Maybe we missed it in either the Nation News or the Barbados Advocate, but we can’t recall reading about the visit of the warship HMS Southhampton to Barbados last week. According to the ship’s website, over eighty “local dignitaries” attended an official shipboard reception on May 10th, and our Barbados Defense Force rugby team defeated the ship’s team 3-1. Several members of the ship’s crew also participated in a local Legion project to assist with some charity work at an elderly lady’s home.
Not one word in the media that we saw.
As was the case with the recent visit to Barbados by HRH Prince Edward, the Barbados media now goes to great pains to NOT report any reminders of our historical linkage to the United Kingdom.
Except slavery, of course. Slavery is the one exception to the “No reporting about British connections” rule.
The Barbados media happily reports such events as a lady who received a new waterjug from an MP, or how students felt about their 11+ exams, but God forbid that they should report which “local dignitaries” sipped British gin and tonic while representing Barbados on board a visiting British warship. God forbid that Barbados papers should report that British sailors helped out a senior citizen with house repairs.
They hate the British so much that they wouldn’t even report that our BDF rugby team trounced them fair and square.
Just what is the agenda here, folks?
Are Barbados political elites so insecure that they don’t want to acknowledge our historical connections to Britain? Or does the Queen stand in the way of those who would make Barbados into a real sugar republic?
Maybe we’re all wrong here. Maybe the media gave full coverage to the visit or did up some human interest stories that we missed.
Let us know and we’ll set the record straight, but for now we speculate that stories of visiting royalty or British warships just don’t fit in with the agenda of making Barbados a republic.
Republic.
How I fear that word. You think that Barbados has been raped now? Give Arthur and Mia their republic and see what will happen then!