HAPPY FORTIETH, SON!

As we reflect on the 40th year since we were accorded what some consider a dubious freedom, most of us are proud to have survived the circumstances of our birth. When some of us were too reckless to care, we hung you up between two vile replicas of ourselves: ignorance and poverty on the right, jealousy and greed on your left. You were nailed to a white cross that one of your more illustrious sons had described as a “vicious cycle of poverty” in which bad working conditions aggravated poverty, leading to low productivity, to low income, poor health and poverty all over again. Past generations of families who died before you were born had to await the reshaping of our thinking in the more aggressive pattern of those who had crucified you before Britain would finally decide to set you down from that cross. Indeed, it would take the assistance of the United Nations group of 24 to make colonial powers set their colonized captives free to live and die as they please.

Today, as we mark 40 years of trying, with various degrees of success, to free our minds from seeing us as ugly and unattractive due to the lingering colonial education of the former “masters” and their religions puppets, we try to march forward with confidence as one people. We still suffer from the diseases of ignorance, poverty and backwardness but hope beckons on the horizon. We lament that some Christian churches have been taken over by desperate money changers and con-men who seem to forget that you had once lashed out against such greed from your father’s house of worship. Sadly, those modern perverts who say they have come in your name, take from the poor to give to the rich. Some seem determined to deny your people true freedom and happiness. Still we walk by grace, not by sight.  

The United Nations anti-colonialism declaration of the 1960s had determined colonialism to be an unacceptable institution. Some tried to condemn the UN and cast it aside as a mere talk-shop, lacking financial commitment and independent, progressive action. 

The constitutional garments you were fitted in at birth have become too tight and restrictive after 40 years. We therefore need to help you shed them for new ones. There’s need for more practical, thoughtful constitutional instruments of our own design and choosing if we are to continue to progress socially, economically and politically. We also need superior leadership to ensure such progressive constitution upgrade. 

Could it be that the ill effects of that dastardly colonial mindset are still bedevilling us, even at age forty? Are you aware that some of your people become grandparents as early as age 40? Do you think that the heat generated by the fumaroles in the southwest of the island is responsible? Or is it the special hormones and other compounds used to grow the imported chickens we consume that are responsible for the quick development of secondary sexual characteristics in your children?

Son, today, at age 40, you are old enough to appreciate the frank discussion  we have for far too long been postponing. On the day you came into being we were saddened to hear that your surrogate father had rejected the sobriquet “father”. Some people did not seem to mind preferring to think you fatherless. But the more thoughtful citizens were angry when he suggested your new independent status would not allow you to strut on the world stage like a Mr. Universe. Perhaps he wanted to say . . . like a boss! What was so wrong with a young nation making its presence felt in the world? Were we to carry on with our tails between our legs, as we were told we should by those who had first enslaved us and given us their white-stone god? We stride like a boss, not like an ass that knows not where it is going under his heavy load.

Today, as we celebrate 40 years of independence, too many of the youth you gave us have been denied the beauty of unity and a liberal education. The evil one still roams freely amongst the youth. Sadly, some law-abiding citizens bend their heads in shame, refusing to look wrong in its eye or call a spade a spade. They are afraid to call out evil even when such sits amidst those who are supposed to call sinners to repentance and redemption. Perhaps it is time that we acknowledge that we humans, whatever our profession or calling, will always fall short of the glory of God. Hence the reason we need to learn again, how to forgive and to love.

You will recall that those who had articulated more adequate preparation and a more nationalistic constitution prior to independence were cast aside, as in the sentiments of fighting Brigands whom early historians refused to recognize as your freedom fighters. Wouldn’t it be nice, at 40, to name some town or village or national park after these earlier freedom fighters—these Brigands? What about our national football teams? Why aren’t they called the fighting Brigands or the battling Brigands? 

Some people are just beginning to discover that a younger generation of Saint Lucians is making it on the world stage in their chosen fields. And have we forgotten, so soon, how Sir Arthur Lewis, Sir Derek Walcott and, yes, Mr. Rick Wayne topped the world in their chosen professions? The message is clear: we cannot continue to hold on to these 238 square miles when there is a world out there waiting for the next Bill Gates, Jeff Bozos, Arthur Lewis, Derek Walcott or Rick Wayne, even a Bob Marley.

I blame myself for not trying harder to give you a better understanding of the life of struggle and sacrifice lived by such icons as Marcus Garvey, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jn. and Malcolm X, among others. What have we learnt after forty years that we may now prescribe to the coming generation as a tried and proven path that they should follow? A life dedicated to hard work, charity, peace, love and prosperity is my wish for you on your fortieth. 

Remember, at forty you can no longer justify poverty except by ignorance, laziness and the rejection of a positive mindset. Please do away with jealousy and refuse to criticize those who work hard to provide for their families. Above all, don’t make excuses for mediocrity. Instead, always encourage excellence in all you do at school, work or play. Keep striving to remove the obstacles to progress in your path. 

Sunshine will return to point to you as the most luminescent jewel in the Caribbean chain that stretches from Cuba to Trinidad.