–says Jamaicans/Guyanese are the main victims
BARBADIANS HAVE come in for an angry verbal blast from one of their leading clergymen for remaining largely “silent” in the face of what’s perceived as a “distressing reputation” the country is bearing over claimed racial and nationality discrimination against fellow citizens of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). He has also urged in a passionate sermon, for religious denominations and non-government organisations to speak out in strong condemnation on wrongs that were “sinful” to ignore.
The white Barbados-born clergyman, Bishop Gerry Seale, General Secretary of the Evangelical Association of the Caribbean (EAC), was at the time delivering a sermon focused on spiritual renewal and social responsibility at The People’s Cathedral, an established member church of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the West Indies (PAWI).
In challenging Barbadian to “do what’s right’ in the interest of rescuing the proud reputation of Barbados as a decent, civilised nation of the Caribbean, Seale made specific references to what he denounced as “immoral and unspiritual ethnic and nationality discrimination” that have affected Guyanese and Jamaicans in the main, but also extended to other non-nationals of CARICOM.
Bishop Seale’s sermon, which drew occasional sustained applause from worshippers, was based on St Paul’s ministry on “the centre of Christian life” as preached to the Colossians.
Just back from meetings in Dominica and, more recently Guyana, the EAC’s General Secretary and Chief Executive Officer was one of nine members of a National Reconciliation Committee (NAR), appointed more than a decade ago by the previous Barbados Labour Party (BLP) government to consider and report on allegations of ethnic hostilities experienced between some white and black Barbadians.
The NAR was headed by the Caribbean historian Sir Keith Hunte, a former principal of the UWI (Cave Hill campus). Its report has been lying in cold storage since being tabled in parliament, even before a change in government in 2008 to that of the current Democratic Labour Party (DLP) administration.
Bishop Seale was passionate in declaring that “this nonsense of discrimination against CARICOM nationals must stop”; and he urged Barbadians to tell their elected parliamentarians that if they did not start “moving for change” then they, as voters in their constituencies would have to change them.
He also told the congregation that he had received information of some Barbadian immigration and customers contributing to the discrimination against CARICOM nationals, by “abusing their functions” on the assumption that they were carrying out policies consistent with that of the government.
He was loud in his call for “the removal from their employment any immigration or customs officer found guilty, on independent investigation, of discriminating against CARICOM nationals based on ethnic and nationality factors, and when such nationals had done no wrong against Barbados and its people.