BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – DESPITE achieving freedom 176 years ago, popular historian and social commentator Washington ‘Washie’ Archibald said the people of St. Kitts and Nevis are still mentally enslaved.
Joining with the former Governor of St. Kitts and Nevis, Sir Probyn Inniss, Archibald expressed that physical freedom was attained and while strides were made throughout Kittitian history to loose the mental chains that were tightly wrapped around the minds of the people of this land, the process was, for some reason, retarded.
The historian told SKNVibes that he attended Sir Probyn’s recent lecture held at the Basseterre Methodist Church, under the theme “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery”, at which Sir Probyn expressed that the process of emancipation should reach beyond freedom from physical enslavement into the corridors of the mind.
Lending his voice to that theory, Archibald noted that according to his calendar, the people of St. Kitts displayed their mental fortitude and took two bold and historic steps towards mental emancipation - the Buckley’s Riot in 1935 and the Strike of 1948.
“In my calendar, the first bold step that we took to show how emancipated we were mentally was in 1935 when we staged the Buckley’s Riot. It was a spontaneous, non-violent uprising by grassroots people who were able to find leadership and the followers to assert their rights for the dignified treatment of people. It shouldn’t be called a riot exactly, because nobody fought back… When you reach a stage where you could demand dignity, that is a state of mental freedom; that is a stage of self-knowledge and self-esteem. You are displaying a measure of self-esteem by your demand for dignity for your people.”
He said this action gave birth to the trade union movement which “was the next phase of mental emancipation…”
The 1948 Strike, as Archibald elucidated, was effected when the working class, in a “display of self-assertiveness” withdrew its labour for 13 weeks after certain demands made in the sugar industry were not granted.
“These were the cane cutters, the lowest class of workers, the labourers…You had to have some sort of mental fortitude to withdraw your labour in those times of great need. These were great times…but yet there were workers in the sugar industry who had developed that level of self-sustainability that they could resist the planter for 13 weeks…three months. They withheld their labour, they got no pay.
“They did it because they felt that they had achieved the level of self-confidence, of growth, of dignity. They had achieved that level where they would take from the planter nothing that they did not want. Many of them suffered, some of them were so broke by the time the strike was over, because after 13 weeks there wasn’t much left in the industry. The cane that was left didn’t produce much sugar. So 1948 was a sort of watershed in the sugar industry and many of them had to pack up and get ready to leave. And it just happened that England had now opened up and these newly-minted Kittitians, with a frame of mind which would not accept the planter’s bondage, decided to leave and go to England. They looked at England as a place where they could enjoy freedom and better standards of living.”
Archibald opined that after the 1948 Strike, the path to mental emancipation was clear but the process was impeded because the working class failed to take advantage of a golden opportunity.
“Kittitians were heading for mental emancipation. What is it that turned that process back? One of the things I think happened is when we had a chance to destroy the sugar in 1948 we did not do it. In my view, the plantation system was the chief element in our continued emancipation.
“When the British freed us in 1834, we didn’t get our full freedom. They kept us until 1838 at their own convenience to continue to work in the sugar industry. When the British freed us in 1834 they did not give anything. They left us homeless, penniless, landless. The government paid money for out release but they didn’t give us any money. They paid the white man the money. It is the strangest thing to have a race freed but not being given any compensation for the time they were in slavery. That was a strange system; to pay the oppressor to release the captives and when he releases the captives they have to go back to him for sustenance. That was a strange emancipation…”
A message preached, especially by the Rastafarian community, was re-echoed by Archibald when he suggested that a possible cure for mental slavery is for the descendants of Africans, dispersed throughout the Caribbean, to return to Africa; an action which he said the freed slaves should have taken upon gaining their freedom from plantation bondage.
He said the return to the “motherland” is also a mental process.
“It doesn’t mean necessarily that you have to fly back to Africa, because many of the Jews who should be back in Israel are not in Israel but they recognise Israel and they go and visit on pilgrimage. They support their natural land and they see that governments abroad recognise the nation of Israel. We need to learn to reach that stage, the stage of recognition, mental recognition of where we come from and an active and dynamic movement towards Africanism. We have to do it in our schools; we have to educate our children.”
Gleaning from the words of Bob Marley who penned “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none by ourselves can free our minds”, Archibald strongly asserts that acceptance of one’s African heritage is a step towards freedom from mental slavery.
“If a man of African descent cannot accept that he is African, that is the highest form of mental slavery,” he concluded.
