Publication: Weekend Nation
Paper Section And Page: 9
Paper Date: Fri, Aug 25, 2000
FRIENDS, Bajans, pork-lovers! All glory, laud and honour to the Almighty who brought us victory last week. E'en now the Bajan battle-cry of freedom rings out: "Ikkidore, ikkidore, here I stand, the Queen's still the queen and Owen is de man. Send him victorious, happy and glorious, long to reign over us, God save Owen!"
See how the routed republicans rushed rapidly to rue their ruin! They thought they could ram republication up our rostrum without representation. But Owen clapped a referendum in their maw and left them gasping. Verily it is written: "He is a small man, but a mob o' man!"
But, friends, last week the Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold, his cohorts gleaming in purple and gold. He was beaten, but not defeated. We won a battle, not the war. And even now as he licks his wounds, he is planning to come again, not in purple and gold, but with craft and cunning. Our old people used to say, "First trick ent no trick." But twice now he has outsmarted us with his big-foot moves. It must not happen a third time. Let us study his methods and be prepared. Behold: He wanted to move Nelson. He could find no justification. So what did he do? He declared that Trafalgar Square should be renamed Heroes Square. In our innocence, we accepted that. And then he turned his logic on us: this place, he said, is now named National Heroes Square. Nelson is not designated a national hero. Therefore he must go. We were left confounded. Big-foot move. Behold again: the Atalky-General, as he has been called, promised Arch Hall residents the landfill would be moved from Mangrove Pond. But the experts they brought in declared that Mangrove Pond, if properly run, was the number one site for a national landfill. Greenland came in at number four, as I recall.
So what did the Assyrian do? He called up the foreign experts and gave them new instructions: find me a dump site, he said, in the St. Andrew area, of summuchy acres, beginning with the letter G, not far from Conrad Hunte playing field, where the Cement Plant used to dig, and so on.
I exaggerate, of course, but it is generally agreed the experts were left with little option but to choose Greenland. Once again we had been outsmarted. Big-foot move.
So what will the Assyrian come with this time? One suspects he will manipulate the referendum question. The issue before us simply is: do we want Barbados to change from a monarchial to a republican form of Government. That is all.
It has been said that some Bajans reject republication because they don't want a black head of state. Many years ago, in a column entitled I Thought I Was Independent, I questioned whether the Queen of England should be our head of state. Since then, I have suggested the crowning of Queen Nita, and more recently King Clifford I. My record is clear. So they couldn't mean me. We have prospered under monarchial government and have a proud history in that direction. Even when the English executed Charles I and tried republication for 11 desolate years under Cromwell, the people of Barbados remained loyal royalists.
There is no need to change now. Just last week I met up Ras Bat with a picture of a group pinned to his shirt. "That is the royal family," he told me proudly. It was: the royal family of Aethiopia, descended from the line of King Solomon and a worthy choice of royal family if that is what our people want.
But one gets the impression the people will not be given that kind of
choice. The question the Assyrian will want to ask in the referendum will
be more like: "Should our head of state be a Bajan or a foreigner?"
Xenophobia, the morbid dislike of foreigners, is probably the most
primitive and basic of human emotions. It had its place as a protective
mechanism in tribal societies. It has no place in the year 2000 when
perhaps more Barbadians live in other countries than at home and
productive foreigners have come to settle among us.
The question about the Barbadian head of state being a Bajan or foreigner is designed to elicit a racial, xenophobic response. It is not the same as deciding between a monarchy and a republic. We must reject and condemn it as the big-foot move it is and let the Assyrians know they can't fool all the people all the time.
They need to be taught that first trick
ent no trick. And one-smart does often dead at too-smart door.
- Richard Hoad is a farmer and commentator on social issues.