BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, MAY 16th 2011 (CUOPM) – Delegates to the 79th Annual Conference of the governing St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party on Sunday have been urged to build on the accomplishments of one of the oldest political organisations in the Caribbean.
“With a tradition of unity, resilience, and tangible, quantifiable progress to defend and build upon. The call of Labour is not specific to any one period of history, Comrades. It is, instead, a movement of generations, where one generation builds on the works and the accomplishments of the one that came before,” the SKNLP’s National Political Leader Dr. Denzil L. Douglas told over 500 delegates, diplomats and representatives of non-governmental organisations.
“There have been so many attempts to weaken and break our party throughout our history. When one approach doesn’t work, they simply try another. They began by forbidding us – by law – from forming a Party, being a Party, calling ourselves a Party, functioning like a Party. The older members of the Political Party know about that and you should explain this to the younger generations,” said Dr. Douglas.
He said the youth need to know how their forefathers were prohibited from forming a political Party.
“We the people simply called ourselves The Workers League instead. We refused back then to be distracted or broken by the fact that we could not call ourselves a political Party. Instead we simply continued to stand tall, stand firm, and stand united, and not be sidetracked. Not be distracted. And definitely not be defeated as we continued labouring to secure for everyone in this country what others thought should belong to just a few. And what are these? The right to vote. The right to a high school education. Security for our old age. Healthcare for all. Let me say that again – from the moment of its birth some seventy-nine years ago, the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party has refused to be sidetracked, refused to be distracted, refused to be defeated in our determination to get for every man, woman, and child in this country what some thought should belong to just a few,” Dr. Douglas said.
“Let us never forget that it was in the midst of the extreme economic hardship and the humiliating social degradation of the 1930’s that Labour first planted the seeds of access, opportunity, upward mobility, economic security – and equality! Seeds that one Labour Government after another has continued to tend and water ever since, with each new Labour Government coming forth with new seeds as the time and the circumstances changed,” said Dr. Douglas, the second longest serving Labour Party Leader and also the longest serving head of government of St. Kitts and Nevis.
“The Rt. Excellent Sir Robert Bradshaw affectionately called “Papa Bradshaw” put shoes on the people’s feet. Thankful for that but today, this Labour Government gave the people their own land on which to walk in those shoes, and their own houses in which to keep them. Bradshaw opened the high schools to all the young people of this country.
Thankful for that, this Labour Government with Student Loans and Scholarships opened the doors of the world’s universities to our young people, the corridors of which they are walking with pride, dignity and a sense of accomplishment. Bradshaw and his fellow-visionaries protected the rights of the cane-field workers and lifted them up. Thankful for that, this Labour Government has placed and continue to place Kittitian and Nevisian farmer-entrepreneurs in the former cane-fields – this time as masters of their own destinies. Seventy-five years of planting, and tending, and watering,” said Dr. Douglas.
“What a bountiful harvest we have reaped. What a bountiful harvest we are continuing to reap. What a bountiful harvest we shall indeed reap through hard work, vision, and unity. Today, we, the children of Bradshaw, and France, and Southwell……we, the children and grandchildren of the sugar cane workers – are now government clerks and bank employees. Teachers and lawyers. Artists and engineers. Daycare workers and doctors. Hotel workers and small businesspeople. We are religious ministers. And writers. And drummers. And everything in between. And we, the children of all those who have gone before, we, the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party, have been elected by the people, in free and fair elections, not once, not twice, not three times, but four times to manage the affairs of this blessed land,” said Prime Minister Douglas, adding”
“And we shall go on for a fifth, and sixth, and seventh because we shall not be moved!” to the thunderous applause of the delegates.
Dr. Douglas said that despite the traps set to keep down and remove the Labour Government from office, the Labour Party has stood firm and united, as others set one trap after another.
“These traps have taken many forms over the years, because there are, indeed, many ways to skin a cat. If one way of weakening Labour does not work, some people believe, then maybe another will,” said Dr. Douglas, who noted that when denying the Party as a political organisation failed, some people decided that the best way to break the spirit of Labour would be to run in an election and defeat it in the polls.
“They tried that in the 60’s, but that did not work either because the people knew the origins of those who were trying to break Labour. They knew what they had stood for, and they knew that they had fought against them, and so the people roundly rejected them at the polls. And then, some people actually decided that the best way to defeat Labour would be to militarily remove the lawfully elected Labour Government - that had just trounced them at the polls - by the force of arms on June 10th 1967,” said Dr. Douglas.
“No need to be specific. But that did not work either. And the duly elected Labour government stood. The only point in the entire history of the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party, Comrades, when we allowed the plotters and the planners to gain the upper hand, was when the death of our founding fathers sent us all into a tailspin of pain and mourning, confusion and dissension, suspicion and division. And it was our own division and our own carelessness, really – that we gave to some people a victory that they could never have gotten any other way.
“Never again, Comrades. Let me remind you of just one more of the vast and varied tactics that some have used to break our spirit and break our Party,” said Prime Minister Douglas, who noted that Masses House – the home of the Labour Movement – that has always been a major symbol of Labour as a political force was almost taken away by the then PAM Administration of Dr. Kennedy Simmonds.
“Our internal divisions sapped us of our strength, muddied our focus, and made us lose our way, causing us, by our own divisions, to clear the path for those who care only about the few, to form the Government over the many. And one of the first things the anti-Labour interests did when they formed the Government, in order to further disorient us as a Party, and strip us of unifying symbols, was to demand that Masses House pay its loan to National Bank in full. But that did not work either.
“And from St. Peters to Verchilds, and from Molyneux to McKnight, people brought their hundred dollars and their twenty dollars….their ten dollars and their one dollars…..they brought their fifty cents and their ten cents and whatever else they could and paid off the debt because they understood that it was not really Masses House that the anti-Labour forces were going after. It was them. It was the unity, and their cohesion, it was their strength. It was the political resonance that Labour and Masses House represented that had to be destroyed. And now, Comrades, here we are in 2011,” said Prime Minister Douglas.
“What a story of vision, and unity, and triumph this Labour Party has to tell. How bravely and skillfully we have withstood every onslaught – from the very dawn of our existence. And how we have prevailed! How we have triumphed! Emerging after each and every act of trickery, and each and every show of treachery, stronger than we were before,” said Dr. Douglas.
He told the fiery delegates that many wish to see Labour weakened, silenced and defeated.
“Think about it. Labour is the voice of the people. Labour is the will of the people. Labour represents the dreams, the aspirations, the strivings, and the full and unbowed humanity of the people,” said Dr. Douglas, pointing out that there are those who have always felt, and who feel even today, that the will of the people, the ice of the people, the dreams and hopes and aspirations of the people must be contained, must be diverted, must be skillfully channeled in other directions, until they are no more. By hook or by crook. We understood that seventy-nine years ago. And understand that now. And Labour marches on,” said the popular and charismatic St. Kitts and Nevis Labour Party Leader.
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