ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA LOST FOR GOOD!
By Yves R. Ephraim- In American history, the plight of the Indians is one that would cause your heart to drip large blobs of pain and hopelessness.
Regardless of how you feel about the American Indians and their way of life today, their experience demonstrates how an unassuming people can lose their land and culture to those they welcomed.
There are lots of historical accounts describing how the native Indians were relieved of their lands either forcefully or by subterfuge. And of course, these practices were fully condoned by the government of the day that was clearly influenced by the immigrant population. Sounds familiar?
From a people that once dominated the landscapes of the North American continent to a people now relegated to townships of drug addiction; high unemployment; political corruption; failed educational systems; crime; gambling; cultural displacement; and lack of representation.
Indian reservations are now famous for all sorts of vices including non-stop entertainment, casinos and “play”.
American Indian people today predominantly possess the lowest paying jobs in every area where they reside.
Mental illness is sadly and disproportionately their expected reality.
The American Indians are a people with no hope and who have now been mostly forgotten.
Can you imagine that a people with a fascinating history and past culture is now an endangered species?
In the 1830’s, a major turning point for the Indians was marked by what is infamously known as the “trail of tears” where all across the America. the Indians were hoarded and marched off their own lands during the worst of winters and in utmost humiliation, to government designated reservations.
Thousands of Indians lost their lives on that journey in the deadly cold, thanks to President Andrew Jackson.
It has been said that to ignore history is to set yourself up to repeat it.
Unfortunately, in our case it is not so much so that we have forgotten history than it is that we have not taken the time to examine history, thereby ignorantly repeating the same plausible fallacious acts of history, thinking that somehow, we are being innovative.
It is Einstein, and I am paraphrasing here, that declared that to do the same thing every time and expect different results is the sign of pure lunacy.
Are we in Antigua and Barbuda so deluded to conclude that if we adopt and accept the same practices that led to the displacement of past cultures that we are going to be the exception from the same deleterious results that history has repeatedly demonstrated?
Despite the early evidence of the signs of our cultural displacement, do we prefer to put our head in the sand and hope that all will magically workout well?
Have we totally outsourced our thinking to politicians and their sycophants as if they are “all-knowing”?
No one seems to care about the national interests, commonsense, ethics or godliness.
Here are the signs of a declining culture:
1. Antiguans and Barbudans are outnumbered in their homeland;
2. The Barbudans were stripped of their communal lands and have been confined to reservations, where they are expected to feel like they got a good deal;
3. Villa, Boobey Alley and Point people are systematically being marched off their lands in a type of “trail of tears” to other communities on the pretext of community development.
They are being replaced by immigrants that have collectively and openly given political allegiance to one political party. Villa and Point people’s property are being seized and torn down under the guise of beautification.
4. Your government has not acknowledged the “open secret” of the systemic destruction of our young men and women from the escalating “epidemic” of gambling and drug usage. There is practically nowhere you can go in Antigua and Barbuda without encountering the “aroma” of marijuana.
Almost one in every ten young man you pass has a blunt in his mouth. Practically, every construction site is fumigated with the smoke of weed.
Compounding this is the fact that this lifestyle is somewhat glamourized by their role model who is a “Dread”.
5. Crime is out of control despite the attempts to compare the rates with other territories. Our comparison should not be other territories but rather our own previous experience. By comparing to other countries, you get gaslighted into feeling like you are exaggerating;
6. Your language will now be replaced. You are not technically stopped from using your native language, but with the declaration of another language being official and spoken by the larger growing migrant population, I assure you that in the next 20 years the change will be inevitable, like Miami but in our case, with the full blessings and instigation of our own government.
It is one thing for this to happen organically, but with my government’s effort to accelerate it, I find this unacceptable.
It is worthwhile highlighting for the sake of employers, that with making another language official, you could find yourself in industrial court for discrimination.
Technically you cannot insist that a job applicant speaking Spanish only, be rejected for employment once that applicant possesses the requisite qualifications. This will be expected by our Labour Code.
As the employer, you must change your systems to accommodate.
7. Antiguan and Barbudan folklore, music, history are in full decline and there is no interest to preserve them. Who knows about “ashum”? What about “Bussey” or “Squeeze”, etc.
8. Books like to “To Shoot Hard Labour” which educate us on our history should be required text in schools. But who cares?
For years Antiguans and Barbudans have been implicitly taught to be ashamed of their own heritage.
It started with the colonizers making us feel that our “dialect” was bad; that our hair was bad; that our skin colour was bad; that our history has no value. We were taught European history, instead.
We can rattle off the continents of the World, but most of us do not know where to find the area called Bridgetown in Antigua and Barbuda. I must confess, that was my experience at one point.
It is bad enough that our colonizers would try to dumb us down and brainwash us, but it is rather egregious that the neo-colonialists are those that look and sound like us, that put barriers in the way of you and I achieving self-sufficiency and national awareness.
You have to accept that you have promoted self-hate by your apathy which has led to a culture of indifference to the open destruction of the structures of our history and the Antiguan and Barbudan way of life, both figuratively and in reality.
Are you not concerned that you are prioritizing the tracking of what the Lakers basketball or Arsenal football teams are doing more than you do about your homeland?
You obsess with the Republicans and the Democrats; with what Trump is doing with Iran; but ignore what is happening in the only place you can claim when Trump or the Reform UK party deport you.
Let us not forget the recent “Windrush Scare” as I will call it.
We are at a watershed moment in our history.
You really think that changing your flag is farfetched?
If you continue to ignore what is very evident and choose to remain apathetic then you must accept that we have LOST the battle to keep the Antiguan and Barbudan way of life, forever!
Your only chance of escape would be to hope that you can claim refugee status so that you will be eligible to be a third-country deportee.
It is time to speak up and reject adding a second official language other than our dialect!