We loyal sons and daughters all…
Strict guardians of our heritage
Firm craftsmen of our fate
The last two lines of the chorus of the National Anthem of Barbados states “strict guardians of our heritage, firm craftsmen of our fate”. Too often we have ignored the call of our National Anthem to firmly craft our own fate because we have been crafting the legacy of other countries and International organizations. International cooperation with other countries is fine but any cooperation that restricts the financial freedom and the social welfare of the citizens of Barbados is a slap in the face of our ancestors.
We know the history of Barbados. We were a colony of Britain (United Kingdom). Britain’s foreign policy along with the foreign policy of European nations such as France and Portugal was to extend its reach beyond Europe. Their foreign policy was to have a political and financial foothold in the West by any means necessary. We have heard of the arms race and the space race. The race between those European nations was to have as many colonies in the West as possible.
Barbados was one of those colonies and Britain was able to secure the Island of Barbados for itself. We provided land, labor and capital for Britain to increase its wealth and influence in Europe. We continued to provide those resources to Britain until the United Kingdom adjusted its foreign policy: Decreasing its participation in the political and social affairs of its colonies.
There were many reasons why the UK adjusted its foreign policy but I won’t get into that now. The UK “gave” its colonies the opportunity to become independent but it wasn’t true independence as the monarchy was still the Head of State.
I will speak more on this another time but the long and short is that Barbados has not firmly crafted its own fate since independence. We have spoken about doing it. Becoming a republic was supposed to be the start of something new; the start of a glorious era of self determination, but we continued down the same path-Crafting the foreign policy of others.