Transcript of remarks delivered by the Honourable Mia Amor Mottley, Q.C., M.P., Prime Minister of Barbados at the 2019 Independence Day Parade
Kensington Oval
November 30, 2019
Happy independence Barbados.
Before we start this morning. I would ask all of us to stand and observe a moment’s silence for the passing of Irving Burgie, the writer of the lyrics of the national anthem of Barbados who passed last night from this earth. May his soul rest in peace.
My first pleasant duty this morning is to congratulate all of you who have been the recipient of our nation’s honours and awards. And I start with the children of this country. You are our future.
And our government determined last year that we could not celebrate our nationhood without including you and allowing you to understand that on your shoulders already lies the mantle of leadership. Leadership of your colleagues. Leadership of your friends. Leadership in your family. Leadership in your community. And we pray that by our recognition nationally that you will continue to be inspired because your road is a long road and yours is a serious duty to help us uplift this nation of ours, such that those who come after you shall always be inspired to give of their best.
I say to you, on behalf of a grateful nation as they had boys and girls of your respective schools. Congratulations.
Your Excellency, I am honoured to thank you for conferring the various honours and awards upon our citizens of this nation.
Those who have received it today have all acted with honour and dignity and are worthy of the commendations and honours that have been bestowed on them. To each and every one of you, I say congratulations.
And I said so conscious that this nation has continued the path of reclaiming our destiny and writing our own history by the establishment of the freedom of Barbados, an award that is shaped in our own image, declared by a free people and worthy of us all because it reflects the best of who we are and what we want to celebrate, not just within the context of Barbados, but through the confirming of the honorary award, our recognition that we are not an island alone in this world, but that we too have a voice and can also reflect on those whom we believe have given honourable service to humanity and in particular to the African and Caribbean diaspora.
This morning, as I address you, I am conscious that this is the last year of the second decade of the 21st century and that the next ceremony of our independence will be the first in the third decade of the 21st century. And I want to talk to the young people of this nation in particular, but I ask those of us who may still feel young, but the age is not reflected in the birth certificate to be so young, to recognize that the message is equally appropriate to you, because we have come to this juncture as a nation confident that we are better than we were fifty-three years ago, but not yet where we want to be. In particular, the last 18 months have been a trial to test our resolve and our resilience; to appreciate that we too are required to make sacrifice to stabilize this nation.
And we have done well. We have done well. We have stabilized our condition such that the Barbados dollar is no longer at risk.
And for the young children, what does that mean? That we can continue to give you the stability that you need because we can plan according to knowing what our prices will be, how we can get the most that we can get when we pay our people, and we have confidence and stability in there. But after we have done that, there is still much that we need to do to grow. And just as young children, you must grow from infancy to primary school children to secondary school children, to young adults, to big adults; this nation must also grow.
And I ask us, therefore, to pause with me to reflect in the words of the gentleman whom we just paid tribute to and our national anthem as to what kind of Barbados we want to live in in the future. Will we write our names on history’s page with expectations great?
What kind of fate will we be firm craftsmen of? And I ask you this because the choice is in our hands.
And as we reflect today, I ask us to do so with purpose, because each and every one of us in this stadium within this country has the capacity to alter the nation’s course and destiny. Our old people used to tell us that what one-one blow does kill old cow. That many hands make light work. But the simple message is that each of us can make that definable difference.
And we ask you what kind of country you want to live in? What do you want people to say about Barbados ten years from now? What do you want people to read when they Google Barbados, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years from now? We have to ask ourselves these questions because where we want to be will not happen by accident or by serendipity. It happens because we have set out to build a nation and the mold the people. And in so doing, we remind you that as of the 1st of January 2020, we have invited all of our own to return home in ‘We Gatherin’. We Gatherin’ 2020 is intended parish by parish to allow us to perfect our finest vision of ourselves, to have the conversations, to see where we are going well and where we need to do better. To recognize that to err is human and that it is within us always to pick up and do better each and every day. So I ask you to reflect.
The children of this nation. What will you do to help make us a better place?
How can you, by your learning, by your behaviour, by your caring for each other, reach out to give yourselves the best possible chance as an adult of Barbados, to be able to earn to be able to do credit to your nation by your living by whatever you do?
Are we satisfied that we have been doing enough? Can weapons in a school bag be a tool of trade? Or do we not need still to be concentrating on books and tablets that unlock wisdom and knowledge for you?
These are the things that we must reflect upon.
And as we mix with each other, as I listen to you, as I move through the schools of Barbados, I am conscious that the art of listening and the art of forgiveness and the art of tolerance are critical to be instilled in our children of this nation.
We can do better and as we do so I ask you simply to remember a few things. That in life, we must talk with people and not to or at people. That we must care about one another. It’s no use saying that I care if the rest of the people around me don’t care. So what will we do to allow people to pause and recognize that hearing is the first step to wanting to protect and not wanting to harm? If these things are instilled in all of our children, anchored by the learning that you reach and acquire the skills that are given to you, then we know that our nation’s future will be assured.
But we cannot, we cannot do it if we are not prepared to listen to each other, to tolerate different opinions, to have someone harm us and not believe that you need an eye for an eye, but that you can forgive and that the power of forgiveness is the greatest example given to us by Jesus, by God, and indeed by those who have been revered in the world like Nelson Mandela.
I ask us also to look upon and see whether the anti-social behaviour, the cursing, the steupsing, the flaring up, add to our being able to keep a peaceful nation or do they not ratchet up the tempers of those who might find themselves regretting their actions at a future date.
But it isn’t only the anti-social behaviour. And in communities, and in households, children see examples.
And we have to ask ourselves, is this the example that we want to set for our children? Go in any primary school in Barbados, and you see angelic almost faces, innocence, a desire to want to please, a hunger for love. And we ask ourselves, how do we move from this stage to one of absolute anger and exasperation and intolerance? At what point do we as adults look on and look off? How do we live with ourselves without believing that the well-being of our neighbour’s children and the well-being of our neighbour matters? It matters because that is the only way we can nurture and build the best possible nation that we can build. I ask us to look at it in terms of the kind of country we want to keep.
And I say so conscious not the road to be able to stabilize this nation has not been an easy one. We had as a government first to stop the bleeding, to restructure our debt, then to find the money, to place the orders for the garbage trucks, for the buses, for the things that are needed to keep our society clean and orderly and to be able to deliver the basic service to our people.
Mercifully, even every long manufacturing process comes to an end, and the first two garbage trucks arrived yesterday with 10 more due within two weeks and with the others due within a matter of weeks. But no matter how clean the Sanitation Services Authority makes this country; if we as individuals and households don’t agree to take responsibility for our surrounding us was done by our grandparents and great grandparents, we will not have a clean nation.
My friends, our people, our family, our friends, our returning home next month, from the 1st of January, I should say and we have a duty, just as you do at your home, to keep it clean, to make it clean and to keep Barbados spotless.
Let us all in the spirit of Christmas, in the spirit of all that we were taught for the month of December, as we take down our houses to put them back up, to clean them. Let us not only clean inside. Let us clean to the front. Let us clean to the back. Let us clean to the side.
Your government will also make arrangements to put people in charge of different districts, because our view is that that cannot be the simple job of somebody coming to work every day, but that people will be contracted to keep their communities clean along the highways and the culverts so that we don’t have the flooding and that we can clean this nation in the way in which we know it ought to look. My Cabinet will tell you that it is the one thing that I complain of incessantly because I know as a people and as a nation, we can do better.
So let December be that month where all Barbadians gather. And I ask you, the young people and the children of this nation be the eyes and the ears, but also be the hands and the feet to help us achieve this goal.
The launch yesterday of more than a million on a hundred and sixty-six and our mission that we should plant more than a million trees on a hundred and sixty-six square miles. Yes, is to say that we will play our part in the climate crisis. Yes, is to say that we want to have more shade, more food, greater security and a prettier nation in terms of the greenery. But it is also to say that if we accept that we want to beautify our nation, then we need to clean up the bush and the garbage around and government and households, we will work together to make that definable difference because that gap that has been brought upon us will now be closed with respect to the trucks, but you the people will make the final difference.
And it isn’t only anti-social behaviour and the environment that I want to speak to you about this morning. I also want to talk to you about the issue of productivity. Doing the best that we can do and doing more. Our nation has been beset by two things: one, those who will want to profit at the expense of all others, particularly in areas where we know there needs to be balance. My government has been clear that we need to ensure that when prices can be brought back down, they ought to be and that profit for the sake of the almighty dollar, cannot only be the thing that this country worships.
There are people who must eat well if we are to fight the chronic non-communicable diseases in this country. Diabetes is too high! The incidence of high blood pressure and stroke, young people among your parents and grandparents, and regrettably, diabetes among young people is too prevalent.
We have to change how we eat. We have to change how we behave. We have to do more exercise. We have to be more active. And I ask us to hold hands in this mission, because if the price of fresh vegetables is outside of the reach of the average household, they will feed themselves on a diet that will only make them worse off.
So, my friends, let us work together to be able to increase the production of fresh food and vegetables in this country and let us not only in our households do it, but where it is available, understand that we can make excessive profits in other things, but not at the expense of the health of this nation.
I also in the spirit of talking about productivity, want also to speak to all of us who come to work every day. All of us. From Ministers to maids, from soldiers and police, and nurses and teachers, from gas station workers to clerical workers, regardless of where our station is, we must be prepared to give each day the best eight hours, if that is our tour of duty that we can give. Not six, not five, not four, but give what is required of us. Because when we think we are shortchanging the institution for which we work, we are really shortchanging ourselves.
If we can increase our productivity, if we can do our job better, if we can be faithful to the task at hand, then I assure you this country will move and you will be able to answer affirmatively that you are writing your name on history’s page with expectations great.
The last matter of which I want to refer, and I do so in the presence of our friends from the other nations of the world, that Barbados has over the course of the last 18 months, signaled to you that we may be small, but we believe that ours is a voice that still counts and is relevant and that we have a story to tell to the rest of the world. And we stand for something.
So that when I say to the young children of this nation, as I did that Darryl Jordan yesterday, as I did at Alexandra School on Wednesday, as I did at Blackman Gollop last Friday, sit proud, stand tall and speak clearly because you come from a great nation, while though small, that stands for great things and principle. A nation that is friends of all and satellites of none; a nation that understands our responsibility to speak truth to power respectfully, but to speak truth to power.
And this morning I’ve spoken to you in this way, because it is not always about celebration and good news. When you belong to a family, you have to talk straight sometimes to the people who live in the household with you. You know it and I know it.
And you and I know that if we want to be a different nation in a different space in 10 years, 20 years, then what we do each and every day from now on counts. What fate will we be firm craftsmen of? What history will we write? We have determined internationally that Barbados’ name once again must stand for something and Barbados must punch above its weight continually.
When I was invited to address the parliament of Ghana, I did not do so as Mia Mottley. I did so as the prime minister of Barbados; a nation whose history is largely grounded in that part of Africa, who for between 1635 and 1700, many of the people who walked the length and breadth of this nation, spoke Akan. And the history is unfolding as to other revolts that took place that we have not yet started to teach our children.
But as we celebrate that proud history, we equally must be prepared to make room in this nation for each and every Barbadian regardless of race, regardless of gender, regardless of age, regardless of all of the things that would otherwise differentiate us from each other because it is only in so living as one, that we can perfect the actions necessary to build this nation and to mold the people. In the words of Ernie Smith, “you cannot build a nation or a hut on an if or a but,” we must build it on the solid foundation of each and every one of our citizens.
So, my friends, as I draw to the end, I ask the people of this nation to let us be prepared to reflect that the power of choice is ours. What do we want people to read about Barbados in 10 years and 20 years time? What do we want people to Google? What history are we prepared to write in the words of Irving Burgie? Will it be with expectation is great? Shall we truly be firm craftsmen of a glorious fate, or shall we be firm craftsmen of a fate that causes us to spell destruction?
I know where your government wants to lead you, but I am old enough to know that a government’s wishes or a government’s actions alone shall not build a nation, and mold the people. I ask the church to step up to the plate to allow us to bring back a level of parenting in this country, such that each of us takes responsibility for these wonderful young people.
What they come to life with? I was horrified when I realized that some of our young children don’t even know what a sour sop is. A sour sop. A sugar apple. They know about grapes. They know about English apples.
And we have to ask ourselves whether we are doing the job of passing on the knowledge that is necessary as we received it. We have to also ask ourselves whether we appreciate that children cannot raise children and that the gift of conception does not appear in me so that our church, our civil society, our community groups and our sporting groups that we are not seeing in the numbers that we used to. These are all necessary to build a nation and to mold a people.
And Sir Gary, The Right Excellent Sir Garfield, as we stand here at Kensington, the symbol of excellence for our nation, I ask you by your presence to forever imbue in this nation that sense of excellence for which you have been known globally and for which all Barbadians have received a tremendous pride, but to send the message that each of us can achieve it too if day by day by day, we vow to make a better Barbados.
My friends. God bless this nation of ours. And may we all recognize that we are a fortunate and lucky people. And as I leave you, I can’t sing as I tell you but I want those words from the kids: I say, “B”. I say, “BA”. I say, “BAR”. “BARB”. “BARBADOS”.
God bless BIM.