March, bridge month

by Oscar Allen 13.APR.07

A bridge is a structure built over a depression and during the month of March, the government took the nation across some of the gullies and disconnections in our territory. Once more, in March 2007, we sought to connect ourselves to a heritage that colonialism covered up and call dirty and common and black, yet even today, we still call the language that we created “broken English”.

In March too, we exalted for a few days, the eminent national hero of our patriotic war, the Callinago Chief Joseph Chatoyer. He is the link to our people and culture that were here before Christopher Columbus – those who came from South America and those who came from Africa.{{more}} Also in March, we visited the fact that 200 years ago, transatlantic social and political forces pulled the opinions of Britain’s middle class alliance away from the slave trade. Parliament bowed to their sway and the King signed off on the trade in Africans on 25th March, 200 years ago.

In March, our parliament, respecting the voice of the Indian sub community – another people hauled across oceans to break the power of the new African – Caribbean workers, opened the calendar to enshrine the Indian arrival and presence.

In March, we bridged Rabacca, removing a physical depression and symbolizing a mental liberation. SVG becomes Carib Country again – Yurumein. Another Garifuna leader will govern in time.

At the end of March, we bridged in spirit and reversed the Caribbean Middle Passage. Sons and daughters of Chatoyer and Duvalle came home and we hosted a new our still embattled and valiant Garifuna offspring. They, the restored remnant of the holocaust and bloodbath of William Young, Alexander Leith and Balliceaux.

In March 2007, we got into historical bridge building without any profound intention to do so. We can say that it was just the natural socio political thing for a progressive government to do. We can leave it at that and bathe ourselves in the glowing sense of pride, national unity and manifest achievement.

Or we can go on an appreciative inquiry to examine more clearly what we have done? In March.

As April rushes on, the Rabacca-Yurumein Taiwan Bridge will be one concrete monument of our community building intent and programme, or will it? Will the bridge be a benchmark of the progress and programme of unity in our community, or will it be merely the bridgehead for a 3rd Unity Labour Party Government?

What is to be the legacy of this Bridge Month, March 2007? What is future?

I would like Bridge Month to unveil for us a vision, not of concrete connections, but of a political spirit flaming in each and all of us. A spirit to break down and to build up. A politics of love and loveliness, in our world.