Vincentians should embrace their culture

Tue, Feb 28. 2012

Editor: Sometimes I wonder if we, as a people, love our country and are happy to be Vincentians. We seldom appreciate what is local and promote locals. Sometimes you wonder if we are living in a foreign land, because as Vincentians we are always critical of things local.{{more}}

The music that is played daily is Jamaican mostly and you would hardly hear a local song played. It makes you wonder if we are living in Jamaica. Our young people are influenced by this music that promotes gangs and violence. No wonder we have an increase in serious crimes. Our blessed land is infiltrated with foreign goods and even some adopt the Jamaican talks, and try to follow suit the foreign culture.

We try to pull down and criticize anything local and place foreign goods and people over our own. We would rather promote and accept a foreigner than a local. Sometimes you wonder if our local dishes and goods are not good. Maybe the local artistes suffer because their music is not good enough or they don’t have the finance to pay the disc jockeys to play their music. Even the way we dress suggests that we prefer foreign rather than our own. We sometimes hear people trying to talk like an American or some other foreigner; it makes me wonder if we are afraid of our accent and feel that other persons’ accents and talks are better than ours.

I think it is time we accept and appreciate what we have much more. Let us as a people stop the ‘pull down’ mentality and appreciate each other. Let us seek to love what we have and support our own people. It is time we seek to build our nation by supporting each other and appreciate and care whatever we have locally.

Thank you.

Kennard King