Evidence of Errol Barrow’s influence continues to permeate Barbados and the Caribbean, Prime Minister Freundel Stuart told a thanksgiving service in memory of the Father of Independence yesterday.
Speaking at St Christopher’s Anglican Church, Stuart said he and the members of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP), which Barrow co-founded, were “pleased to be his distinguished successors”.
Stuart said Barrow lives because the things he stood for were deeply engraved in the hearts of people; and that the things Barrow did were engraved in immortality.
“He did not just communicate information, he communicated ideas. Because there is always new information to be communicated, and as long as you have access to it, you can communicate it. Ideas are a bit more challenging,” Stuart said.
The Prime Minister said the late Prime Minister introduced policies from 1961 that touched and transformed the lives of Barbadians “in every nook and cranny of this country”.
Stuart said Barrow was at the forefront of promoting regional integration as we know it today – from CARIFTA to the signing of the Treaty of Chaguaramas – and his influence even extended to the Caribbean Single Market and Economy.
The rector of the church, Reverend Canon Henderson Guy, told the congregation that Barrow was a visionary who thought outside the box.
In a thought-provoking sermon to the youth and young at heart, which was riddled with humour, Guy told the members of the DLP that in honouring Barrow’s memory, they needed to think as he [Barrow] thought and find new ways of doing the same things.
“When one thing does not work, try something else. All it means is that you’ve found one less thing that does not work. It does not mean you have failed.”
Guy said it was his understanding that Barrow cared for Barbados and would not allow it to be second-class among the nations. That being the case, the priest charged the current leaders with ensuring that Barbados was not second rate.
Guy also said Barrow did not win every election and knew how to deal with adversity. He cautioned the members of the DLP against being caught up in a flurry of activity and achieving nothing.
Five people from the parish of Christ Church were presented with the 2013 Errol Barrow Awards – Brenda Reid, Angela Goodridge, Anthony Welch, Wendell Kellman and Decosie Greene.
Errol Barrow Day will be formally commemorated next Monday. (YB)
