BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – ACCLAIMED social commentator and educator Washington Archibald declared that the only way a nation could gain “real freedom” is through land ownership, one of the fundamental principles of the Labour Movement.
During last night’s (Apr. 20) Constituency Five town hall meeting organised by the People’s Action Movement (PAM), Archibald said he had been keenly listening to debates in relation to land distribution, noting the stark contrast between the two parties’ arguments.
“I listened to the debates toward the last election; I listened to [Prime Minister] Dr. Douglas and I listened to [Leader of the PAM] Mr. Grant declaring that when the sugar industry dies, he is pledging that if he has the government, he would distribute the sugar lands among sugar workers. I heard Dr. Douglas say, ‘No way, that is not going to happen; this industry will die over my dead body!’
“Up to now it’s causing people pain because if he had recognised the truth that the sugar industry was dying, he would have taken the necessary steps to phase it out so that it would die in the middle of the crop and he would have done something about the sugar lands,” Archibald said.
Archibald argued that the only true freedom of any citizen comes from the ownership of the land on which he/she was enslaved. He stressed that the people of St. Kitts have been waiting since 1834 to see the cessation of the Sugar Industry so that they could inherit the land.
“If you free a man and do not give him land, you haven’t given him freedom! We got emancipated in 1834, but the true emancipation was waiting for us when we, the sugar workers, inherited the land. When the Jews got freed from Egypt they inherited land! When the Jamaican slaves got freedom some of them took the land and the others died fighting for the land! Even in American history when the slaves were free after the Civil War, down South they gave them pieces of land so that they could be free to work the land,” Archibald said.
The veteran educator informed that the situation is different in Nevis as the crux of their attitudes is based on land ownership, an attitude he views should be adopted in St. Kitts.
“The Nevisians were different because they abandoned the land and so the ordinary Nevisian was able to march in and possess the lands. In fact, land [ownership] is the basis of their attitude. The attitude of the Nevis man is a free attitude; no politician can push him around because his freedom is based on his possession of the land. And if we want to free people we give them land.”
Archibald noted that Grant’s vision in his party’s land distribution policy was one which the PAM aligned its principles with those of the founding father of the Labour Movement, Thomas Manchester. He informed that Manchester recognised that true freedom for the masses came from land ownership which propelled him to agitate for the authorities to distribute sugar lands to the working class.
“He felt that if he is going to liberate the people of St. Kitts it must start with providing them with land. And so when we had the riots and the man from England came to investigate the riots, Mr. Manchester made the suggestion that if you want to leave St. Kitts free from future riots, give the labourers a piece of land so that they could produce food on it. This was Mr. Manchester’s proposition and the British Government took him up on it and gave them pieces of land in which they should work for themselves.”
Archibald stressed that until the people possess the land on which they toiled as slaves, the full extent of freedom would never be realised.
