Environment Minister Trevor Prescod wants to see the statue of Lord Nelson removed completely from the Barbadian landscape.
As protests continue around the world, Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley
is expected to lay a Black Lives Matter (BLM) resolution in Parliament
on Tuesday.
“Government has informed me a resolution of Black Lives Matter will be
put on the agenda in the House of Assembly,” said Minister of the
Environment Trevor Prescod, gaining loud cheers from the scores of
protesters who gathered at Independence Square to show their
solidarity with the BLM movement sweeping across cities around the
globe.
While unable to give the details contained within the resolution,
which is currently still being drafted, he told the media the motion
will probably not be debated until the end of the week.
“The Leader of the Opposition, myself and the Prime Minister and
others will speak so that the entire Barbadian public, and the people
of the black world will know what our positions are,” he stated
yesterday afternoon.
Moments earlier during his speech, Prescod, a well known Pan
Africanist, also reiterated his stance on the controversial Nelson
statue, insisting it must be taken down.
“Nelson was strongly opposed to the advocacies of emancipation. The
works and records are there in Capitalism and Slavery written by Eric
Williams,” he stressed.
Also insisting that the statue must be removed, Secretary of the
Barbados Muslim Association, Suleiman Bulbulia, spoke on the 400-year
struggle of blacks against injustices which continue up to this day.
“I can’t breathe! The knee on the back of George Floyd is the same
knee on the neck of the enslaved and their generations from beginning
to now, the knee has not been lifted. It is a knee of racial
discrimination, oppression, injustice, intolerance, the handcuffs
around the wrist of your victims or the same shackles that bound the
enslaved fore-parents. I can’t breathe – the scream of those suffering
in their daily lives. Lack of education, no jobs, no equal
opportunities, poor housing, limited health care, unsanitary
environments and instead of bending a knee to pray, you bend a knee to
prey,” he expressed.
Moving the crowd with a stirring speech, poet and playwright Luci
Hammans also reminded persons of the injustices which exist here in
Barbados for blacks, including the discrimination of some employers
against natural hairstyles and the uneven wealth distribution amongst
the races.
The rally however was once again cut short as after a 15-minute grace
period was exceeded past the 1 p.m. deadline, members of the Royal
Barbados Police Force instructed coordinator David Denny of the
Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration the event had to end.
Even an intervention by Minister Prescod failed to deter the officers
and after singing a few songs, the majority of the crowd dispersed.
Last week’s protest in Wildey near the US Embassy was also brought to
a halt by police because numbers exceeded the Covid-19 restrictions of
ten persons for which permission had been granted. (JMB)