Forgetting significance of Jan. 10 is inexcusable

By Fayne Thompson

January 10th, 1967, marks an important day in the history of our nation state. It is a date, a moment in time which heralded the most fundamental changes in the lives of Bahamians of all creeds and colours. Most fundamentally it witnessed the sunset of the old Bahamas and the rise of a new Bahamaland where the African Bahamian took his rightful place in his community.

Many will ask, what pray tell is the significance of this day? How, they may ask, does it figure in with the challenges which affects us today. Others may even ask why raise the issue when the ideologues of the PLP did not find it worthy of historical commemoration.

The significance of January 10, 1967:

There is a maxim which goes, that one can not properly appreciate his present, much less chart a course for the future unless he understands the lessons of the past. This is a lesson, which seeks to remind us that unless we appreciate our history we may doom ourselves to repeating it.

In the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, Bahamians in their thousands celebrate a day which is associated with rape, pillage, disease, genocide, thievery and murder and we do so because the "teachers" of our history have conditioned us so to do. That day about which I write is October 12, 1942. This is the date we were told which celebrates the 'discovery" (a lie) of the Bahamas and the "civilisation" ( a lie) of the Arawak people who inhabited the islands in which we live. This is equally, the moment in time which signaled, under the guise of civilising Africans, on the West African Coast, the commencement of the most barbaric transfer of human beings from one continent to another in the form of the Atlantic Slave Trade.

Whole families, communities and nation states were slaughtered by this enterprise and this all occurred under guise of "civilising" (another lie) the West African Continent. This date is etched forevermore and most insultingly in our minds by the celebration of these events officially on October 12th of each year. The cruel irony which this presents is quite simple. Each and every year in our Bahamaland we celebrate racism, rape, murder, debauchery, thievery and the negation of ourselves with glee and apparent blissful joy on October 12th. We celebrate on this day the genocide of millions of our people (Africans and Arawaks) and in so doing we lend to that day a respectability it clearly does not deserve.

Detractors will of course react by asking what of Emancipation Day, and what of July 10th, 1973? Are they not, the questions will go, appropriate dates upon which to record the historical struggles of our people. To that we must respond with an emphatic no for these reasons. Emancipation Day, a date which signifies the liberation of Africans around the world, is not officially recognised in our country.

This day (Emancipation Day), which notes the end of Slavery enjoys therefore only a marginal recognition in our Bahamaland by the activities which go on in Fox Hill. Equally July 10th 1973 is specific in its purpose in that it celebrates the emergence of the nation-state known as the Commonwealth of The Bahamas without more.

No one date in my view speaks more to the pain, hardship and brave struggle of the African Bahamian while confronting tremendous odds than January 10th 1967. For on this day political power was taken away from the naked racism of the UBP. The absence of official recognition of Emancipation Day speaks to the importance of a January 10th, 1967. It was a time of unparalleled bravery. It was the defining moment which signified the end of 475 years of denial of the African Bahamians. For the first time since the master plundered Don Christobal De Colon arrived in these islands (with his African slaves) the African Bahamian was now (politically) free to determine his own existence, to chart his own course. Such a day in the calendars of other countries, (e.g. South Africa, Israel, the United States, Great Britain, Trinidad and Tobago) all enjoy official commemoration. Herein lies the significance of January 10th, 1967.

Does January 10 have any significance today?

Part of the social history of any country is evidenced by the institutions, the nuances, practices, norms and mores etc. which forms that country's experience. It is a fact about which there is little dispute that too few positive images exist for the African Bahamians about their past. Depending upon the political persuasion of some history began on July 10th, 1973 or August 19th, 1992. Some would suggest that a recognition of African Bahamian History is racist in and of itself because some of us are not of African decent. An even more subtle objection to commemorating moments in the African Bahamian history is this; some Bahamians of African heritage are themselves ashamed about their past.

It is therefore of no real surprise to me that younger Bahamians are so confused about themselves and the place which they, their parents and their forbears hold or occupy in history. For them the connections to their past are external to The Bahamas (Jah Rastafari) and that connection is wrapped up in a crass commercialism (reggae, rap and hip hop music) which fails to "ground" them (our youth) in the reality of their Bahamian experience. Their "groundings" or training in love for self are borrowed from the social mores and norms of the African Jamaican or the African American.

It is therefore inconsequential and of no importance to them, to know who and what pivotal role Mary Ingraham played in the struggle for equality. Clarence Bain, Eugenie Lockhart, Arthur Foulkes, Randol Fawkes, Milo Butler, Doris Johnson, Cyril Stevenson, Jeffrey Thompson, Cecil Wallace Whitfield, Garnet Levarity are names more alien to our young than Haile Selassie, Buju Banton, Big "E" Smalls and Tupac Chakur. Collectively we are responsible for that because we have allowed the struggles of our very own heroes to be marginalised.

The relevance today of January 10th 1967 is that is provides continuity. It provides evidence of the great struggle, our roots, our "Amistad," our Rosswood story which began on the shoes of West Africa and (for the African Bahamians) culminated on the shoes of our Bahamaland on January 10th 1967 in a tremendous victory for the human spirit. January 10th 1967 provides a rich tapestry, commencing 475 years earlier of struggle and perseverance. It begs a closer look at the life of the African Bahamian in the building of our Bahamaland through slavery, post slavery and into the 20th Century. It is a celebration of rebellion and final victory. January 10th, 1967 is a commemoration of the gift of struggle our forbears gave to us to make our lives what they are today. Most importantly the celebration of January 10th, 1967 would be an affirmation of all those positive images our children need to know, to appreciate, to "ground' themselves.

Why raise the issue of a January 10, 1967 celebration thirty years later?

Clearly the PLP failed when it omitted, formally, to commemorate the day for which it will always be remembered. It achieves no useful purpose for this writer to put it any other way. The party of the freedom fighter, may very well have been too busy waging the struggle to commemorate the struggle. This omission though correctable is inexcusable. The criticism would apply for the Free National Movement, (born of majority ), if it were to allow January 10th to slumber in anonymity as the PLP has allowed it so to do. The memory of Cecil Wallace Whitfield in my view would not be served by this continued omission.

In furtherance of the above, I call upon the prime minister of our country to declare January 10th a national holiday. I further call upon our prime minister to erect a fitting monument in Rawson Square to the sacrifices of these men and women. Further I call upon the prime minister further to rename a major thoroughfare in each major island of The Bahamas 'Heroes Way' in memory of these Freedom Fighters. Lest we remember our past we are doomed to repeat it.

Printed January 10, 1998

POSTED Saturday, January 10, 2004

© 2003 The Nassau Guardian