There is no doubt that there was tremendous hype surrounding the staging of this year’s summer festival. The festival’s 40th Anniversary was arguably the event of the year. From start to finish one could feel the excitement in air, over what was promised to be the best festival ever. Many Anguillians living abroad, and tourists, graced our shores to be part of the festival fever – and those persons residing here were equally infected with the festival bug. There is just something about the Anguilla Summer Festival that puts everyone in a good mood, helps people to relax and unwind and simply enjoy the festivities. While it is a time for merriment, it is always important for us to remember that we did not always have this privilege.
I was pleased when preparing for Sabbath worship, during the week the festival began, to tune in to Radio Anguilla and hear a dialogue – on the Social Solutions programme – between the Reverend Dr Wycherley Gumbs, Methodist Minister, and Pastor Gary Hodge of the Hilltop Baptist Church, about how persons in all the revelry often forget about the origins of the festival and reason for it. The same point was made by Mr Victor Banks in one of his articles in this paper a few years ago.
It may be that our past is so painful that we often prefer not to focus on it, but to focus solely on the present. However, we must be mindful that we cannot truly appreciate the present without a thorough understanding of the past. That is probably why some of our young people take so many things for granted. When we consider that the system of slavery lasted for over three hundred years, and emancipation is only one hundred and eighty years old, then we recognize that as a people we have been slaves for longer than we have been free. That painful history of enslavement, which robbed us of our dignity as human beings, clothed us in humiliation and entrenched divisions between us that we are still grappling to comprehend, cannot be easily overcome. We were the tools used to make other countries wealthy, while little attention was paid to our own country. Since we cannot reverse history, then we have no choice but to move ahead but not blindly so.
There are a lot of lessons that we can learn from our past, the first being that we must always seek to preserve the rights and freedoms of every individual in our country from erosion. Another lesson is that, if we stand together our voices are stronger and our ability to effect the changes we want to see is greater. Further, just as we worked to advance the interests of others, we can do so for ourselves once we are working towards a common purpose. Additionally, we have to be patient with ourselves as it will take centuries to move past the psychological, systemic and financial scars left on our race and our islands by being enslaved.
Interestingly, CARICOM is now seeking reparation on our behalf from those European countries whose pattern of conquer, enslave and pilfer has resulted in our underdevelopment. Professor Hilary Beckles, a renowned Caribbean historian and Head of the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus, was selected to take the lead on the presentation of CARICOM’s case and that process has already begun. If we are successful, this would be one step in the healing process that can provide hope for our region’s emergence from the developmental lag. While it will probably take many more decades to “correct”, if this is even possible, the after effects of enslavement, the lesson in this for us, should be that we have a right to demand what is rightfully ours and we should not be afraid to do so. Apart from this, the most poignant lesson I believe we ought to take away from our history of enslavement is that if as a people we can overcome slavery in its most horrific form then, with God’s help, there isn’t much that should be too difficult for us.
While very few carnival revelers may think about these issues when they are participating in the various events, it is important that at the beginning of the festival we pause as a nation to reflect on the fact that this celebration is rooted in the observation of emancipation. While there ought to be much joy in this, the solemnity should not be overlooked. We may find that in time to come, if we ensure that the painful past is always acknowledged, the summer festival celebration would be much more meaningful for everyone.
