MY BAJAN COUNTRYMEN often make me laugh.
Some enterprising individual, apparently with Trinidad connections, has decided to import and sell bottled water branded as Crop Over Water and that has my countrymen hopping mad, because in their opinion Crop Over is a Bajan institution which should not be stolen by Trinidad.
In any case they believe that we ought to be drinking Bajan water.
This view although strange is very prevalent, but when we look at it dispassionately, the calypsonians buy their songs from and record them in Trinidad, the bandleaders buy their costumes from Trinidad and both calypsonians and bandleaders enter these offerings in our various Crop Over shows.
So what are we complaining about?
When Trinidad bought the Barbados National Bank we complained. We complained when they bought Barbados Shipping & Trading. We complained when they tried to buy Banks Breweries. We complained when Keiron Pollard was named captain of the Tridents. In short we complain whenever there seems to be a Trinidad connection.
On the other hand, when the various commercial banks were owned by Canada, England or the United States, we had no complaints. When Banks Breweries was owned by Guyana we had no complaints. When all the insurance companies except Barbados Mutual were owned by Canada or England we seemed to glory in those days.
If Trinidad is part of Caricom, why is there a fuss?
Goddard Enterprises has companies and subsidiaries in 22 different countries; Sagicor has interests in nearly all Caribbean countries and trades on the London Stock Exchange. Williams Industries trades in almost every territory in the Caribbean.
We boast of our Bajan achievements, but cannot take the sour with the sweet.
What I have noticed, however, is that all of these so-called controversies seem to be fuelled by the media in the manner in which they frame the questions which they pose to those whom they interview. I am sure that if the media practitioners were to ask the same questions in a different format the results would be quite startling.
We boast of having achieved a high standard of education but sadly we have not reached the same high plateau when it comes to applying reasoning and logic to questions which are posed to us. We are still gullible and easily led where we should not go.
– ROLLINS HOWARD
