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Caribbean: Honouring a Legacy of Imperialism, Racism and Oppression
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By Nkrumah Lucien
April 24, 2009
The task of building a national consciousness out of two groups - on the one hand, descendants and beneficiaries of an exploitative class or group and on the other hand, the largely disenfranchised majority descending from the exploited group - is no easy task. This, perhaps, explains but does not excuse the failure since St. Lucia’s independence to seriously undertake this task. It may be that those who hold and juggle political power have neither the desire nor the required consciousness to embark upon such a project but there have been many occasions when the call for such to be done has been ignored. Instead, a superficial unity is established and called a national consciousness, to which all are expected to subscribe and to which only those who are ignorant of the continuation of many of colonialism's contradictions truly subscribe. The continued failure to do the necessary re-education, reparations and reconciliation to make this possible keeps us vulnerable to the agendas and indiscretions of those who still maintain a hold culturally and otherwise on our societies.
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By Nkrumah Lucien
President-UWIAA-St. Lucia Chapter
This was written in response to the Budget presentation of Prime Minister Sir John G.M Compton of St. Lucia April, 2007. Here is a link to the full text of the Budget : www.pm.gov.lc/2007_2008_budget_page.htm.
I was sitting on a mini-bus thinking about Prime Minister Sir John Compton's budget presentation and his promise of a 'relevant' education system. His definition was that a relevant education system was one that satisfied the needs of the job market. It was in keeping with the notion, which has been recently revived, that what has been lacking in our education system is the willingness to cater adequately to the provision of more vocational and skills training. This, in the mind of some, is why we have so many of our youth on the streets and such a growing problem with drugs, violence and crime. I wondered how different this definition of education might be from that implemented in the immediate aftermath of Emancipation. However, education is the crux of the progress of any society and must be understood in a wider context than only formal schooling.
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