are black and the Muslim treat them like dogs( even those who are also Muslim).

5. The grooming of young white girls in the UK by Asians particularly of Pakistani origin, went on for a long time because of political correctness. It is only now that the scum are being jailed after an outcry over political correctness.

6.Somali Muslims in Minnesota wanting to impose their values by not transporting passengers who had in their possession alcoholic drinks. That was one of the reasons Trump won in Minnesota.

7. Muslim in Barbados reporting Barbados for human rights violations in the USA over the use of the head covering. As far as I know,since 2002 local Muslims have been trying to get the politicians to change the law.

Infidels living in Muslim Majority have obey the law, no ifs or buts about that;it is therefore expected that the Muslim minority obey our laws.

Where ever they go they try to impose their will. The fact remains that non-Muslims are becoming fed up with Muslims; it is as simple as that.

Robert D. Lucas,PH.D. CFS,

Certified Food Scientist

WHITE HISTORY MONTH – WHITE HISTORY IN BLACK FACE!

Posted on February 7, 2019 by David

286

Submitted by Pachamama

With settled and incontestable scientific certainty we know that the original peoples of the universes were as Black as midnight – blue-black. Long before there was anything called a White race, Afrikans had peopled the entirety of Mother Earth. Even today, about 90% of all humanoids are still peoples of colour. Yet we have the internal contradiction of a people which did not create the year, the month, the week, the day, the hour, the minute, the second or anything else foundationally, mustering the audacity to assign a month to those who actually did, as if by right, by papal bull (er).

When they talk about Black history month they are essentially describing events emanating from Nicholas V’s issuance of such a papal bull (Romanus Pontifex) on January 8, 1455. It gave the Portuguese a monopoly to trade with Afrika and in our enslavement – just 570 years ago. It was a declaration of war on the Afrikan world. The Pope presumed that he was the owner of the earth, that some god somewhere had so given it. Some still, to this day, argue that that Bull is still the law of the land – all lands. And though we well know that Afrikan peoples have been here at the beginning of the time before time, the only history which really matters in White history month is the last five hundred and seventy (570) years. And that is so because White people say so and ignorant Black people believe it.

Only in White history does 570 years have any significance in the grand scheme of things – for to them everything around us was built just 6000 years ago. And that ignorance continues despite carbon dating, despite genetic sequencing, despite not making common sense, despite historical inconsistencies. More troubling, is the fixation on this twinkling of the eye, in astronomical terms, by much of Black academia, the Black church, Black elites and the general public.

Could it be possible that this artificiality was constructed to serve the purposes of those who would want to really rewrite history, as if to start anew? And who are those who have benefited from such monumental set of plagiaries? How could it be that the very peoples who invented all the sciences, developed the techno-complexes, settled the entire earth, conquered the seas, invented writing, hundreds of thousands of years previously could now be the slaves of Europeans who never even existed until recently, nor developed a script of their own and were not even writing, generally, until well into the second millennia of the common era.

Black academia serves White and Jewish interests, in presenting the truncated historical record which informs our every action. That the historiographies which have as their point of departure a slavery epoch deliberately leaves out truths which have the immense potential of awakening the sleeping Afrikan giant could only have been informed by sinister motives. We contend that if Afrikan peoples today knew the truth of our existence, it would be apparent that everything of significance Europeans have told us was a lie and that the Europeans, themselves, are in perpetual fear of genetic annihilation, then this White history month could have an entirely different meaning.

There is not one academician in the Caribbean and few elsewhere who would, for example, and with specificity draw on the mountains of literature written by Jewish scholars which clearly show that though we generally blame the Europeans for the Holocaust of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, from the beginning to ‘now’ slavery was a Jewish led enterprise. Those Jewish scholars provide incontrovertible proofs that Columbus was himself a Jew who converted to Christianity in order to receive the support of both the Spanish and Portuguese courts. Of course, it was the ‘Arabs’ who first traded the Slavic peoples, thus giving us this etymology.

We have been appealing for the local expert on the Jewish Synagogue, Karl Watson, to explain to us the forces which would have led to the erection of such a place of ‘worship’ in Barbados in 1654. While he is at it, he might want to tell us why the synagogue in Brazil, the oldest in the western hemisphere, was built as early as 1636, a few years earlier, and what the relationships between the two were. Also, why was Barbados so important to international Jewry for such a congregation to be so established, as the second oldest in the western hemisphere? If you are contending that the last 570 years of history is such a significant epoch, why can we never come to an accurate understanding of the underlying forces in the society at that time, in relation to world Jewry? We will leave questions about the significant (leading) Jewish role, especially Dutch Jewry, in the slave economy in North America to your colleague Skip Gates, a ‘prominent’ White historian in Black face operating up north.

During White history month we will not be hearing the likes of Dr. Ben, Van Sertima, James, Williams, Jan Carew, Diop, Obenga, Clarke, Smalls and thousands more as Afrikan Studies Departments continue to face cuts in budgets. We are certainly not going to hear anything of the majesty of Afrikan peoples – that history before time, before Europeans even existed. Instead we will be fed with general narratives which support European history and culture, in Black face, of course. We will be seeing ‘exceptional Negroes’ being paraded who could ‘shuck and jive’, Negroes who could run behind a ball, a man who could offer the other cheek – not down below we hope, even milquetoast presentations of both MLK and Malcolm X as a staple and to protect the ‘sensibilities’ of Europeans.

Let us deal with some of the social forces which have harmed the Afrikan interests in recent times.

The most sinister of these must be the ‘selection’ of Barack Obama for the presidency of the USA. Obama used that position to strategically relocate the ‘civil rights movement’ firmly into the camp of the LGBTQ political formations. It is pellucid to us that this Obama was appointed to do a job of the master pimp. And Obama did a massive devastation of Afrikans within the USA, and elsewhere, were by most metrics the vestiges of slavery continued to wreak havoc from coast to coast.

With the merging of these social formations the whole orientation of human rights discourses have been forever transformed by Obama. Black interests were made to take a back seat while the society is set sail down a cultural dead end with a social ‘experiment’ whose outcome is not uncertain. It is an experiment which could only come from the mind of the Devil or White people in Black face. Thus we’ve seen the Black church, led by people like Barber, Sharpton, and more, going all in, on the Obama legacy of mainstreaming bulling with all its emerging ‘specializations’.

Obama and his supporters even weaponized this hideous agenda. With this many were forced to break with him. It was when he decided (implemented) that Afrikan countries, in order to receive America aide, had to change their laws to permit bulling in all its manifestations. This was however consistent with his generalized attitude towards Afrikan people – our destruction. Certainly, he was a White man in Black face, no?

Even when we look at American military aggressions on Africa during the Obama presidency we see a level of militarism not inconsistent with the other form of cultural penetration as described above. When Obama came to office there were only four (4) American military bases on the Afrikan continent. On leaving office there had markedly increased to eighty-four (84), in just eight (8) years. Could he have been anything but a White man in Black face like Northam, the now embroiled governor of Virginia?

One good thing about Obama though. Were there not an Obama we could not have a Trump. For Trump may very well be a blessing in disguise. For what Donald Trump has done, is doing, has contributed more to the destruction of the American imperium than we could have hoped for in our wildest dreams. How ironic? For that is the subject of our next contribution.

African Liberation Education (2)

Posted on January 26, 2019 by David

107

Submitted by Ras Jahaziel

“The events that transpired five thousand years ago, five years ago, or five minutes ago, have determined what will happen five minutes from now, five years from now, or five thousand years from now. All history is a current event.”

-Dr. John Henrik Clarke -–

That global experience that is commonly referred to as “history” effectively divided the world into two distinct regions that can accurately be called White Heaven and Black Hell.

Throughout that history “political correctness” had not yet been invented, so White Satan went to and fro in the broad daylight without a mask, invading, raping, robbing, enslaving, and committing genocide on all continents. And so the present White World Order came into existence.

Read full article on Ras Jahaziel’s website

Trinidadians Blamed for Guyanese Political Crisis

Posted on January 1, 2019 by David

Submitted by Dr Kumar Mahabir

The People’s National Congress (PNC)-led coalition government in Guyana has refused to resign after it was defeated in a no-confidence motion in Parliament on Friday December 21, 2018. As expected, the drowning party is grasping at straws to illegally survive another year before it sinks on its own in the 2020 general elections.

PNC Executive Member Aubrey Norton has accused People’s Progress Party (PPP) Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo of bribing MP Charrandass Persaud to switch his no-confidence vote against his own government in favour of the PPP. Norton said Jagdeo had “colluded with forces in Trinidad and mobilised resources to bribe a sitting MP” (Guyana Chronicle 28/12/18). I would like to advise Jagdeo to sue Norton for defamation of character through slander and/or libel. Norton must be compelled to provide the evidence in court to support his accusation, or face conviction by imprisonment or fine.

It seems that Jagdeo has already been found guilty by Norton who appears to be an investigator, policeman, attorney, juror, judge and executioner, all rolled into one. Norton’s accusation is being repeated by several Government ministers, including the Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan. This AFC member of the collation Government was on Guyana’s NCN TV on Sunday night turning darker with rage against Persaud.

Ramjattan turning darker with rage

Viewers were uncertain whether Ramjattan was speaking as a member of the coalition splinter Alliance for Change (AFC) or as Minister of Public Security because these roles must be held separate and distinct when in public office. By his verbal and body language, Ramjattan was clearly abusing his power as Minister of Public Security.

Here are excerpts of Ramjattan’s rant on TV: “We are now learning that there is absolutely a connection with bribery, of some big sum of money…. This thing was organised beautifully. All that will come out of the investigation going on …. We are going to go very far and deep into it and those who would’ve done that, will pay the penalty. We’ve already been doing investigations with the senior members of the Government.”

Alarming illegal threats indeed from a Minister of Public Security. Ramjattan should be forced to resign on the basis that police work should be left to the Commissioner of Police, Leslie James, not the Minister of Public Security whose duties should be purely administrative and managerial.

Those who wish to take Ramjattan to court to face charges for misbehaviour in public office should read the article “Governance of the Police: Independence, Accountability and Interference” by Philip C. Stenning. This article is based on a lecture delivered to the Law School at Flinders University in Australia in 2011. The article should be read with Ramjattan in mind who is attempting “to bring partisan political influence to bear on a police investigation … to harass political opponents or dissidents” like Charrandass Persad who has the civil and human rights of free association and freedom of expression.

Ramjattan’s unlawful interference in police work

Ramjattan has betrayed his promise that there will be “no political interference by the APNU+AFC government in the running of the Guyana Police Force.” Ramjattan made this promise personally to about 500 persons on Saturday September 5, 2015 at the Whim Community Centre Ground in Berbice. The unlawful interference with the work of the Guyana Police Force and the Police Service Commission (PSC) is not new to this coalition government. In October 18, 2017, President David Granger wrote to the PSC to halt the promotion of police officers.

Additionally, Ramjattan said on the same NCN TV show that on that historic night of the no-confidence motion in Parliament, he offered Persaud police protection to go to his vehicle to drive home. But Persaud was told by a friend that “the police would kill you rass. You better take we own” transportation.

As Minister of Public Security, Ramjattan should be ashamed to learn and publicise the fact that Guyanese do not trust the Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Defence Force with their lives. As an Indo-Guyanese, Persaud had all the more reason to be afraid. Members of the coalition government such as Moses Nagamootoo, Dr Rupert Roopnaraine, Jaipaul Sharma and Hemraj Rajkumar, and their families, are more vulnerable than other citizens to be attacked by the PNC-led coalition trained and armed officers headed by retired brigadier, President David Granger.

The books The Costs of Regime Survival: Racial Mobilization, Elite Domination and Control of the State in Guyana and Trinidad by Percy Hintzen, Domination and Power in Guyana: Study of the Police in a Third World Context by George Danns, Anatomy of Race Politics by Reverend Seopaul Singh, and Ethnic Conflict and Development by Ralph Premdas as well as the GIHA Crime Report Indians Betrayed, should be compulsory reading for Ramjattan. These publications document the long history of violence against Indians in Guyana which was unleashed by the tyrannically President, Forbes Burnham.

African Liberation Education 1

Posted on November 2, 2018 by David

Submitted by Ras Jahaziel

A captive people are not likely to recognize their captivity if they were born in captivity and have no memory of freedom.

Nor are they likely to identify liberation as an urgent necessity… if they have been schooled and churched to see their landless bondage as normal.

(That is why “The Manual of Slave Control” clearly spells out in its preamble: “the need to educate all X-Slaves with the myth that their captivity ended on the day of Emancipation, and to support this myth by keeping the X-Slaves constantly doped, domesticated, and entertained in a drunken stupor.”)

Read full text – Chapter 1

Prime Minister Rowley Can’t Count Indians

Posted on August 24, 2018 by David

Submitted by Dr Kumar Mahabir

A few days ago, Prime Minster Dr Keith Rowley lashed out at mainly Indo-Trinidadian (Indian) critics by saying that they were “trying to stir up racial hatred” in the multi-ethnic society.

He was reported in the media as saying that his ruling PNM party “continues to be the only true national party” in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) where “every creed and race find an equal place.”

Rowley added: [J]ust remember half of the PNM Government is Indian” and that “those Indians [critics] are insulting the Indian population … please have a conversation with them [Indians in the Government].”

Rowley was trying to deflect criticism by ethnic, religious and women’s groups that his party had promoted violence on a sari-clad Hindu and Indian woman in a skit at its Sports and Family Day on Sunday August 12, 2018.

There are 23 PNM Members of Parliament (MP) in the House of Representatives. Of these, there are only two (2) Indians: Faris Al-Rawi and Terrence Deyalsingh. Indians, therefore, constitute a trifle nine percent (9%) of PNM MPs in Parliament.

Apparently Rowley miscounted. Half of the PNM Government is not Indian. There are only 26 percent (or 6) Indians in Cabinet as Ministers viz Clarence Rambharath, Terrence Deyalsingh, Kazim Hosein, Rohan Sinanan, Franklin Khan, and I reluctantly threw in Faris Al-Rawri too in the daal pot.

Seventy-four percent (74%) or 17 Ministers in government are non-Indians. There is a margin of error of plus or minus one minister whose ethnicity could not be determined.

The PNM Indian minsters are neither recognised nor respected by the vast majority of Indians long before the PNM’s refusal to select Kamaluddin Mohammed or Errol Mahabir as the Prime Minister on the death of Dr. Williams in 1981.

According to Government’s CSO population survey in 2011, Indians consist of 35 percent of the population, the largest ethnic group in the country. Comprising 26 percent in the government, Indian ministers are, therefore, underrepresented and do not find a proportionate “equal place” in Rowley’s PNM administration.

The Ministers in Rowley’s Government who are all members and representatives of the PNM have tremendous rights, powers and privileges. Pursuant to Chapter 5, Section 74.1 of the Constitution, the Prime Minister and Ministers in his Cabinet have been empowered to “have the general direction and control of the government of Trinidad and Tobago …”.

Rohan Sinanan is the only Hindu in Cabinet and Kazim Hosein is the only Muslim. These two non-Christians were installed in the Cabinet in June and November 2016 consecutively, more than a year after the PNM took Government in September 2015.

Rowley appointed these two non-Christian Ministers after complaints by Hindus and Muslims that they were not represented in Government. Sinanan represents six percent (6%) of the Hindus and Kazim 20 percent (20%) respectively in the population. According to the CSO population survey in 2011, Hindus comprise 18% of the population and Muslims 5%. Sinanan can, therefore, be seen as a window dressing because Hindus are grossly underrepresented in Government.

Operating under a republican constitution, the Prime Minister in T&T heads a cabinet of ministers who are chosen by him or her. In the current administration, Rowley has the power to appoint and revoke ministers in his cabinet who are executive, high-ranking decision-makers.

The book Caribbean Islands (1989), edited by Sandra Meditz and Dennis Hanratty, states that in T&T: “The prime minister is by far the most powerful figure in the government and is responsible for running the government. The prime minister chooses cabinet ministers from Parliament, who are then appointed by the president, and he can change ministers and ministries at will.”

There are 19 ambassadors chosen by Rowley to embassies abroad. Of the 19 ambassadors, only three (or 16%) are Indians: H.E. Garth Chatoor in Ottawa in Canada, H.E. Roger Gopaul in South Africa, and H.E. Stephen Seedansingh in China. Sixteen percent (16%) is not half (50%), Mr Prime Minister and Political Leader.

Despite the etymology of her last name, Jenelle Pariag is not an Indian. Pariag is the Acting Consul General in Miami in the USA. His Excellency Dave Persad was T&T’s High Commissioner in India until he resigned in July due to reportedly corrupt “financial accountability” in the embassy.

An attorney and former chairman of the Couva/Tabaquite/Talparo Regional Corporation under the People’s Partnership Government, Persad joined the PNM campaign during the general election in 2015. It is widely believed that he was awarded the diplomatic post for his betrayal of the People’s Partnership.

Appointments of High Commissioners/Ambassadors are made by the President in accordance with the advice of the Prime Minister. They are highest-ranking representatives of T&T in their respective host countries and represent the interests and policies of their home country.

The abysmally small number of Indians as directors and heads of State boards would be another article for another day.

When Will Bajans Purge Ourselves of White Supremacy?

Posted on August 16, 2018 by David

1,010

Submitted by Tee White

Recently, I was listening to an African Bajan, like me, sing the praises of my hometown and make the argument that it had made a significant contribution to the development of Barbados. In support of his argument, he declared that “we provided some of the first governors of the Carolinas”. I was taken aback by this comment. Did the speaker not realise that he was referring to the English slave masters, who saw both his and my fore-parents as sub-human chattel and against whom they committed every crime that could be committed against a human being? Why would a descendant of the enslaved Africans take pride in the fact that the tormentors of his fore-parents had grown so rich from their crimes in Barbados that they emigrated to the USA to continue these barbarities against other African there and rose to be political leaders of the slave masters in that country? It makes no sense but it reflects the official ideology of white supremacy that has been passed down to us from the days of slavery and colonialism and which we have continued to promote during the last 52 years of independence.

This racist doctrine is enshrined in the very preamble to our Constitution which declares:

Whereas the love of free institutions and of independence has always strongly characterised the inhabitants of Barbados:

And Whereas the Governor and the said inhabitants settled a Parliament in the year 1639:

And Whereas as early as 18th February, 1651 those inhabitants, in their determination to safeguard the freedom, safety and well-being of the Island, declared, through their Governor, Lords of the Council and members of the Assembly, their independence of the Commonwealth of England

In reality, Barbados was a laboratory for the destruction of human freedom, safety and well-being. Professor Beckles has pointed out that on the coast of Africa, Barbados was widely known as a place worse than hell and the life expectancy of an enslaved African once they arrived on the island was no more than 7 years. Yet our Constitution presents a fundamentally racist gloss of our country’s history which basically denies the humanity of our African fore-parents.

This psychological dislocation from reality which white supremacy has imprinted on the Bajan psyche is further reinforced with references to the parliament in Broad Street. For example, at Grantley Adams International Airport there is a mural which hails with pride the fact that ‘we’ have the second oldest parliament in the Commonwealth. But who is this ‘we’? The parliament in Broad Street was set up by the English slave masters and used as an instrument for the violent subjugation of our African fore-parents. In 1688, this parliament passed a law entitled “An Act for the Governing of Negroes”. This Act legislated the following:

WHEREAS the Plantations and Estates of this Island cannot be fully managed, and brought into Use, without the Labour and Service of great Numbers of Negroes and other Slaves : And forasmuch as the said Negroes and other Slaves brought unto the People of this Island for that purpose, are of Barbarous, Wild, and Savage Natures, and such as renders them wholly unqualified to be governed by the Laws, Customs, and Practices of our Nations: It therefore becoming absolutely necessary, that such other Constitutions, Laws, and Orders should be in this island framed and enacted for the good Regulating and Ordering of them, as may both restrain the Disorders, Rapines, and Inhumanities to which they are naturally prone and inclined

That no Master, Mistress, Commissioner, or Overseer of any Family in this Island, shall give their Negroes or other Slaves leave on Sabbath-days, Holy-days, or any

other time, to go out of their Plantations, except such Negro or other Slave as usually wait upon them at Home or Abroad, and wearing a Livery ; and no other Negro or Slave, except with a Ticket under the Master or Mistress’s Hand, or some other Person by his or her Appointment, specifying the time allowed for his or her Return ……. And if any Master, Mistress, Commissioner, or Overseer of a Plantation, shall find any Negro or other Slave in their Plantation at any time without a Ticket, or Business from his said Master, and doth not apprehend them, or endeavour so to do; and having apprehended them, shall not punish them with a moderate Whipping, shall forfeit Ten Shillings Sterling, to be disposed of as aforesaid

A N D be it further Enacted and Ordained, That if any Negro or Slave whatsoever shall offer any Violence to any Christian, by Striking, or the like, such Negro or other Slave shall, for his or her first Offence, by Information given upon Oath to the next Justice, be severely whipped by the Constable by Order of the said Justice; For his second Offence of that nature, by Order of the Justice of Peace, he shall be severely whipped, his Nose slit, and be burned in some part of his Face with a hot Iron; And for his third Offence he shall receive, by Order of the Governor and Council, such greater Punishment as they shall think meet to inflict.

Why would the descendants of the enslaved Africans take pride in an institution which committed such crimes against our fore-parents? Should we not instead take pride in the parliaments our fore-parents set up in the cane fields and gullies to fight for human rights on this island against the slave masters and their parliament in Broad Street?

Malcolm X described this psychological affliction that is plaguing Barbados thus:

If the master’s house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro would say, “What’s the matter, boss, we sick?” We sick! He identified himself with his master more than his master identified with himself. And if you came to the house Negro and said, “Let’s run away, let’s escape, let’s separate,” the house Negro would look at you and say, “Man, you crazy. What you mean, separate? Where is there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food than this?” That was that house Negro. In those days he was called a “house nigger.” And that’s what we call him today, because we’ve still got some house niggers running around here.

In 2018, Barbados, it’s way past time we purged ourselves of this white supremacy.

180 Years of Emancipation- Some Perspective

Posted on August 7, 2018 by David

265

Submitted by Mohammed Degia

On August 1, 1838, enslaved people across the British Caribbean gained their freedom. Contrary to what is often peddled about the singular role of abolitionists in ending transatlantic slavery, there were two main reasons for abolition- economic and rebellions. The British did not in some great moralistic and ethical wave bestow freedom upon the enslaved. The system was altered because slavery had become an economic liability. Furthermore, the planters lived with the constant fear of slaves rebelling and of another Haiti transpiring. In the end, it was better to agree to free the enslaved than to live with this fear or worse to experience a rebellion. I discuss all of this in more detail in a piece I wrote in 2007 which was the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade by Britain.

As we commemorate the emancipation of our Caribbean forefathers, remember that the British in abolishing slavery also provided a large compensation package for the slave owners. The sum of money amounted to £20 million (£15 billion today) or about 40% of the national budget. The formerly enslaved of course received nothing. What is even more perverse is that the loan taken out at that time by the British government to fund the compensation package was not paid off until 2015. Thus, the British taxpayer was until recently, through payments to the holders of the slavery bonds, still contributing to the beneficiaries of slavery. This is the same British government and society that dismisses the descendants of the enslaved condescendingly, lecturing to them that they should move on and stop living in the past. This is the same British government and society that refuses to consider the just demands of Caribbean people for reparations. The same British government that argues absurdly that the slave trade and slavery were not illegal at the time and so they are not obliged to provide compensation for the heinous role they played in one of the worst crimes against humanity. For these people though, it is not a historical matter to be left behind when until February 2015 they were still reaping the benefits of the slavery abolition loan. The height of dishonesty, arrogance and hypocrisy.

In addition, as we celebrate August 1, we must be mindful that 180 years after abolition and 56 years after the decolonisation period in the British Caribbean commenced with Jamaica’s independence on August 6, 1962, we have a long way to go in the quest for true freedom. The legacy of colonialism and slavery endures in our tiny island states. Most of us continue to experience significant socio-economic challenges. Race and class considerations remain central factors in how our societies function. For example, in Barbados, the justice system still operates in two forms- one for the rich and white and nowadays Indian and one for blacks particularly those that are not rich. Just under a year ago, I penned a long article about the harsh realities of race in Barbados beyond the symbolism of its Emancipation statue. Last week, two prominent white Barbadian businessmen were charged with drug offences and anyone following the saga would have seen first-hand the playing out of the politics of race and class that I wrote about.

The Caribbean has much work to do. We need to examine in earnest these mental chains that impede us. An honest, brutal conversation about our past, how it looms large over us and how we must proceed is essential. Our intellectual giants started the process. It is necessary for us to build on it and propel it to the next level. It is also imperative that we do this together as a region. We are one people with a shared history of colonialism, slavery and exploitation. People to people relationships that transcend artificial borders have always been a central feature of our Caribbean reality. In addition, in a world of large and medium powers, we have no choice as small islands but to integrate. Our politicians with their egos and selfish interests have frustrated the institutionalisation of our deep ties. We the people must take the lead.

Emancipation Day, a Good Reason to Give Pause

Posted on August 1, 2018 by David

298

Barbadians join former colonies to celebrate Emancipation Day on August 1.

There can be no disagreement the Black race had to endure a form of slavery that to this day weighs heavy on the conscience of world citizens. Some will engage in a spurious rebuttal that the immoral act of chattel slavery practiced on Black people should be distilled using a logic that it was the legitimate activity of the day. What cannot be refuted is that until the Slavery Act 1833 Blacks resident in the Mother Country (England) and its colonies were regarded as chattel. Then there was the apprenticeship period where the former slave masters exploited Blacks because it was determined that it was cheaper to pay a rock bottom wage or provide room and board to the former slave in exchange for labour. A capitalist thinking?

The benefit of slavery is that the White race was able to accrue great wealth to build an establishment that to this day supports how the so called developed world does business to the marginalizing of minority populations. More fundamentally the period of Black slavery practiced by the British empire created a White supremacy mindset the legacy of which is with us today. Dismantling the legacy thinking to promote an equal global community continues to be a work in progress. The establishment will not yield to demands from former colonies for reparations. It is not in the nature of man to surrender riches even if ill gotten. The blogmaster’s perspective is that demand for reparation by Barbados and other former colonies is not just about compensation in the form of a money transfer – it represents the opportunity for the former colonist to record on history’s page the egregious business of slavery.

We fast forward to 1 August 2018 and so the struggle continues as we celebrate Emancipation Day. Many Black Barbadians – especially the young – will remember today as a day to recover from attending RISE. How many will participate on the Emancipation walk to Bussa statue? How many Blacks are aware there is a walk?

To Barbadians every where, the struggle continues to nurture a just society for all. One that we can make proud for our children and future generations to cohabitate on the planet. We must never forget what our Black forefathers had to endure to support what we have been able to achieve to date.

The following is the Emancipation Day message from Sir Hilary Beckles, the Chair of the Caricom Reparations Committee:-

Emancipation Day message from Chair, CARICOM Reparations Committee

Press Release

July 31, 2018

(PRESS RELEASE VIA SNO) – We join annually with communities across the world in marking the moment in which the crime of chattel enslavement was confronted and uprooted from our existential realities. For us, the moment is August 1st; other dates are determined elsewhere and officially recognized.

Marking the moment in a celebratory fashion remains necessary despite the despicable nature of the gesture of Emancipation, legislated by Britain in 1838. It was an act in which black peoples were finally defined by Parliament as property, and their enslavers deemed entitled to compensation for property loss.

Today is an opportunity for descendants of the enslaved, and enslavers, to reflect upon the causes and consequences of these crimes against humanity, and in particular their significance on how we live today, and will in the future.

Rising up from the barbarity of bondage, we have dedicated our development energies to the advancement of democratizing social values, with a primary emphasis on building societies that are free and fair; upon platforms of multiracialism and multiculturalism.

As descendants, we celebrate the values of human decency left as an additional burden for our ancestors to carry. Every day they imagined would be an Emancipation day. They protected and projected the best tried and tested human values – joys of family life, fine spirit of community living, vitality of food security and material production, moral commitment to equity and justice, and critically the overarching, indispensable importance of freedom as the source of all happiness.

Effectively transcending and conquering the legacies of enchainment, impoverishment and racial denigration continue to elude us. Residual elements of the plantation-based past continue to shape our societies and determine their trajectories.

This year, we find it necessary to litigate the restoration of democratic rights and citizenship, illegally stripped away by the British government from thousands of Caribbean descendants rightfully living in that country since the immigration door was opened to passengers aboard Empire Windrush in 1948.

Last year, evidence of hostility against the Caribbean community by the British state erupted against the background of data, unearthed by historians, showing that the finance bond, by which the British government raised £20 million in 1834 to pay reparations to slave owners, remained active until 2015.

This fact powerfully shows that, for the British state, the slavery world persisted well into the 21st century, putting to rest its argument that “slavery was a long time ago”. These contemporary examples show how the effects of historic crimes still surround our societies. ‘Emancipation’ for us remains a work in progress and in no way can be considered a distant event that is settled and closed.

It is specifically for these reasons that we celebrate Emancipation day as a moment in which we demand reparatory justice. The Caribbean calls upon the enslaving governments of Europe, and their national institutions, all enriched and empowered by their crimes against humanity, to return to the region in order to participate in cleaning up their colonial mess. The advancement of economic growth is dependent upon it; social justice is dependent upon it; and a 21st century humanity is dependent upon it.

As we confront the future, let us be guided by Sir Arthur Lewis, who stated in 1939 that the 200 years of unpaid labour extracted by the British from the enslaved people of the Caribbean is a debt that must be repaid to their descendants. This is important, he asserted, if we are to have a fair shot at sustainable development. Pushing ahead with a self-emancipatory agenda is critical, but we must do so fully conscious of this broader context of our development efforts.

Blessings to all on Emancipation day.

Walter the Actuary a BLACK man | Charles the Actuary a White man

Posted on July 30, 2018 by David

320

[Barbados Underground] Walter Blackman responded to BU commenter TheOGazerts on the observation that Barbadians are engaged in the Charles Herbert, a rich Bajan Actuary that contrast starkly with Walter, a Bajan Actuary who is Black and forced to return to the USA to make a living – David, blogmaster

TheOGazerts, Barbados, our idyllic island home, will continue to vomit up its shocking contrasts.

It is only after listening to people on BU describing how “bright” a certain white man is to have completed a degree in actuarial science, then to have gone on to complete the tough actuarial professional exams, then to have gone on to develop a multi-million dollar actuarial company in Barbados, that I found myself making some comparisons. We both demonstrated at the university and professional exams level that we possess the intellectual capacity needed to become fully qualified pension actuaries. However, the demonstration of brain power is where the similarity abruptly ends.

Now for the contrast. He is a bright, rich, white man. I am simply a black man.

In Barbados, this is a huge, huge deal and it naturally and invariably translates into a situation where a universe of opportunities are opened to him, whilst all doors are closed to me.

So whereas someone can boast on this white man’s behalf, that he made millions from selling an actuarial company which he developed in Barbados (not sure if this is correct), I am left to inform BU readers that I was awarded an OAS Fellowship to study actuarial science at the masters degree level with the expressed intention of providing actuarial services to the National Insurance Scheme of Barbados. Alas, I completed my studies but, on my return to Barbados, was never allowed to work at the NIS. I applied for the vacant position of Supervisor of Insurance, which was advertised by the Erskine Sandiford administration. After a series of interviews, the final two candidates were Walter Blackman and Joycelyn Hinds. I attended the final interview and have heard nothing since. I discovered later that Wismar Greaves was placed in the post. Could it be that this was the point at which CLICO was being prepared for its “great” journey?

Attempts to work at ICB amounted to a mere exercise in futility.

More recently, the Government of Barbados, for the first time, advertised the position of CEO of the Financial Services Commission. I knew something was afoot so I made sure that I applied. As expected, I never even got an acknowledgement. However, Sir Frank Alleyne told Barbadians that the FSC had searched the whole world and could find no one but Mr, Randy Graham to fill the position.

What has allowed me to remain mentally strong and steadfast is my firm belief that no one selected Walter Blackman to “unfair” or destroy. This “square pegs in round holes” problem is systemic and thousands of progressive-minded Barbadians, if given the chance, can easily recount incidents of being similarly “unfaired” and discriminated against.

There is some purpose to this madness.

Back in the early to mid-1980’s, a grand designer decided to “corner” and control government’s financial services market. Individuals were handpicked to head major government revenue agencies and to follow certain career tracks (e.g. Supervisor of Insurance, NIS dept, PS/Director of Finance).

For example, Sabina Walcott was made Commissioner of Inland revenue. Grantley Smith was Director of NIS, before moving on to the PS/Director of Finance role. William Layne was Financial Controller of NIS, Supervisor of Insurance, and then PS/Director of Finance. Ian Carrington was Supervisor of Insurance, Director of NIS, and has now moved into a PS/Director of finance role.

Any person or agency wishing to investigate the nature and state of the government’s finances from 1985-2015 is well-advised to start by questioning and interviewing these four individuals along with Erskine Griffith, a former PS/Director of finance, who was ultimately “rewarded” with a minister of agriculture’s salary. These persons were in the best position to know how come government’s financial rules could be violated so easily, and how come the problems raised by the Auditor General for so long could be so contemptuously disregarded with no repercussions or consequences.

With respect to the FSC, every Barbadian watched in disbelief as the organization did little or nothing to protect the rights and benefits of CLICO’s policyholders, or to punish the guilty persons responsible for the scandalous raid on the insurance company. However, when it was discovered that the Judicial Manager was about to publish a report which proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that David Thompson initiated the steps which led to the CLICO raid, the FSC sprang into action and tried to block the publication of the report. Was this the reason why the nephew of David Thompson was put in the CEO post? Was it sheer coincidence that he left the post after all attempts to block the publication of the JM report failed?

We castigate, shun, and in some cases, jail uneducated black Barbadians for their acts of ignorance. At the other extreme, we block well-educated black Barbadians.from taking up positions commensurate with their experience and training, and from participating meaningfully in public life. Participation in public life is now being characterized by corruption, malfeasance, and deceit. Instinct tells me that a social backlash cannot be very far away…

The Father of Our Nation is BUSSA : the Mother of Our Nation is NANNY GRIG

Posted on June 19, 2018 by David

123

Submitted by David Comissiong

Who are the “Father” and “Mother” of that unique aggregation of people organized as a body politic on 166 square miles of Caribbean land and possessed of a distinctive cultural and social way of life, that we know of as the nation of Barbados?

Well, the term “Father of the Nation” is a well known honorific title that– in many nations — is given to a man who is considered to be the driving force behind the establishment of “his” nation, and who — in many instances –has made a monumental sacrifice (even a “blood sacrifice” of his very life) for his people.

But the term “Mother of the Nation” is not nearly as well known nor as widely applied and conferred!

Yet, if one looks closely enough one will surely discover that behind the establishment of every nation there is, in addition to a male “driving force”, a similar female “driving force”. And that for every man who made a sacred sacrifice of his life for the people, that there was a similarly heroic and self-sacrificing woman.

And so it was and is with the nation of Barbados !

We therefore make bold to say that anyone with a discerning eye can perceive in the history of Barbados both a “Father of the nation” and a “Mother of the nation” !

And just as a Father and Mother together create the fertilized egg from which a biological child emerges, the titles of “Father” and “Mother” of the nation must be applied to those two male and female historical personalities who played critical roles in giving birth to the very possibility, the very seed or root of the precious nation that we Barbadians possess today.

You see, over the first two centuries of the history of Barbados it was difficult to even conceive of the “possibility” of a Barbadian nation, simply because Barbados was a “slave society” in which a sizeable majority of its sons and daughters were denied the status of human beings and were held by their enslavers to be mere soul-less chattels or things.

Thus, if a majority of a people are not even considered to be human beings by the governmental and official structures of a society, how can one talk sensibly or meaningfully about being a nation?

No, in order for a nation to be established in Barbados, slavery first had to be abolished. And therefore, those historical personalities who played the critical roles in striking the death blow to the evil system of slavery would have to be considered the seminal figures who planted the very seeds of Barbadian nationhood.

Our search for the “Father” and “Mother” of the nation must therefore take us back to the great early 19th century slave rebellion that irretrievably set in train the processes that led ineluctably to the abolition of slavery in 1834— the 1816 Bussa Rebellion!

It is therefore relatively easy for us to identify the “Father” of our nation. Clearly, that title must go to the Right Excellent General Bussa, the Commander of the revolutionary forces of 1816, and an historical figure who has been conferred with the title of National Hero of Barbados.

But upon whom should the title of “Mother” of the nation be conferred?

Well, in the 1818 historical document entitled “Report from a Select Committee of the House of Assembly appointed to inquire into the origin, causes and progress of the late Insurrection” — the Bussa Rebellion— we read the following testimony of “Robert”, an enslaved man attached to Simmons Plantation:-

“………..some time the last year, he heard the negroes were all to be freed on New-year’s Day. That Nanny Grig (a negro woman at Simmons, who said she could read) was the first person who told the Negroes at Simmons so: and she said she had read it in the Newspapers, and that her Master was very uneasy at it: that she was always talking about it to the negroes, and told them that they were all damned fools to work, for that she would not, as freedom they were sure to get. That , about a fortnight after New-year’s Day, she said the Negroes were to be freed on Easter-Monday, and the only way to get it was to fight for it; and the way they were to do, was to set fire, as that was the way they did in Saint Domingo.”

Here then we see emerging from the historical record the figure of a mature literate enslaved Creole black woman who worked in the household of Simmons Plantation in the parish of St. Philip, and who was clearly the revolutionary ideologue of the rebel forces — a revolutionary ideologue who was committed to a military solution to terminating the evil system of slavery, and who was relentless in spreading that message to her fellow enslaved brothers and sisters.

The fact that she was called “Nanny” is not necessarily suggestive of an occupation as a nursemaid or a children’s caregiver, but could speak to her ethnic identity. You see, in the case of the Jamaican “Nanny” — Nanny of the Maroons — the Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History informs us that the name “Nanny” was derived from the Akan word “Nanani”, meaning “ancestress” or “mother”, and therefore is suggestive of an Akan ethnic ancestry .

Thus, our Nanny Grig may well have been a Barbados-born “creole” woman of Akan (present day Ghana) ethnicity.

What we do know for a fact is that General Bussa’s revolutionary troops did faithfully adhere to Nanny Grig’s admonition to commence a battle aimed at securing freedom for themselves on Easter- Monday of 1816 and to use arson as a primary methodology of insurrection!

Undoubtedly, as a literate, well informed and intelligent woman, Nanny Grig would have known that the chances of success were slim, and that the possibility of defeat and death was very real. After all, the revolutionary troops were not only facing a number of well armed local parish militias, but also the might of the British Imperial Army stationed at St Ann’s fort at the Garrison in St Michael.

It is extremely likely therefore that Nanny Grig had her eyes set on a more distant and futuristic goal: that she was striking a blow against Slavery and making the ultimate sacrifice in order that future generations of black or African Barbadians would no longer have to live in a condition of enslavement.

And surely she did make the ultimate sacrifice, for not only was the Rebellion put down— largely through the efforts of the professional black soldiers of the British West India Regiment – but the racist white parish militias then proceeded to inflict a regime of terror on the black population, burning and otherwise destroying the houses and property of blacks and executing hundreds of black women, children and men!

Without a doubt, Nanny Grig either perished in the fighting or was subsequently executed – perhaps hanged, beheaded and hung up on a post – in light of her role as a major leader of the Rebellion.

But who can doubt that her courage, activism and sacrifice played a major role in bringing down the evil system of slavery and hastening the day of the emergence of a genuine Barbadian nation.

The reality is that the Bussa Rebellion sent such a forceful message of uncompromising hostility to Slavery that in 1819, a full three years after the Rebellion, the Governor of Barbados, Lord Combermere, was still writing to the English Colonial Office warning them that “the public mind (in white Barbados) is ever tremblingly alive to the dangers of insurrection.”

It is not surprising therefore that when – in 1833 – the British Secretary of State for the colonies introduced the Emancipation Act in the British Parliament, he expressed the view that “they were compelled to act; for they felt that take what course they might, it could not be attended with greater evil than any attempt to uphold the existing state of things.”

Thus, it was really the courageous military activism of the Bussas and Nanny Grigs that was ultimately responsible for the abolition of slavery.

And this is why, in the final analysis, no-one other than our heroic Nanny Grig must be conferred with the title of “Mother of the Nation.”

The Prophecy

Posted on June 5, 2018 by David

(Excerpt from A RASTA PLAY, written and illustrated by Ras Jahaziel August 2010 www.rastafarivisions.com)

An Inter-faith Dialogue between Snow-white The Money God and The Three Dragons

SNOW WHITE-The Money God: Gentlemen, welcome to this our fourth-hundred annual inter-faith dialogue where we exchange ideas for the better management of our slave-holdings in the modern colonies. Now please relax and take off your masks. Those do-gooder masks are only for the outside when we have to put on a public show. But here, if you want to say “Nigger” you can say “Nigger.”

HA HA HA HA HA

CLAP, CLAP, CLAP, CLAP, CLAP.

This is the forum where we can be ourselves and speak our minds without worrying about political correctness. We do not have to go around corners and pretend that PROFIT is not the only thing that matters. Every-one in here knows that the advancement of our empire has often called for ruthless action against inferior peoples. Often times it has involved moving populations from areas that we desire. Sometimes the methods may be bloody and involve lost of life amongst the inferior peoples, but everyone of you know the ropes, so to speak. So please speak your mind without worry. The press is not here. This is the place where we can discuss the dirty details that would shock the larger public outside.

Now the first thing I would like to do is to express my concerns about the stability of our modern plantation system in the Caribbean and the volatility of our Negro labor force in light of recent events.

I am sure that we all agree the image of “Paradise” must be maintained at all costs. For close to four centuries we have reaped billions of dollars in profit from the sweat of Black labor in the hot climes of these islands, and what has made our businesses so profitable is that up to this day Black labor has been for the most part free or very cheap. But now our old sugar plantations that required us to maintain thousands of slaves have been phased out, and Tourism has now become our new sugar plantation. Not only do we need fewer Negroes, but unlike in the days of sugar cane it is important to project an idyllic paradise image despite the glaring wide-spread poverty of the locals.

But we have a problem looming on the horizon: As a result of our recent economic adjustments the weight on the poor has been increased significantly, to the extent that they are nearing breaking-point. If we do not act preemptively and take drastic measures they are likely to rebel and spoil our paradise image. We need to crush rebellion long before it happens.

FIRST DRAGON, The Minister of Legal Terrorism and Plantation Protection: Pardon me for saying so, but I think your fears may be a little bit exaggerated because as you know, we have always used our police and army as a barrier of terror to protect our slave-holding properties. They have been trained to be very brutal and ruthless, and as a result of their consistent terrorism most of the slave population fears them. I don’t think we have anything to worry about, but if it would make you feel better we can increase the terror.

SNOW WHITE-The Money God: Well make sure the media publishes a good excuse for doing so before giving the police the go-ahead. But no matter what it takes we must maintain the flow of profit from our human and material possessions on these islands. Even though these economic measures will affect the lives of the poor fairly harshly, such measures are necessary to maintain THE PROFIT FLOW.

But keeping the plantation from burning has always been a balancing act. On the one hand, too much hardship may cause spontaneous rebellion, and on the other hand the extra hardship that the Niggers feel also makes them desperate for money. In that state of mind it is easier to control and manipulate them, and it is never difficult to find spies and informers. Another very important advantage in keeping the Negroes in a desperate economic state was demonstrated just recently in Tivoli Gardens. If you did not understand the power of our economic grip on the Negroes you would have been surprised by the zeal that was exhibited by our police and soldiers as they went about maiming and killing other Niggers that look just like themselves.

With our power to decide who eats and who starves it was easy to enlist dozens of paid killers.

So despite all of the idealistic calls for equal rights and justice, we know from long experience that we have to keep the economic lid on the Negroes. It is a form of control that we have always used, and in any case it has never been wise to let the Nigger get too far. We just need to be prepared at all times for any eventuality.

FIRST DRAGON, The Minister of Legal Terrorism and Plantation Protection: Well, in light of your concern about the possibility of these economic measures causing dire social consequences, let me assure you that we have already equipped our FORCES with the appropriate training and practice in the event of an uprising..

SNOW WHITE-The Money God: But what do our sociologists say about this, do they concur with me about the potential social fall-out?

SECOND DRAGON, The Minister of Guile and Deception and Social Manipulation: Yes, total agreement. When the increased stress is added to the persistent mal-nourishment that already exists, it is quite likely that many of the poor will be driven to desperate measures, and many of them will be forced to break The Laws of the Plantation in order to survive.

It should be expected that increasing the stress on the Negroes at a time when they are already locked down in a seemingly never-ending cycle of malnutrition-foods and low wages will be enough to bring out the very worst in their personalities. And this will be most evident in those places like Tivoli where they are all packed together like sardines in a can. The fact that they are landless means that every facet of their daily existence will be subjected to increasing pressures to get the dollar in a time when LEGAL MONEY IS SCARCE.

For the poor and vulnerable it has therefore become a dog-eat-dog rat race that is spawning an increase in lawlessness, and the development of illegal survival systems like gangs.

SNOW WHITE-The Money God: OK, so do you have any recommendations?

SECOND DRAGON, The Minister of Guile and Deception and Social Manipulation: Yes, it is vitally necessary that we enlist the Church and influential leaders of other religious groups like the Rastas, if possible, to maintain an inordinate level of docility amongst the people at the very same time when their life conditions are drastically worsening. UnHoly Father, What do you have to share on this matter?

THIRD DRAGON , The UnHoly Father with the Forked Tongue: Well gentlemen my throat is sore from preaching last night, so pardon me if I am a little brief with my comments today. Speaking from a position of long practice and experience I would say that the best way to do this is to revive the old “God is soon coming for his world” sermon.

Another one that I would highly recommend is the “Patience and Long suffering sermon” that teaches the people to be patient with bondage, and imprints in their minds an attitude that SUFFERING LONG IS A VIRTUE. Also another trump card that we have always played is to teach them to love their enemies. With this combination of doctrines we can do anything to them and get away with it.

The desired objective here is that through the influence of properly cooked religion, the people’s natural instinct to act in pursuit of freedom will be totally erased.

You may think that it would be difficult to immobilize the human’s natural instinct to be free, but it is not. All we the religious leaders need to do is to continue feeding the Nigs with doctrines that condition them to look beyond themselves for a miracle-working God or a super-man Selassie to bring betterment to their lives… if they are prepared to patiently wait and be long-suffering.

We must continually hammer home the importance of blind faith and belief so that their minds are sufficiently spooked out.

When crippled by this mental condition they will see two thousand years of waiting as no big deal.

But for this thing to be truly effective these doctrines and our ministers that are chosen to spread them must be made to look very holy. We and our rituals must be elaborately clothed with the utmost sanctity, so that if anyone dares to think critically about these spooky myths they would feel like they are committing sacrilege and sinning against God, and their conscious minds will be therefore afraid to THINK. After a few short generations of these teachings the natural instinct to act in pursuit of freedom can be effectively erased for thousands of years.

SNOW WHITE-The Money God: I totally agree with you. Properly cooked religion can definitely work wonders on the mind of a slave. The evidence is all around us. We have successfully tricked them with the idea about emancipation, and control their labor and their time, and their very lives the same way as we did before we told them that they are free. We have cloned for ourselves a true slave people, and programmed them with slave doctrines that taught them to love their enemies more than they love themselves. Most of them live from day to day in a permanent hustle for scraps, and have no prospects of handing down anything to their children but more slavery. Every generation passes it on to the next, and yet they still can be heard talking about slavery in the past tense. They are a very stupid people.

They have stupidly fallen for our emancipation trick and believe that the absence of chains means the absence of bondage and that the absence of a white face in charge means the end of white power. We will always be able to trick them and rule them, because although they can play sports and make music, thinking is something that they always have a problem with. Go ahead and tell us some more!

THIRD DRAGON , The UnHoly Father with the Forked Tongue: Well, as you all know, we have never failed to collaborate with the schools and universities in making the historical robbery of African people and the historical enrichment of our people look like remote events that left no lasting social and economic legacy. We have always held that any discussions that throw light on the connection between past robberies and present poverty must be made taboo, and all the focus and the blame must be placed instead on the sins of the slave whose morality was bound to crack from the constant stress of the long historical weight of oppression.

If the truth were to gain recognition that the soul-destroying nature of slavery and the stress of present-day oppression are the main contributors to the moral decay of the people, then unhealthy attention and the glance of condemnation may become focused on us. God forbid that such a thing should happen, because the issue of reparations would be unavoidable, and it would be difficult to extricate the Church from responsibility for its long years of collaboration with the slave owners.

To counter such an eventuality I would suggest using the News Media to create a despicable image of those slave-descendants at the bottom of the economic ladder so that their poverty and social confusion will be seen as a direct result of their own laziness and their own innate immorality and inferiority.

To be continued next part

VIDEO VERSION http://rastafarivisions.com/features/a-rasta-play

The Hindu Ban on Muslim Hijab

Posted on May 25, 2018 by David

Submitted by Fatimah Mohammed

There is an ongoing controversy on the ban of the OJT Muslim trainee-teacher for wearing a hijab headdress at a Maha Sabha Hindu school.

Nafiesa Nakhid was told to remove her hijab in accordance with the school rules of the Lakshmi Girls’ Hindu College in St Augustine on Monday.

As a Muslim woman with a Hindu husband and two multi-religious children, I am the best authority to adjudicate on this matter.

In its Facebook page, the Centre for Indic Studies led by NCIC’s Dr. Arvind Singh and Aneela Bhagwat, has condemned Sat Maharaj and the Maha Sabha for their action. Singh and Bhagwat have described the Maha Sabha’s ban as “disappointing and indeed shameful.”

Why were Singh and Bhagwat silent when mainly Hindu and Indian lecturers were fired from the Afro-Christian dominated UTT on May 11, 2018?

These paper-based organizations rise from the dead only to attack Sat and the Maha Sabha.

Mr Haripersad Maharaj of the IRO, Dr??? Mahant Deochand Dass of the Kabir Panth, and

Pandit Mukram Sirju of the Academy of Hinduism all came out of their coma to attack Sat when he said that Patrick Manning was a racial prime minister.

Obscure organizations like these do not utter a word when Hindu students are sent home from Muslim schools for wearing rakhi on their wrists and traces of abeer on their skins after Phagwa.

What do Arvind Singh and Aneela Bhagwat have to say about a brand-name Muslim jewellery store in a mall that refuses to sell or repair Hindu and Christian pendants?

What do these meek organizations have to say about a Muslim-operated stationery shop in Aranguez refusing to photocopy anything with images and/or text of Hinduism or Christianity?

Is the Bocas Literary Festival Biased?

Posted on May 3, 2018 by David

Submitted by Dr Kumar Mahabir

It seems that the city of Port of Spain has a no-entry sign for Indo-Trinidadian (Indian) cultural performers. The Fiesta Plaza in MovieTowne does not entertain these kinds of artistes. The Live Music District in the capital also does not showcase cross-over orchestras such as Dil-E-Nadan, T&TEC Gayatones, Karma, and KI & the Band.

The recently-concluded NGC Bocas Literary Festival (April 25-29) is yet another example of discrimination against Indian cultural performers in Port of Spain. The powers residing in Port of Spain have demonstrated their biased belief that (a) Carnival is the only form of national culture in the multi-ethnic society, (b) Indian culture should be pushed behind the Caroni bridge, and (c) at best, Indian culture should be confined to a token show of tassa drumming and an Indian dance. This marginalised treatment is showcased every time at the Caribbean Festival of Arts (CARIFESTA).

The latest published Government CSO population census in 2011 revealed that Indians form the largest ethnic group in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T). Yet they constitute less than ten percent (10%) of the attendees and participants at Bocas Lit’ Festivals. It seems as though Indians have silently and individually decided to boycott this biased annual event. The fact that the main event takes place in Port of Spain, where few Indians live, also makes it challenging for Indians to attend.

Bocas Lit’ Fest is a great, exciting extended weekend event of readings, discussions, performances, interviews, workshops, storytelling, music and film screenings. The National Library (NALIS) venue is abuzz with activities mainly with local, regional and international writers, readers, publishers and critics of literary and non-fiction works.

The festival’s founder and director, Marina Salandy-Brown, must be commended for this initiative. Running for eight years, Bocas Lit’ Fest has emerged as the Caribbean’s premier annual literary festival.

On Bocas Lit’ Fest, literary critic Dr Raymond Ramcharitar wrote: “[T]he main concern is not promoting literature or art, but establishing the entitlement of certain people to produce, profit from, and control literary and artistic production, always at the expense of others” (Guardian 25/04/12). I interpret “at the expense of others” to also mean the exclusion of Indian cultural performers.

This year, Bocas Lit’ Fest hosted extempo deliveries and workshop on extempo composition, but no bir-a-ha workshop or renditions. A biraha is an impromptu song composed on any subject, religious or secular. It may break all bounds of propriety and social rules. It may even subvert accepted practices and customs as well as ridicule respected citizens. A biraha is sung as a solo item and may or may not be rendered with a dholak or typical nagara drum. It is accompanied by a dance (ahirwa nach) punctuated by rhythmic, fast footwork performed after each stanza.

Bocas Lit’ also included a workshop on fictional biography and biographical fiction based on the life of calypsonian “Kitchener”, and a documentary film on the calypsonian “Calypso King” from Costa Rica. Again, no workshop or film or discussion or performance on biraha, chutney or pichakare.

Both chutney and pichakare are musical forms indigenous to Trinidad. Chutney soca is a crossover genre incorporating soca elements and Hindi-English, sung with instruments such as the harmonium, dholak and dhantal.

Pichakare is a type of social-commentary song created by Ravi-ji, a spiritual leader, as a counterpoint to political calypsoes which defamed Indian politicians and personalities. It is sung in Trinidad Hindi (Bhojpuri) and English on stage during Phagwa, the Hindu festival of colour and harvest.

This year’s edition of Bocas Lit’ Fest also featured monologues by Carnival Midnight Robbers. The festival did not showcase an excerpt of Ram-leela or any of its characters.

Ram-leela is perhaps the oldest living form of free outdoor folk theatre in the Caribbean. Villager actors play the role of animals, clowns, humans, saints, gods and demons through masks, costumes, props, gestures and body movements. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1992, poet and playwright Derek Walcott spoke glowingly about Ram-leela in Felicity in central Trinidad. In 2008, UNESCO proclaimed Ram-leela as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity which should be protected and promoted.

In all of its dramatic performances, the Bocas Lit’ Fest has never included folktale figures such as Birbal from Trinidad and Sachuli from Guyana. They are the Indian counterparts to the Afro-Caribbean trickster spider, Anansi.

Indian cultural performers and promoters have realised that the culture which they practice and promote will always be marginalised or excluded. They have decided to create their own shows, competitions and literary events.

Towards this end, the NCIC Nagar, led by Deoroop Teemal, has established “An Evening of Readings and Discussions” in Chaguanas. Its third quarterly readings with former journalist and novelist, Ariti Jankie, on Sunday April 22, drew more than 100 guests, mainly Indians.

Spitting fire, Teemal must have blurted, “To hell with Bocas!”

Cuba is Making Progress Mr. Degia!

Posted on April 24, 2018 by David

David Comissiong RESPONDS TO MOHAMMED IQBAL DEGIA’S NATION NEWSPAPER COLUMN ON CUBA AND THE ISSUE OF RACE.

How easy it is for the Nation Newspaper’s columnist of East Asian descent, Mohammed Iqbal Degia, to get up on his journalistic soapbox and assume a posture of being “blacker” than all the Pan-Africanists and Afro-centrists of Barbados by self righteously railing against what he characterizes as the Republic of Cuba’s inexcusable deficiencies in tackling and eradicating black inequality and anti-black racism.

But the “super black” Mr Degia conveniently doesn’t tell us what he is comparing Cuba’s record in tackling black inequality and anti-black racism with !

As we all know, in 1959 revolutionary Cuba — a society with a large minority black population — inherited a socio-economic system that was severely disfigured by entrenched black inequality and anti black racism from the pre-Revolutionary era. And therefore, if we are to assess the record of the Cuban revolutionary government in dealing with and transforming that negative heritage, we would have to make comparisons with other white majority/large black minority societies such as the United States of America, Columbia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Ecuador, the United Kingdom, France and the list goes on. And the reality is that not a single one of these countries have come anywhere close to Revolutionary Cuba in dismantling anti-black racism and black inequality!

The “super black” Mr Degia seems to be demanding that by now Cuba should have eradicated black inequality and all vestiges of anti-black racism. But lets be honest — which nation on the face of this earth can be credited with having eradicated black inequality and anti-black racism?

Can we make such a claim for our own Barbados — a nation that possesses a 95% black population? Do we possess a society of racial equality in Barbados? Have we rid Barbados of all or even most aspects of anti-black or anti-African sentiments and discrimination? I, for one, think not.

No-one — certainly not me — is claiming that Cuba is some exemplary post-racial paradise, but I truly find it hard to think of any other nation that has made a more solid contribution to the cause of Black dignity and upliftment over the past half century.

Perhaps Mr Degia could tell us– in measuring a country’s commitment to the cause of black dignity and equality– what weight should we attach to the fact that thousands of Cuban soldiers (most of them being volunteers) sacrificed their lives on the very soil of Africa fighting the forces of white supremacy?

Or what weight do we attach to the fact that for several decades now literally tens of thousands of Cuban doctors, nurses, engineers, and a host of other technicians have served in Haiti and in a plethora of other Black and African countries in an effort to contribute to their development?

In addition,what weight should we attach to the fact that Cuba has opened its schools and universities — free of cost — to hundreds of thousands of of black and African students over the course of the sixty odd years of the Cuban Revolution?

You say — Mr Degia — that Cuba made mistakes in its approach to fighting racism. You imply that it was a mistake for the revolutionary leadership to believe that the establishment of socialist programmes geared towards fostering social equality and delivering education, health, housing and other social services to the people at the bottom of the social ladder would be enough to disrupt and rectify the inherited racist social structure. Well, maybe it was too optimistic to think that a sheer commitment to socialist equality and human development would be enough,but which country has not made mistakes in its approach to fighting racism?

Mr Degia, you write vaguely and glibly of a white Cuban elite that represses black Cubans. But — tellingly — you provide not a scintilla of evidence, other than your nonsensical pointing out that the three Presidents of Revolutionary Cuba thus far have been white. In case you don’t know Mr Degia, two of those Presidents– the Castro brothers– were the historical leaders of the Revolution, and they happened to be white.

Though, truth be told, it is really difficult to think of Fidel Castro as merely a “white” man, for at an ideological level Fidel was such an enemy of the system of white capitalist supremacy that most of us consider him nothing less than a “black brother”. In fact the great Black Power advocate, Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) once described Fidel as the blackest man in the Americas!

Pray tell us Mr Degia, when was the last time you heard news of a police officer in Revolutionary Cuba shooting down an unarmed black man? Or when was the last time you heard of the state intelligence or law enforcement agencies of Revolutionary Cuba setting out on a campaign to subvert and bring down black office-holders? If you are looking for a society that is oppressive of black people, Mr Degia, you are looking in the wrong place— you have to shift your gaze a little further North.

Permit me to conclude — Mr Degia — by sharing with you the following FACTS about the racial make-up of the governmental administration that was elected to office in Cuba less than a week ago:-

(1) The National Assembly

The President of the National Assembly or Parliament of Cuba– Esteban Lazo Hernandez — is a black man, and of the 605 Deputies, some 36% of them are black or of African descent.

(2) The Council of State

The Council of State or Cabinet comprises 31 members, and close to half of its members (45.1 % to be precise) are black or of African descent.

(3) The Leadership of the Council of State

The leadership of the Council of State consists of eight persons — a President, a First Vice President, five other Vice Presidents, and a Secretary. Three of the eight members of this leadership cohort are black, including the First Vice President.

All the facts underlie that Cuba is making progress — very substantial progress — in solving the historic problem of racial inequality that the Revolution inherited! I wish the same could be said for several other countries that are well known to us.

The Windrush Generation, NOT Welcome in England

Posted on April 17, 2018 by David

392

Hours after the Windrush story broke the UK Prime Minister May has been forced into damage control mode to apologize to Black leaders. Is this the opportune moment to force the reparations issue?

Here is a link to The Sun newspaper article – Windrush generation – when did the children arrive, are they in the UK illegally and how many are there?

Submitted by Fatimah Farah Mohammed-Ali

Please share this blog

Like this:

Submitted by Terence Blackett

Please share this blog

Like this:

Submitted by Tee White

Please share this blog

Like this:

Submitted by Sherry Hosein Singh

Please share this blog

Like this:

Submitted by Pachamama (as a comment)

Please share this blog

Like this:

Submitted by Pachamama

Please share this blog

Like this:

Please share this blog

Like this:

Please share this blog

Like this:

Submitted by Rasjaziel

So how come it is the slave that has always been the leader in Harvest celebration?

The landless X-Slaves were brainwashed to celebrate Crop Over

Please share this blog

Like this:

Submitted by Dr. Kumar Mahabir

Please share this blog

Like this:

Please share this blog

Like this:

Please share this blog

Like this:

Barbados Private Sector Association: Moving Forward Together

Please share this blog

Like this:

Submitted by CARIBBEAN AGAINST APARTHEID IN PALESTINE [CAAP]

Media Release

Please share this blog

Like this:

Please share this blog

Like this:

Submitted by The Mahogany Coconut Group

William Skinner, Information Officer, MCG

Please share this blog

Like this:

Please share this blog

Like this:

Submitted by Grenville Phillips II

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Please share this blog

Like this:

Submitted as a comment by Lyall to the Open Letter to Prime Minster Mottley and Minister King

Please share this blog

Like this:

Open letter to The Hon. Mia Amor Mottley, Q.C., M.P. (Prime Minister) and The Hon. John A. King, M.P.(Minister of Creative Economy, Culture and Sports)

Please share this blog

Like this:

Submitted by Nathan’ Jolly’ Green

Please share this blog

Like this:

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Please share this blog

Like this:

Please share this blog

Like this:

Submitted by Ras Jahaziel

Please share this blog

Like this:

Submitted by Terence M. Blackett

Please share this blog

Like this:

Please share this blog

Like this:

Submitted by Robert D. Lucas,PH.D. CFS,

Please share this blog

Like this:

Submitted by Pachamama

Please share this blog

Open letter to The Hon. Mia Amor Mottley, Q.C., M.P. (Prime Minister) and
The Hon. John A. King, M.P.(Minister of Creative Economy, Culture and Sports)