The following address/sermon was delivered by Mr. Fahie on Emancipation Sunday, August 1, 2017, at St. Mary’s Anglican Parish Church in The Valley. Mr. Fahie, a Sunday School Teacher and an occasional Lay Preacher, was encouraged by his listeners to publish his sermon in The Anguillian as a wider public presentation.
Anguilla has come a long way in 50 years since the Anguilla Revolution. But the cultural foundation for this progress was laid in the 133 year period from Emancipation to the Anguilla Revolution.
I offer some comments on Anguilla’s journey to date and do so with reference to the story of Israel’s liberation from slavery in Egypt.
It is time that we measure the objective progress we have made in Anguilla starting with consideration of the economic front and proceeding to cover all other areas – political, psychological, social and cultural, health, education, ethical/religious, environmental.
We must also consider our failings and there are some glaring ones.
From Exodus 3:7-10 New International Version (NIV)
The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey – the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
Inspiration from freeing of Jews from Egyptian Slavery
Just as God raised up Moses to free the People of Israel from slavery in Egypt, so too he has always raised up prophets and leaders and rulers from among his people in other generations and throughout the ages up to today. And part of God’s purpose in this regard is to work his will through them to inspire and guide and direct his people to bring about the transformation of their communities and achieve their liberation from bondage and deprivation in the different areas of life, on different levels and in different ways.
This is one way of looking at and understanding the source of the stimulus and inspiration that drove the various leaders of the cause to devote their time and talent to the struggle for the abolition of chattel slavery in the British Caribbean Colonies. This of course came to fruition in 1834 with the emancipation of the enslaved Africans from legal bondage and the termination of their status as property owned by the plantation owners and other slave holding businesses, households and individuals. Such leaders of the Abolition Movement, it must be noted, were not drawn only from among enlightened politicians, religious leaders and morally motivated outraged social and reform activists from outside of the enslaved African communities. Without the ongoing passive and often active resistance of those in bondage the system of slavery could have persisted and dragged on for a number of years. The enslaved played a vital role in their own liberation from the system of slavery and in its demise in the British Caribbean Colonies.
But the question is: Did legal emancipation lead to a radical transformation and improvement in the lives of the formerly enslaved Africans, especially in terms of their material welfare? History bears out the fact that it did not. And so the process of liberation and emancipation proved to be much more complex than may have been anticipated and the forces of conservatism and resistance to change, to rapid and radical transformation were much stronger and more resilient.
We can draw a similarity to the experience of the Jews of old enslaved under the Pharaohs in Egypt whom the Pharaoh in Moses’ day was determined to keep in bondage, even at great cost to himself and his people, the Egyptians. Exodus Chapters 7 to 12 give an account of the 10 plagues that the Lord visited on the Pharaoh and on Egypt that finally broke Pharaoh’s resistance to Moses demand as God’s messenger to set the People of Israel free.
The enslaved Africans in the Unites States of America drew a parallel between their condition and that of the Israelites under Pharaoh as they yearned to be free. And ever so often they took strong action towards the achievement of their freedom. The Negro Spiritual “Let my People Go” immortalizes this association between the Exodus story and the struggles of the Africans to achieve an end to their bondage in America under the slave regime that existed there at the same time as in the British West Caribbean Colonies.
I now quote extensively from “Let my People Go”:
1. When Israel was in Egypt’s land,
Let My people go!
Oppressed so hard they could not stand,
Let My people go!
Refrain:
Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt’s land;
Tell old Pharaoh
To let My people go!
2. No more shall they in bondage toil,
Let My people go!
Let them come out with Egypt’s spoil,
Let My people go!
Refrain
3. Oh, let us all from bondage flee,
Let My people go!
And let us all in Christ be free,
Let My people go!
Refrain
4. You need not always weep and mourn,
Let My people go!
And wear these slav’ry chains forlorn,
Let My people go!
Refrain
5. Your foes shall not before you stand,
Let My people go!
And you’ll possess fair Canaan’s land,
Let My people go!
Refrain:
Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt’s land;
Tell old Pharaoh
To let My people go!”
Many actions were taken both by the enslaved Africans in the British Caribbean Colonies and by the abolitionists from among the free classes of society in Britain to bring about the legal abolition of slavery. However, the resistance took years, decades and centuries before it achieved success. It must be acknowledged that the resistance to the enslavement of Africans as chattels was pursued from the very start of the system. The financial gains and profits made by those who pursued and maintained chattel slavery on the sugar plantations in the British Caribbean Colonies were quite great for a very long time. As a result, the resistance to sugar plantation slavery in the Colonies was in the minority throughout most of the period of the existence of the system. The exception was the final years before Emancipation was finally implemented.
And yet when Emancipation was finally granted, it proved to be largely hollow. This is attributable to the fact that the pro-slavery interests continued to wield considerable power and influence. They leveraged this power to try and ensure that their plantation businesses continued to function and to be profitable in the labour environment of free labour, wherein the former enslaved Africans would now have to be paid wages for their work.
The former slave owners conspired and the political authorities enabled them to severely restrict the freed Africans, now supposedly owners of their labour power, their skill, talent and knowledge. They were supposedly free to make their own choices about what to do with their labour. The effect was to ensure that in operating terms the plantation system of cane sugar production continued for another 150 years and over following emancipation. The system after Emancipation depended on the labour of the descendents of the formerly enslaved Africans to produce the sugar, at starvation wages, until the labour eruptions of the late 1930’s led to the rise of labour unions and the acquisition of political power by the laboring masses, with the winning of universal adult suffrage, giving them the right to vote in periodic elections to choose representatives to make policy and decisions on behalf of the society as a whole.
Economic Fortunes – Emancipation to Revolution
What was the experience in Anguilla like? Anguilla, because the plantation system was not financially profitable, had a somewhat different experience to the other British Caribbean Colonies. The Anguillians’ experiences were shaped by the necessity to achieve physical survival through subsistence farming and by some of the free members of the community migrating around the Caribbean seasonally in search of work, including working on the plantations in neighbouring islands. At the end of the day, Anguilla’s post emancipation experience was in some ways more dire than the experiences in some of the other British West Indian Territories, where the sugar plantation had many more decades of profitable operations in them. Hence the proposals and schemes to remove the entire population from Anguilla and to settle our forebears elsewhere in the region.
The persistence of our ancestors provided the foundation for what we have achieved in material terms as a people. And yet our journey is for from nearing the finish line of our quest to build a new Anguilla. Out of the hardships of the decades since 1834, the Anguillian spirit was fashioned and hardened and was imbued with an indomitable faith in the unfolding decades that God would help the People of Anguilla to turn our deprived land into a mini Cinderilla in which future generations would enjoy “milk and honey” .
Indeed the current generations have had a foretaste of the substantial progress we have achieved in going from a highly deprived land and people to a land in which we can and have begun to enjoy comfortable living standards, what is usually referred to as a middle class standard of living. This is a far cry from the devastation that our forebears experienced in the 19th Century from drought and famine and hurricane.
From low Income to middle Income
It is time therefore for the story of the material progress in terms of the economic welfare achieved by our people, since 1967, to be researched and told and discussed. The 1967 Revolution was critical in that it forced our people to put their money where their mouths were in a manner of speaking. This means that we had to take on directly the challenge of democratically exercising the right of self-determination in the interest of building a modern and prosperous Anguillian Community, even if we had to rebel and embrace political secession in order to do so. So from Emancipation to the Anguilla Revolution the stage was set. And the opportunity was grasped to launch out on the journey to build a modern 20th and 21st Century Anguilla, where our people could realize their God given talents, right here at home and come to enjoy the living conditions that they had experienced elsewhere, where they were forced to travel and reside to make a living.
Some may ask the question: How much progress has Anguilla made since 1967?
Well, in 1984 GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per person (in basic prices) stood at EC$23,826.00 in a population of 6,680 as calculated by the 1984 Census. In 1992 GDP was $33,442.00 per person in a population of 8,960 according to the 1992 Census. The GDP rose to $37,050.00 in 2001 with a census population of 11,561. The figure was $41,618.00 in 2011, given a census population of 13,452. The estimated GDP figure for 2016 was $45,750.00 based on an estimated population of 13,500.
Good Progress in Poverty Reduction
In 2001 and 2008/09 poverty assessments were conducted in Anguilla. The 2001 Assessment put the poverty rate at 23% of the population and the 2008/09 assessment put it at 5.8%. With the severe economic recession from 2009 to 2013 the poverty rate is judged to have increased significantly over the 5.8% of 2008/09 reaching double figures and perhaps as high as the 2001 figure of 23%. With a return to economic growth and prosperity the figure will again reduce considerably.
Comparatively, Anguilla has one of the lowest poverty rate in the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) among the members that have conducted poverty assessments since the late 1990’s of which it appears that only Montserrat has not done so. Of the countries that have, only the BVI has a lower poverty rate than Anguilla.
The Survey of living Conditions, part of the poverty assessment model used showed that Anguillian households own and use a high and increasing ratio of modern conveniences in their homes as a percentage of the total number of households. This speaks to middle class living standards. And in the financial sector, the per capita saving rate has long been the highest among the eight member countries of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union in which the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank operates, of which only the BVI, though a member of the OECS is not a member of the currency union.
These few indicators of remarkably improved living standards have been described to whet your appetite for more data, facts and analysis dealing with our journey from poverty to a decent standard of living for the vast majority of the People of Anguilla, over the past 50 years, built on the foundation laid between Emancipation and the Anguilla Revolution.
THE CHALLENGE FOR US AS A COMMUNITY IS TO STRIVE ALWAYS TO ENSURE THAT POVERTY IS ROOTED OUT AND THAT ALL SHARE IN THE FRUITS OF PROSPERITY. THE TASK FOR THE GOVERNMENT IS TO LEAD BOLD POLICY INITIATIVES TO ENSURE THAT THE LEAST AMONG US ARE GIVEN AMPLE OPPORTUNITY TO BENEFIT FROM SUSTAINED GROWTH AND TO TAKE PART FULLY IN THE ANGUILLIAN DREAM.
We may yet see the promised land, with God’s help.
May God continue to guide and lead us the People of Anguilla on our journey to our promised land.
Amen
Fabian Fahie
