Reimagining, reclaiming and renaming

By *Jomo Sanga Thomas

(“Plain Talk” Nov. 1, 2024)

The celebrations marking the 45th anniversary of independence revealed some truths about our country. Among them are a strong sense of national pride, an abiding desire for national unity, and an undying hope that the government will do the right thing at the right moment for the right reasons.

The colours of the independence flag were on full display in the week before Independence Day and on the day itself. Thousands of citizens, especially women and children, proudly wore the colours to reflect a sense of national belonging. As has become the norm, a significant section of those who journey to the park did not so much to hear PM Gonsalves but in anticipation of his announcement of relief and benefits his government bestows on Vincentians in his annual independence address.

The independence celebrations demonstrated that we have settled for pomp and ceremony, form over substance, a warmed-over rehearsed ritual, in all things related to independence. Officialdom is definitively satisfied with flag independence, political independence, and a transactional approach to national development rather than reimagining who we are as a people and who and what we can be or ought to become. In a word, a project of transformation.

Imagine an SVG at 45 years old where most citizens cannot yet offer a clear and definitive explanation for independence. Imagine further that the population lacks the basic skills to articulate what an independent SVG ought to be like. 

Forty-five years after lowering the Union Jack and hoisting a national flag, we still mutter, “Rule, Britannia.” The symbols of our Britishness continue to loom large. The ground on which we assembled for independence is named after Queen Victoria, a British monarch who took her last breath in 1901. 

Forty-five years after we claimed independence, the decadence and moral depravity of the French colonial authorities remain in blasphemous display at Petit Bordel (little brothel). A reimagining of our nation demands an investigation of French atrocities against the men and women of that region. Understanding history, re-education, and a sense of pride requires removing the name Petit Bordel, a blemish on our landscape.

Forty-five years after the British overlords packed their bags and departed these shores, our leaders retain all Anglo-Saxon trappings and have successfully trained most of us to be dependent Afro-Saxons.

As a national project, we have settled for “development” on the margins: a building here, a monument there, a scholarship now, a house later: a promise, a smile, a hug, and a fleeting commitment to circle back.

Reimagining our nation requires us to interrogate ourselves and ask difficult questions. Why are we this way 45 years after independence? Who benefits from our ignorance and lack of cultural awareness and political consciousness? Have we allowed ourselves to be lulled into insomnia and dormancy? Do we like it so, or do we just not know better?

In understanding our condition and reimagining a future befitting a genuinely independent people, answering these questions, we should ask what Chatoyer, Nelly Ibo, Samuel Sheriff Lewis, Martha Butt, and other giants of an early generation think of us. What would they say? A proper answer to these necessitates us knowing about the exploits and achievements of these heroes and sheroes. 

We claim Chief Chatoyer as our only national hero, but do we know why he is elevated into such a rarefied space? Do we know of his decades-long struggle and sacrifice to protect our sovereignty and independence? Are our children taught about who smeared and killed him? Why is he called Garifuna? Who are the Kalinago? Where are they now? The word genocide is in the news now regarding the criminal actions of Israel against Palestinians and Lebanese. Two centuries ago, British enslavers committed a similar genocide against our ancestors.

Forty-five years after independence, no one bothers to remember Nelly Ibo, the enslaved African woman who was hanged because she executed the brutal, exploitative slave driver on a plantation on Mayreau. Very few Vincentians know of this act of heroism, and ten other females hung for plotting their path to freedom.

Oct. 21 marked the 89th anniversary of the 1935 rebellion. Samuel “Sherrif’ Lewis, aka Selassie and Martha Butt, were at the forefront of the struggle that led to the humanity of the majority African population and universal adult suffrage. The struggles led by Sherrif Lewis did more to advance democracy, secure the right to vote, and trade union organising than all of our politicians combined, with the possible exception of ET Joshua. Sheriff and his band of rebels fought for the recognition of what the celebrated Caribbean intellectual called our “sense of somebodyness”. Yet no one remembers them — no heroes’ honours for him.

Our quest for independence will be purely aspirational unless we tackle these foundational issues and questions. 

If we fail to reimagine, rename, and reclaim the calls of an earlier generation of young radicals for genuine independence, people’s ownership and control will remain, to quote Emperor Haile Selassie, “nothing but a fleeting illusion to be pursued but never attained.” As is becoming clearer by the day, our former colonisers are returning as investors.

To avoid such a monumental tragedy, we must seize the time and use every moment as an occasion for education, consciousness-raising and history-making.

*Jomo Sanga Thomas is a lawyer, journalist, social commentator and a former senator and Speaker of the House of Assembly in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

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