THE RIGHT EXCELLENT ERROL BARROW, national hero, will always be regarded as the greatest politician Barbados has produced. There was no other politician before or after him who can claim this distinction.
Barrow was a visionary, prophet, philosopher, teacher, statesman and a great leader.
If the present lot of politicians would make an effort to study the political life of this great Barbadian and meditate upon his speeches, I am sure that they would get a better understanding of what public service is all about.
Barrow knew that politics was about having a basic philosophy about improving the lives of the people one is called to serve.
The debate about land ownership for the ordinary Barbadian is nothing new. Barrow was concerned about this in the early 1960s.
In 1964 in his address to Parliament on the acquisition of land for the establishment of the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies, he made reference to the fact that 80 per cent of the plantations’ lands were owned by 360 people and these land owners were the ones making it hard for black Barbadians to own land .
“We have large numbers of people who cannot afford to buy land at the existing prices; we have people in the lower brackets, who, if this Government did not have a policy of providing for housing areas, would not have owned any land in Barbados.”
The Democratic Labour Party then, under the leadership of Barrow, was just as concerned about this issue as the present DLP under David Thompson.
Thompson’s concern like that of Barrow’s is grounded in the philosophy of the Democratic Labour Party as enshrined in its constitution. In 1964, Barrow asked this question:
“Are we going to let people who have been able to amass money come in from outside, and when the public programme demands that something be done, hold up the progress of this community on the basis that somebody can take an airplane trip to America and persuade somebody to pay more money than the Government is able to pay for a parcel of land”?
Every day the people from the United States and Europe are coming to Barbados with lots of money and buying up all the prime real estate to the detriment of the ordinary Barbadian.
It is a pity that the uncaring Government of the day is doing nothing about it.
Barrow’s prophecy is surely coming to pass that, one day, Barbadians will wake up to find that Barbados no longer belongs to us. Thanks to the BLP Government.
Mr Thompson, Barbadians are looking to you to continue fighting for justice and equality for all Barbadians. You soon shall prevail.
– WOLSLEY E. GRANNUM
2 Comments
November 13, 2007 at 10:09 pm
Trust me if I were ASSCOLL I would pick my opponents in debate very carefully and certainly I would run far as hell and hide as best as I could everytime I saw David Thompson coming my way because he does not come out of any debate too well once David Thompson is part of the debate, he was left in tatters and made to look a total idiot today.
(I know guys we know that he is an idiot)
Actually I am not sure that he ought to feel comfortable debating against any of them on the other side, sadly ASSCOLL there are no Gearboxes in the House of Assembly but based on his level of peformance today he may even be challenged in a debate with Gearbox his performance was that poor today to leave he and the party severely concerned about his status at election time.
What ASSCOLL has not realised is that the DLP has his measure and they know how and what to say that tears him to pieces and instantly his temper cuts in and he then becomes unable to speak or deliver what he wants to say, and from there it is all downhill rolling to the pit for him and today was a classic example of this manner.
When he fell apart today he did so in such a grand style the opposition and his own members began to laugh at him, anyone with any sense of pride and dignity would have been ashamed.
What a disgrace to the House of Assembly is this where it has reached ?
More amusingly was towards the end of the fireworks when he thought his mic was switched off he said to Prescod hey Pressie I knew he wanted to debate me but I got him , if ASSCOLL could seriously feel for a minute that he came out that exchange looking good he has to be mega sized idiot and clown.
The boy is simply an upstart and a clown , I am sure seeing that Owing has neglected his job since the Budget he must be smiling at the way watching he ASSCOLL being destroyed by he Owing and the party that he is so at home with and also in no small way David Thompson is becoming his worst nightmare, he seems to have these nightmares at every step along the way even in full daylight he is being haunted.
I sit and shake my head in disbelief when yet another day in the life of Parliament and our Prime Minister is yet again another no show, now let us put this no show into perspective when one considers that he has been a no show since the budget reply (where he received a hammering from Mr David Thompson with regard to his handling of that cheque) but since the budget until today he has not seen it fit to represent the people of St.Peter in the House of Assembly.
It begs the question what exactly is the reason that has kept him away from doing the peoples business, is it a fear of coming face to face with Mr Thompson ?
Or is it his fear that he will get some harsh questions about his handling of a multitude of questionable deals ?
Fear not Owing this will be addressed by the DPP after the next election, no not in the House of Assembly,no not just yet it will come when the time is right and ready.
You need not hide at this time you need to face the public and face the music.
November 13, 2007 at 10:10 pm
BU Report Emailed From The Parliament Of Barbados
November 13th, 2007 · 6 Comments
The parliament of Barbados today debated amendments to the Co-operative Societies Act. A member of the BU household listened to the ‘live’ debate with great interest and filed the following comment by email:
Several contributions were made on both sides of the Lower House which in a nutshell lauded the contributions by the several credit unions to the development of Barbados through the years. Special mention was made of of the assistance which credit unions have made to enfranchising the working class population of Barbados. We don’t agree with some of the amendments to the Co-operative Societies Act but we will defer comments until later. The fireworks bursted into a bond fire when Minister of State Clyde Mascoll rose to close the debate. In his opening remarks he labeled the contribution by Leader of the Opposition as ‘trash’ but he was quickly persuaded by the Deputy Speaker to withdraw his disparagingly reference to the Honorable member of St. John.
Before one could blink the debate descended to the bottom of a 40 foot pit toilet. In Thompson’s earlier contribution to the debate he had made mention to the time when Prime Minister Owen Arthur accused Clyde Mascoll, then a Democratic Labour Party (DLP) member of parliament and a director of the Barbados Public Workers Credit Union of misappropriating funds from the credit union. We always get a kick out of how MP’s under the cloak of parliamentary privilege seek to rubbish the reputations of law abiding citizens in the country. Those of us who heard that debate remember Arthur telling Mascoll to bring back the credit union money! Mascoll in his wind-up of the debate elected to defend himself by referring to the current DLP candidate Stephen Lashley who was the Chairman of the credit union board at the time, by deflecting Arthur’s accusation to mean the whole board. He also went on to mention the name Irene Sandiford-Garner who is another current DLP candidate. We will leave off the details about Mrs Irene Sandiford-Garner because we feel it was unfortunate that Mascoll mentioned her name at all. Mascoll’s opening contribution was interrupted several times by Thompson who rose on a point of order to remind Minister Mascoll that he should confine his rebuttal to what Thompson had reference Arthur as saying. Eventually the Deputy Speaker was able to wrestle order and a ruffled Mascoll continued with the job of winding up the debate.
Lessons learnt from the clash between Mascoll and Thompson this afternoon:
There is much blood letting which the public can anticipate in the upcoming election because of a vendetta which as emerged between the two
Mascoll, of the two appeared more ruffled and mmature in his desire to divert a serious debate for what seemed to be personal reasons. If we extrapolate based on the Mascoll performance this evening then…
Arthur’s continued absence from the Lower House created a vacuum which seems to have prematurely elevated Mascoll to speak on economic matters. Although Mascoll spoke with passion and showed intellect in his contribution we were let down at his inability to fuse some social concerns raised by other members in his presentation
All in all we were disappointed with the overall level of the debate which as usual proceeded down a party line.