Mr Speaker, sir, the Honourable Ronald Jones, Minister of Education, recently enlightened us on “high culture”, which elevates those who come into contact with it, and low culture which has the opposite effect. And he lamented the preponderance of low culture which is resulting in a decadent Barbadian society.
Mr Speaker, sir, at a time when unprecedented disasters are afflicting many countries, major economic powers are in recession, Oxfam has warned that “global hunger looms” with an additional 130 million added to the ranks of the “urgently hungry” in just one year, a time when superpowers have assumed the right to use naked force to change regimes in other countries . . . .
At such a time, sir, did the meaningless one-upmanship in this Budget debate – we did this, you did that, we did everything good, you are to blame for everything bad – constitute high culture, uplifting the society, or the other kind? I leave that to Mr Jones.
Mr Speaker, sir, last Sunday I was pleasantly surprised at the high culture exhibited by the 1688 Orchestra as they performed at the Speightstown Esplanade. These were young musicians who had passed through the Community College programme and they played with skill and accomplishment. Thankfully, they do not sing.
Leader Stefan Walcott should be complimented. And I offer some advice as one who has played in bands from the early 1960s. There were no resident singers in those bands. We played saxes and trumpets without amplification. In fact, at hotels the trumpets were asked to be muted until after dinner.
People came out week after week to hear those bands at dances, hotels and nightclubs. Nowadays, such bands are a rarity and Mr Walcott told us how young horn men find it hard to get work.
Maybe they are somewhat to blame. Jazz is musicians’ music where artistes can show off their skills at running scales to their hearts’ content.
It doesn’t please everyone or even a majority. Meanwhile there are irresistible genres of music played on those same instruments – one can think of Herb Alpert’s phenomenal success with Mexican-style brass – which people never tire of hearing.
The choice is yours. And so, sir, it is with we politicians. Only in an exactly opposite kind of way. We can choose to play to the gallery, engage in endless bragging and rhetoric, or we can do something positive to ride out these uncertain times, stimulate the economy, ensure food security and personal safety and guarantee that our national identity will not be compromised.
On this occasion, sir, we went for fluff. First off, these Budgets should be limited to one hour at most. They are being drawn out in the hope, many believe, that the Opposition spokesman will drop dead, or at least fall asleep, while trying to match the presenter’s longitude.
Mr Sinckler’s solo had him imagining he was Minister of Finance of Greece and he lost many of us there. Subsequent analysis suggests his measures won’t tackle our rampant overspending.
And if the Dems left us unclear as to where they are taking us, the Bees let us know they would take us back up the same garden path where we told them we aren’t going and which policies saw them skittled out of office.
Concentrating agriculture in the fragile, difficult to mechanize Scotland District while putting our best agricultural lands irreversibly into development is unacceptable. And why on earth would I rent 1 000 acres of land in Guyana when every day I drive past 1 000 acres of prime, unused agricultural land in my own country? And it don’t have snakes either.
Bees, you wouldn’t listen on Greenland. It cost us, it cost you. Go back to the drawing board and come again with different solutions. As our calypso king says: “No matter how long this recession last, lef’ de donkey dey, cause I ain’t selling my ass!” Nor are we selling our country.
Mr Speaker, sir, I have supreme confidence in the Bajan people. A new dynamic Barbados requires but one outstanding leader to take us forward. And at the next session, God willing, I shall propose a few measures for his consideration whenever he shall arise.
