Barbados Underground

A New Political Party?

July 17, 2008 · 59 Comments

Submitted by Yardbroom

We now have the N F Labour Party whose manifesto has been set out in clear terms. To insult the Citizens of the Sovereign State of Barbados to wit: That we are racists. We are xenophobic.

To ensure this objective is achieved “they” try to curtail free expression on the call in programmes. They seek to limit free expression on the blogs. They use their position to support and encourage by active participation in events that are intended to highlight our inability to comprehend issues which are the main concern of the citizens of Barbados. The most disrespectful aspect of all this is to address our Commissioner of Police in a tone which emphasizes, the Commissioner does not know how to do, and is not doing his job…the impertinence.

This from a Political Party which represents a country in which people are murdered weekly because of race. This is the final insult. Their presence is not to the public good, as a Political Party, and cannot foster “friendly relations” between two countries. They are an impediment to that desired outcome. It is for our “elected representatives” to step up to the plate and declare where they stand on this important issue of “illegal immigration” so that History may record what they did or did not do, in the interest of the Citizens of Barbados.

David, may I say almost single handed you have allowed free expression on this major issue. You are to be congratulated for your courage, foresight, and determination in that regard. Many others walked on the other side of the street and evaded the issue “Barbados Underground” stood up to the plate and faced it head on. What has happened is a lid has been kept on a boiling cauldron by selective clever censoring.

Thank God the ordinary Bajans have been alerted before it is too late. People showing wisdom and foresight are often criticized in the beginning, but subsequent events often show their “common sense.”

Categories: Barbados · Blogging · Politics

59 responses so far ↓

  • David // July 17, 2008 at 7:37 AM

    Yardbroom thank you for your feedback. It has not been easy for the BU household to deal with this issue. We fully understand the ramifications of this matter if not dealt with adroitly by all the players.

    Of concern is the point raised in your submission regarding the pressure on our Commissioner to act in a climate which appears to be poking fun at his authority. We have from time to time criticized the RBPF but we have done it with respect, as citizens it is our right.

    We will not support anyone or group who would seek to undermine the law and order system in our country. Law and order is the underpinning to our stable democracy through the years and all Barbadians should want to defend any threat to compromise it.We will not have it by anyone. Whenever we see it we will speak out. If it is a crime to represent the values we want for our country then find us guilty.

  • Anonymous // July 17, 2008 at 8:07 AM

    VOB and the Nation newspaers are the biggest offenders of suppressing bajans and their Free Speech,allowing instead ‘Selected Speech’.

    You think Norman Faria is going to stop at the commissioner of police.

    Man he even got Leroy Trotman and the barbados workers union in his corner.Have you heard ever heard the union,at any time,speaking out against the influx of immigrants.

    Rather you will hear trotman calling for a register for the guyanese workers,or to treat them fairly and give them good conditions – but never does he speak out against the negative impact on this society with regards to his own members inability to find work because of guyanese undercutting them in the pay they are accepting, or the overcrowding in schools, the depletion of our water supply,the burden on our health sysytem – never does the Union – neither trotman,bobby morris – or whoever – never do they call for a stop to this guyanese and others flooding out barbados.

    Instead they allow norman faria and a few legal guyanese workers to march in the May Day parade to continue to perpetuate the myth and propoganda that the guaynese are all about making a positive contribution to barbados and are not a drain on this society.

    Shame on the Union,shame on VOB and the Nation,shame on CBC who stands by and do nothing,Shame on Chris Sinckler who as Foreign affairs minister has responsibility for the foreign embassies and their consul-generals – yet instead of condemning norman faria’s behaviour he goes up to their clebration on bay street and admonishes bajans to treat and respect the guyanese.

    A pox on all of your houses!

  • Negroman // July 17, 2008 at 9:38 AM

    when will the people of Barbados get a response from the people who we went in our thousands on January 15,2008 to represent our interst for the 5 years.Negroman is pleading from our leader David Thompson or one of his representative to issue a statement in response to Norma Faria blatant attempt to suppress the rights of Barbadians to express their views on an issue that is of fundamental importance to us.
    It is shameful,disgusting and comtemptous that an idiot like Norma Faria could have the gall to constantly issue threats to our media houses,the police and anybody who is willing to listen to him and no one is willing to castigate him and let him know in no uncertain terms that his behavior is out of place.
    I listened to the senate debate yesterday on the immigration issue and not one of the senators had the courage to chastise Norma Faria for his unwarranted attacks and his call for the suppression of speech for Barbadians in Barbados.
    It appears we do not have a leader who has the balls the stand up to Norma Faria.I believe this is the final straw that broke the camel’s back and we as a people must rise up in our numbers and let Norma Faria know that he cannot dictate the policies in Barbados.
    I am calling on the authorities to investigate Norma Faria and his relationship with Guyanese in Barbados
    AN INVESTIGATION MUST BE CARRY OUT INTO THE ACTIVITIES OF NORMA FARIA

  • ROBOT // July 17, 2008 at 10:41 AM

    didn’t NORMAN FARIA —come under scrutiny from Tom Adams ???

    is NF a barbadian citizen

    Methinks the ayes have it

  • JC // July 17, 2008 at 11:25 AM

    If the bloggers are interested I am thinking about typing a letter and asking persons sign this letter petitioning Norman Faria to shut up and get out! Does anyone know how I should go about this idea.

    He realise who he is dealing with we are proud BAJANS!

    Please give me a comment those who are interested, they must be a way in which we can get him out of this country and let him go home to his SWEET GUYANA!

  • Adrian Hinds // July 17, 2008 at 11:47 AM

    I will sign my name to it.

  • Adrian Hinds // July 17, 2008 at 12:06 PM

    Anonymous // July 17, 2008 at 8:07 am

    VOB and the Nation newspapers are the biggest offenders of suppressing bajans and their Free Speech,allowing instead ‘Selected Speech’.

    You think Norman Faria is going to stop at the commissioner of police.

    Man he even got Leroy Trotman and the barbados workers union in his corner.Have you heard ever heard the union,at any time,speaking out against the influx of immigrants.

    =================================
    I heard Leroy Trotman two years ago down at browns beach telling Barbados that he does not mind Guyanese looking to better themselves, but he also believes that the Government of Guyana needs to do a lot more to allow Guyanese to better themselves at home.

    The call by Sir Roy for an employment registry was dismiss out of hand by the last GoB. A government that found it necessary to institute import license on goods out of Trinidad at the time of the fishing dispute. My comments then were:

    In 2004 i said:
    Employment registry is needed just like we need an Import monitoring scheme.

    Concern for an over-abundance of regionally produce goods entering a market space and the harm that level can do to our already hard press manufacturing and agriculture sectors of our economy has prompted the GoB to implement an import monitoring scheme. At the end of the monitoring period it will be determine if protection mechanisms i.e. tariffs and other restrictions will be put on these products as is allowed under the revise treaty of chaguramous.

    Concern for an over-abundance of citizens from a specific caricom region country entering Barbados and specifically into the Barbados labour force to the alleged tune of 25-30 thousand and the harm it pose to Industrial relations, race relations, and the stability of Barbados as a law abiding country, has prompted the BWU to call for an Employment registry. I do not know if there is a provision within the revised treaty of Chaguramous to treat to the issue of a severe imbalance in free movement patterns of Caribbean nationals, but I think given what is at stake it ought to be.

    Why one and not the other? Oh I see King Arthur is for one and not the other.

    People of Barbados— should his legacy be more important than your views?
    People of Barbados—-Demand a response from this elected representative, this servant of the people.

    People of Barbados—- Should he not speak to you on this singular issue and explain why you are wrong and he is right — -stand ready for once and prove Grantley Adams wrong– that you do have a long memory—and that with your pencils sharpened you will place your X where his name and that of every BLP candidate put before you CANNOT BE FOUND. Making it– not a vote for the DLP but more, a vote AGAINST force acceptance of a one-side integration policy. Let change the last election slogan of ‘going with Owen” too “Election day Owen Going away”
    ==============================

    Four years later the issue of immigration is front and center and there are some that would want to wish away the culpability of Owen Seymour Arthur. I will not let them.

  • Tony Hall // July 17, 2008 at 12:08 PM

    Me too!!!!!

  • Equity // July 17, 2008 at 12:10 PM

    I thought the blogs stood for freedom of speech….why is everyone here so afraid of Faria?

  • leadpipe // July 17, 2008 at 1:32 PM

    where is the petition to sign, i say kick them all out. We all know he indio guyanese don’t like the afro guyanese. Barbados is na predominately BLACK country. let them go to trinidad

  • leadpipe // July 17, 2008 at 1:35 PM

    how many afro guyanese and indio guyanese u see hanging out together in barbados. NONE

  • Adrian Hinds // July 17, 2008 at 1:52 PM

    The DLP is not alone with concerns about migrant labour and it’s impact on local markets.

    QUOTE (Baldwin Spencer says free movement in CARICOM by September @ Jun 4th 2007)
    “in the case of Antigua and Barbuda we have taken that position, as a matter of fact, we have called on the CARICOM Secretariat to carry out what we call an Empirical Impact Study dealing with the whole question of the labour market and so on to see to what extent this is impacting on Antigua and Barbuda,” he told CMC
    Prime Minister of Antiqua&Barbuda Baldwin Spencer
    ==============================

    and we know Antigua has a history of denying persons entry and even revoking the permits of license professionals, let alone illegal immgrants.

  • Mintue Mouse // July 17, 2008 at 1:57 PM

    ALL of them want going home,to much bout here ,SUPES SUPES
    JUST take a walk in Bridgetown a friday afternoon and you might think you in Berbice.
    the immigration should round them up and pack them asses out of here.THIS IS OUR COUNTRY.

  • Anonymous // July 17, 2008 at 2:28 PM

    Note in the news today VOB didnot carry anything about the guyanese living in barbados who was charged for drug trafficking along with a bajan fisherman.

    However they had that pompous,flatulent Ass stetson babb reading a quote from norman faria about his (faria) agreeing with haysnley benn’s comment and also talking about the great contribution his guyanese people make,and how he goes on the construction site and estates and demand better wages for them.

    Now how did that affect the price of bread?

    Who cares what norman faria thinks – however VOB allowed that to make the news and not the news item about a indo guyanese living in st lucy being charged in st vincent for drugs – of which he pleaded guilty.

    I suppose that news item would portray the guyanese in a negative light – and VOB can’t afford to do that – no they can’t afford to offend Faria.

    Say that again,I didn’t hear you correctly – you are saying that you thought V-O-B stood for the Voice of Barbados or the Voice of Barbadians.

    No sir,it really stands for the Voice of the Buffoon – as in a jester or joker or a mekker of sport – not to be taken seriously etc;

    Or they may really be called;

    V.O.B. – very ostensibly Bankrupt (of ideas,or journalistic principles).

  • JC // July 17, 2008 at 2:45 PM

    Who gives a shite abut VOB we have to spread the word that VOB dont care about bajans we need to stop listen to VOB! Every opportunity you get let people know about this faria character.

    By this weekend I will have my letter ready to be signed I am starting with my block and then I’ll be venturing around and asking persons assistance in getting rid of this man.

    I am a little nobody in Barbados.

    But I have something going for me I have roots!

    I AM A PROUD BAJAN!

    And for me that is all that matters!

  • Anonymous // July 17, 2008 at 3:11 PM

    YOU GO GIRL.

  • Peltdownman // July 17, 2008 at 3:21 PM

    You are all something else! Take this situation back to the sixties, close your eyes and instead of Guyanese into Barbados, think of West Indian and East Indian immigration into the UK, and Enoch Powell’s notorious “Rivers of Blood” speech. Powell became a despised figure among people of colour all over the world. Can you really say that your attitude is any different from his?

  • Anonymous // July 17, 2008 at 3:27 PM

    Much different in every sense.

    England in the 60’s and lil barbados now are 2 different scenarios my friend.

    Pelt down man – as a white man do you really care or understand what black barbadians are saying and feeling?

  • Anonymous // July 17, 2008 at 3:54 PM

    JC

    Your petition could read something like this:

    We the people of barbados are extremely concerned about the large influx of immigrants coming into our country.

    We the people of barbados are also concerned about the high number of illegal guyanese in Barbados.

    Whereas we the people on the 16th day of january in the year 2008,voted to change the government so as to bring about change in the current immigration policy,we are now concerned that attempts are now being made by the consular general of guyana,Norman Faria – to silence the voices and concerns of the people of Barbados by enlisting the media and the royal barbados police force.

    We are hereby petitioning the government of Barbados to publicly admonish Mr Norman Faria for his remarks and his interference in the affairs of Barbados.

    We are also petitioning the government of barbados to revoke the diplomatic status granted to Mr Faria as honourary consul of Guyana.

    Name Address Telephone

  • Anonymous // July 17, 2008 at 4:00 PM

    Didn’t we vote on the 15th January?!

  • Question // July 17, 2008 at 4:02 PM

    Weren’t elections on the 15th January?

  • Question // July 17, 2008 at 4:04 PM

    sorry for the double post! Thought the first post did not go through!

  • Anonymous // July 17, 2008 at 4:16 PM

    Thanks Question.

    Typing error – you are correct.

    JC please note the line should read – “we the people on the 15th day of the January……”

  • David // July 17, 2008 at 4:20 PM

    We listened with interest to Peter Wickham who on the public airwaves was able to express his opinion about how he feels about the blogs. We wish to remind the BU family that the same Peter Wickham who used BU and BFP to distribute his message when he was frustrated by the traditional media in Barbados in the leadup to the just gone general election. This was at a time when the former government started to place tremendous pressure on his person as a professional.

    Moving on:

    First of all Peter challenged why BU et al have to hide behind the cloak of anonymity. Our simple response is that we feel more comfortable doing so given the contentious issues which we have chosen to tackle. In other words we don’t want to become like VOB and the Nation, controlled. We should ask Peter Wickham why when he delivered his litany on the afternoon program he could not address BU by name? He continues to refer to BU as the blogs. The reason is simple, he can’t because it is a directive from Vic Fernandes and Tony Audain not to name blogs. We have it in writing Peter.

    Does the BU family discern the irony in this position? Peter the neo-liberal cannot call the name of a blog on VOB?

    The other point we want to address to Peter. He stated today that the position of BU and family is a minority view. Now Peter surely you know that because we may hold a minority view it does not mean that we are wrong. Additionally we are not sure that you are correct that our view is a minority one. We challenge you to present scientific data which you have that counters our view of the negative affect of unplanned migration and large inflows of multi ethnic inflows on a small developing island. We would ask you to also make your instrument known so that it can be challenged.

    For the personal attacks on him by some commenters we are big enough to apologize but we trust the judgement of educated Barbadians to disregard filth.

  • JC // July 17, 2008 at 4:21 PM

    Pelt down man; you remember fiji, trinidad, guyana and the list goes on dont tell me no nonsense about Enoch powell.

    We are fighting for our rights to work in Barbados. Furthermore, I dont think that we should have to fight for our god given right to work in our country. Alkhtough we have heard from previous leaders that we are lazy yet we know that we would give our last drop of blood to see our country achie the unachievable.

    Peltdown man how do you think this makes us feel as citizens of our country. I will tell you how I feell

    THREATENED
    HURT
    DISORIENTED
    REJECTED
    BETRAYED
    PIST OFF
    MAD IS HELL
    AN OUTCAST
    INSULTED

    Put your self in our shoes and then tell me how you would feel!

  • Adrian Hinds // July 17, 2008 at 4:29 PM

    Peltdownman // July 17, 2008 at 3:21 pm

    You are all something else! Take this situation back to the sixties, close your eyes and instead of Guyanese into Barbados, think of West Indian and East Indian immigration into the UK, and Enoch Powell’s notorious “Rivers of Blood” speech. Powell became a despised figure among people of colour all over the world. Can you really say that your attitude is any different from his?
    =================================

    I don’t agree that there is any comparison, and you have not stated the similarities. Give us something that Enoch said and then reminds us of something that ALL of us have said here as too demonstrate collective agreement, and that is similar.
    They say the inmitation is the best form flattery, and in the 1960’s, West Indian immigrants in Great Britain, showed their love for the mother country by being more British than the British themselves, so much so that Dave Martins of the Tradewinds penned a song appropiately named “Copycats”. It was clear that Enoch’s disapproval of Blacks was base on skin colour, and nothing else. I put it to you that indo Guyanese as is evident by the race relations in Guyana , have more in common with Enoch Powel than anyone in this forum.

  • Adrian Hinds // July 17, 2008 at 4:34 PM

    Does Peter Wickham believe in the legitimacy of Borders?

  • Adrian Hinds // July 17, 2008 at 4:37 PM

    BU if it matters to Peter Wickham that much, I don’t mind being the Public face to the Blogs. They can channel all their request, law suites, and threats to me at Adrian.hinds@verizon.net, or call me at 617-529-2962.

  • Anonymous // July 17, 2008 at 4:47 PM

    David

    You say that you have in writing that VOB and the Nation newspaper have given instructions not to use the name of the blogs?

    I don’t know what to think after reading this.

    What or whose interest are these people serving?

    What are they afraid of?

    Sad,sad,sad.

    I have a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach right now.

  • Reaganomics // July 17, 2008 at 4:48 PM

    Transcript of Rivers of Blood Speech

    Here is the full text of Enoch Powell’s famous speech to the Annual General Meeting of the West Midlands Area Conservative Political Centre, Birmingham, England, April 20, 1968.

    The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils. In seeking to do so, it encounters obstacles which are deeply rooted in human nature. One is that by the very order of things such evils are not demonstrable until they have occurred: At each stage in their onset there is room for doubt and for dispute whether they be real or imaginary. By the same token, they attract little attention in comparison with current troubles, which are both indisputable and pressing: whence the besetting temptation of all politics to concern itself with the immediate present at the expense of the future.

    Above all, people are disposed to mistake predicting troubles for causing troubles and even for desiring troubles: ‘if only’, they love to think, ‘if only people wouldn’t talk about it, it probably wouldn’t happen’. Perhaps this habit goes back to the primitive belief that the word and the thing, the name and the object, are identical. At all events, the discussion of future grave but, with effort now, avoidable evils is the most unpopular and at the same time the most necessary occupation for the politician. Those who knowingly shirk it, deserve, and not infrequently receive, the curses of those who come after.

    A week or two ago I fell into conversation with a constituent, a middle-aged, quite ordinary working man employed in one of our nationalized industries. After a sentence or two about the weather, he suddenly said: ‘If I had the money to go, I wouldn’t stay in this country.’ I made some deprecatory reply, to the effect that even this Government wouldn’t last for ever; but he took no notice, and continued: ‘I have three children, all of them have been through grammar school and two of them married now, with family. I shan’t be satisfied till I have seen them settled overseas. In this country in fifteen or twenty years’ time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man.’

    I can already hear the chorus of execration. How dare I say such a horrible thing? How dare I stir up trouble and inflame feelings by repeating such a conversation? The answer is that I do not have the right not to do so. Here is a decent, ordinary fellow Englishman, who in broad daylight in my own town says to me, his Member of Parliament, that this country will not be worth living in for his children. I simply do not have the right to shrug my shoulders and think about something else. What he is saying, thousands and hundreds of thousands are saying and thinking – not throughout Great Britain, perhaps, but in the areas that are already undergoing the total transformation to which there is no parallel in a thousand years of English history.

    In fifteen or twenty years, on present trends, there will be in this country 3 1/2 million Commonwealth immigrants and their descendants. That is not my figure. That is the official figure given to Parliament by the spokesman of the Registrar General’s office. There is no comparable official figure for the year 2000, but it must be in the region of 5-7 million, approximately one-tenth of the whole population, and approaching that of Greater London. Of course, it will not be evenly distributed from Margate to Aberystwyth and from Penzance to Aberdeen. Whole areas, towns and parts of towns across England will be occupied by different sections of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population.

    As time goes on, the proportion of this total who are immigrant descendants, those born in England, who arrived here by exactly the same route as the rest of us, will rapidly increase. Already by 1985 the native-born would constitute the majority. It is this fact above all which creates the extreme urgency of action now, of just that kind of action which is hardest for politicians to take, action where the difficulties lie in the present but the evils to be prevented or minimized lie several parliaments ahead.

    The natural and rational first question with a nation confronted by such a prospect is to ask: ‘How can its dimensions be reduced?’ Granted it be not wholly preventable, can it be limited, bearing in mind that numbers are of the essence: the significance and consequences of an alien element introduced into a country or population are profoundly different according to whether that element is 1 per cent or 10 per cent. The answers to the simple and rational question are equally simple and rational: by stopping or virtually stopping, further inflow, and by promoting the maximum outflow. Both answers are part of the official policy of the Conservative Party.

    It almost passes belief that at this moment twenty or thirty additional immigrant children are arriving from overseas in Wolverhampton alone every week – and that means fifteen or twenty additional families of a decade or two hence. Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependants, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant-descended population. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre. So insane are we that we actually permit unmarried persons to immigrate for the purpose of founding a family with spouses and fiancées whom they have never seen.

    Let no one suppose that the flow of dependants will automatically tail off. On the contrary, even at the present admission rate of only 5,000 a year by voucher, there is sufficient for a further 325,000 dependants per annum ad infinitum, without taking into account the huge reservoir of existing relations in this country – and I am making no allowance at all for fraudulent entry. In these circumstances nothing will suffice but that the total inflow for settlement should be reduced at once to negligible proportions, and that the necessary legislative and administrative measures be taken without delay. I stress the words ‘for settlement’.

    This has nothing to do with the entry of Commonwealth citizens, any more than of aliens, into this country, for the purposes of study or of improving their qualifications, like (for instance) the Commonwealth doctors who, to the advantage of their own countries, have enabled our hospital service to be expanded faster than would otherwise have been possible. These are not, and never have been, immigrants.

    I turn to re-emigration. If all immigration ended tomorrow, the rate of growth of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population would be substantially reduced, but the prospective size of this element in the population would still leave the basic character of the national danger unaffected. This can only be tackled while a considerable proportion of the total still comprises persons who entered this country during the last ten years or so. Hence the urgency of implementing now the second element of the Conservative Party’s policy: the encouragement of re-emigration.

    Nobody can make an estimate of the numbers which, with generous grants and assistance, would choose either to return to their countries of origin or to go to other countries anxious to receive the manpower and the skills they represent. Nobody knows, because no such policy has yet been attempted. I can only say that, even at present, immigrants in my own constituency from time to time come to me, asking if I can find them assistance to return home. If such a policy were adopted and pursued with the determination which the gravity of the alternative justifies, the resultant outflow could appreciably alter the prospects for the future.

    It can be no part of any policy that existing family should be kept divided; but there are two directions in which families can be reunited, and if our former and present immigration laws have brought about the division of families, albeit voluntary or semi-voluntarily, we ought to be prepared to arrange for them to be reunited in their countries of origin. In short, suspension of immigration and encouragement of re-emigration hang together, logically and humanly, as two aspects of the same approach.

    The third element of the Conservative Party’s policy is that all who are in this country as citizens should be equal before the law and that there shall be no discrimination or difference made between them by public authority. As Mr. Heath has put it, we will have no ‘first-class citizens’ and ’second-class citizens’. This does not mean that the immigrant and his descendants should be elevated into a privileged or special class or that the citizen should be denied his right to discriminate in the management of his own affairs between one fellow citizen and another or that he should be subjected to inquisition as to his reasons and motives for behaving in one lawful manner rather than another.

    There could be no grosser misconception of the realities than is entertained by those who vociferously demand legislation as they call it ‘against discrimination’, whether they be leader-writers of the same kidney and sometimes on the same newspapers which year after year in the 1930s tried to blind this country to the rising peril which confronted it, or archbishops who live in palaces, faring delicately with the bedclothes pulled right over their heads. They have got it exactly and diametrically wrong. The discrimination and the deprivation, the sense of alarm and resentment, lies not with the immigrant population but with those among whom they have come and are still coming. This is why to enact legislation of the kind before Parliament at this moment is to risk throwing a match on to the gunpowder. The kindest thing that can be said about those who propose and support it is they know not what they do.

    Nothing is more misleading than comparison between the Commonwealth immigrant in Britain and the American Negro. The Negro population of the United states, which was already in existence before the United States became a nation, started literally as slaves and were later given the franchise and other rights of citizenship, to the exercise of which they have only gradually and still incompletely come. The Commonwealth immigrant came to Britain as a full citizen, to a country which knows no discrimination between one citizen and another, and he entered instantly into the possession of the rights of every citizen, from the vote to free treatment under the National Health Service. Whatever drawbacks attended the immigrants – and they were drawbacks which did not, and do not, make admission into Britain by hook or by crook appear less than desirable – arose not from the law or from public policy or from administration but from those personal circumstances and accidents which cause, and always will cause, the fortunes and experience of one man to be different for another’s.

    But while to the immigrant entry to this country was admission to privileges and opportunities eagerly sought, the impact upon the existing population was very different. For reasons which they could not comprehend, and in pursuance of a decision by default, on which they were never consulted, they found themselves made strangers in their own country. They found their wives unable to obtain hospital beds in childbirth, their children unable to obtain school places, their homes and neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition, their plans and prospects for the future defeated; at work they found that employers hesitated to apply to the immigrant worker the standards of discipline and competence required of the native-born worker; they began to hear, as time went by, more and more voices which told them that they were now the unwanted. On top of this, they now learn that a one-way privilege is to be established by Act of Parliament: a law, which cannot, and is not intended, to operate to protect them or redress their grievances, is to be enacted to give the stranger, the disgruntled and the agent provocateur the power to pillory them for their private actions.

    In the hundreds upon hundreds of letters I received when I last spoke on this subject two or three months ago, there was one striking feature which was largely new and which I find ominous. All Members of Parliament are used to the typical anonymous correspondent; but what surprised and alarmed me was the high proportion of ordinary, decent, sensible people, writing a rational and often well-educated letter, who believed that they had to omit their address because it was dangerous to have committed themselves to paper to a Member of Parliament agreeing with the views I had expressed, and that they would risk either penalties or reprisals if they were known to have done so. The sense of being a persecuted minority which is growing among ordinary English people in the areas of the country which are affected is something that those without direct experience can hardly imagine. I am going to allow just one of those hundreds of people to speak for me. She did give her name and address, which I have detached from the letter which I am about to read. She was writing from Northumberland about something which is happening at this moment in my own constituency:

    Eight years ago in a respectable street in Wolverhampton a house was sold to a Negro. Now only one white (a woman old-age pensioner) lives there. This is her story. She lost her husband and both her sons in the war. So she turned her seven-roomed house, her only asset, into a boarding house. She worked hard and did well, paid off her mortgage and began to put something by for her old age. Then the immigrants moved in. With growing fear, she saw one house after another taken over. The quiet streets became a place of noise and confusion.

    Regretfully, her white tenants moved out.

    The day after the last one left, she was awakened at 7 a.m. by two Negroes who wanted to use her phone to contact their employer. When she refused, as she would have refused any stranger at such an hour, she was abused and feared she would have been attacked but for the chain on her door. Immigrant families have tried to rent rooms in her house, but she always refused. Her little store of money went, and after paying her rates, she had less than £2 per week. She went to apply for a rate reduction and was seen by a young girl, who on hearing she had a seven-roomed house, suggested she should let part of it. When she said the only people she could get were Negroes, the girl said ‘racial prejudice won’t get you anywhere in this country’. So she went home.

    The telephone is her lifeline. Her family pay the bill, and help her out as best they can. Immigrants have offered to buy her house – at a price which the prospective landlord would be able to recover from his tenants in weeks, or at most in a few months. She is becoming afraid to go out.

    Windows are broken. She finds excreta pushed through her letterbox. When she goes to the shops, she is followed by children, charming, wide-grinning piccaninnies. They cannot speak English, but one word they know. ‘Racialist’, they chant. When the new Race Relations Bill is passed, this woman is convinced she will go to prison. And is she so wrong? I begin to wonder.

    The other dangerous delusion from which those who are wilfully or otherwise blind to realities suffer, is summed up in the word ‘integration’. To be integrated into a population means to become for all practical purposes indistinguishable from its other members. Now, at all times, where there are marked physical differences, especially of colour, integration is difficult though, over a period, not impossible. There are among the Commonwealth immigrants have come to live here in the last fifteen years or so, many thousands whose wish and purpose is to be integrated and whose every thought and endeavour is bent in that direction. But to imagine that such a thing enters the heads of a great and growing majority of immigrants and their descendants is a ludicrous misconception, and a dangerous one to boot.

    We are on the verge of here of a change. Hitherto it has been force of circumstance and of background which has rendered the very idea of integration inaccessible to the greater part of the immigrant population – that they never conceived or intended such a thing, and that their numbers and physical concentration meant the pressures towards integration which normally bear upon any small minority did not operate. Now we are seeing the growth of positive forces acting against integration, of vested interests in the preservation and sharpening of racial and religious differences, with a view to the exercise of action domination, first over fellow immigrants and then over the rest of the population. The cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, that can so rapidly overcast the sky, has been visible recently in Wolverhampton and has shown signs of spreading quickly. The words I am about to use, verbatim as they appeared in the local press on 17 February, are not mine, but those of a Labour Member of Parliament who is a Minister in the present Government.

    The Sikh communities’ campaign to maintain customs inappropriate in Britain is much to be regretted. Working in Britain, particularly in the public services, they should be prepared to accept the terms and conditions of their employment. To claim special communal rights (or should one say rites?) leads to a dangerous fragmentation within society. This communalism is a canker: whether practised by one colour or another it is to be strongly condemned.

    All credit to John Stonehouse for having had the insight to perceive that, and the courage to say it.

    For these dangerous and divisive elements the legislation proposed in the Race Relations Bill is the very pabulum they need to flourish. Here is the means of showing that the immigrant communities can organize to consolidate their members, to agitate and campaign against their fellow citizens, and to overawe and dominate the rest with the legal weapons which the ignorant and the ill-informed have provided. As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding.

    Like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood’. That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect. Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the century.

    Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.

    ——————————————————————————–

  • Adrian Hinds // July 17, 2008 at 4:56 PM

    What would be the purpose of posting Enoch’s entire speech here? Must i do your work for you? you made some very pointed accertions and all i asked is to compare the salient points of Enoch’s to anything that is being collectively stated by us ? This is pure intellectual dishonesty, perhaps designed to shut up and shut down. Do i need to tell you it would not work? There i just did.

  • Negroman // July 17, 2008 at 5:03 PM

    I do not think anyone owes Peter Wickham an apology.This same Peter Wickham gets in the press and say some of the most disparinging things about Barbadians He is a queer lunatic.
    I will not become defensive on this issue.If that despicable being does not like what is being written on the blogs do like what Negroman did boycott the blogs.I boycotted VOB and will NEVR NEVER listen to it again.He can do the same boycott the blogs.
    I hope that JC’s petition becomes a success.We bloggers must make it a success.Peter Wickham must know that we represent the views of thousands of Barbadians
    I think we should aim for at least 10,000 signatures.
    JC when the petition is ready and you have enough signatures please send a copy to all the media houses in Barbados,the despised VOB,CBC,CANA,One Media Corporation,BBC Caribbean Report and others I might not have mentioned.Organise a massive delegation when the petition is being deliver to the Prime Minister or Minister of Immigration.All so have copies for the church,judicaary,political parties,civic organisations and all interest groups.
    A STRONG & DECISIVE MESSAGE MUST BE SENT TO NORMA FARIA,PETER WICKHAM & THE ILLEGALS THAT WE BARBADIANS NEED ACTION & ACTION IS WHAT WE WANT ON THIS ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION ISSUE

  • Anonymous // July 17, 2008 at 5:04 PM

    Pelt down Man/reganomics

    Thank you for the speech,I didn’t read all of it,maybe another time.

    However Powell is not far off when he spoke of whole towns being overtaken with immigrants.

    What you think has happened to Birmingham,what about South hall,what about areas of glasgow and endinburgh,what about towns in yorkshire – the indians,pakistani’s,bangladeshi,have taken over – and presently the polish,the romanian,the gypsy or roma,the russians etc are now overtaking the persons of indian descent.

    So Enoch powell was not wrong when he said eventually immigrants would surpass the true blue english.

    Everyone is pouring into England – the asians,the africans,the west indians,the middle easterners,the eastern europeans,the chineese,the russians – all because England like Barbados has very generous social services benfits in health care,housing,and unemployment benefits.

    The english native feels like a stranger in his own land,because of the political correctness of their government.

    I think we can learn something from that as a matter of fact.

  • Peltdownman // July 17, 2008 at 5:09 PM

    Adrian Hinds

    all i asked is to compare the salient points of Enoch’s to anything that is being collectively stated by us.
    _________________________________
    Read it Adrian, read it. To me it may not be the same language, but the meaning is clear. The argument is fundamentally the same as that being submitted by several bloggers above. Britain now is a melting pot of cultures, and in my opinion, is much better for it. You don’t think that people felt that their jobs were at risk in the UK then, just as you do? It is pure, unadulterated hypocrisy.

  • Adrian Hinds // July 17, 2008 at 5:21 PM

    Peltdownman // July 17, 2008 at 5:09 pm

    Adrian Hinds

    all i asked is to compare the salient points of Enoch’s to anything that is being collectively stated by us.
    _________________________________
    Read it Adrian, read it. To me it may not be the same language, but the meaning is clear. The argument is fundamentally the same as that being submitted by several bloggers above. Britain now is a melting pot of cultures, and in my opinion, is much better for it. You don’t think that people felt that their jobs were at risk in the UK then, just as you do? It is pure, unadulterated hypocrisy.
    =================================
    I have studied Enoch speech simply because persons like you continue to throw it out there to silence legitimate immigration concerns.
    You are only fooling yourself if you believe that Britain is a Melting pot of people. It is far from it. Multiculturalism has failed miserably in England.

  • Anonymous // July 17, 2008 at 5:28 PM

    Hinds what are your facts? As usual, full of opinion, often (always?) wide of the mark.

    The same fears and assumptions that Powell played to in that speech I see in many of the posts in this and other threads on BU. If he was wrong , what makes us right?

  • Anonymous // July 17, 2008 at 5:39 PM

    A march, a petition ??? Bajans?! This I gotta see!

  • Anonymous // July 17, 2008 at 5:52 PM

    Why all this fuss over a foolish, old man like Faria? I hear that not even the guyanese take him on. So what if the government revoke his consul status, the thousands of guyanese will still be here and more coming as long as there is work. If you want to get rid of the guyanese stop the money. Tighten up on getting $US. No money no guyanese.

  • JC // July 17, 2008 at 6:07 PM

    Anon I agree with you on that one I have been asking persons about ths petition many persons say yeah but I can feel that as soon as I write it and I ask for signatures people will weak out!

    I can feel it in my bones!

    However, I am going to ask some more persons whom I trust and then I will see if persons are just running up their mounths!

    As for the Enoch Powell speech!

    I read parts of it and yes some parts sound like some of our comments; but he was right; that english man that he was talking about sounds like scout when he said he willpack up and leave.

    I think we now are gong through what England has went through and now is going through again.

    However, they are now trying to make sure that they get what they want THIS ROUND. Many persons whom have flooded their gates are now being sent packing and we can see read and hear how crazy London is right now!

    This was, and is still unfair, for you to ask any person whom has seen the sacrifice that their foreparents and now themselves have had to endure!

    That is why the EU are now trying to make sure that persons have visas to enter their country and the correct documents!

    These people do not want any and every body in their country they want the best brains and persons to be citizens of their countries.

    Therefore you comparing this literature to us is most inappropriate.

    How can England be way better with this influx of immigrants when on BFP their is an excerpt on hw a man should pist!

    Come on man you are not dealing with Massa slaves! You are dealing with persons who have decided to break free from those shackles which had been placed around our minds!

    You can never convince me to leave my sweet Barbados Never!

  • JC // July 17, 2008 at 7:07 PM

    Okay, hello again.

    I have been seriously thinking about this issue that has made us very fearful!

    If we bloggers realise that all Peter Wickham and Faria are saying is that we are instilling hatred into the hearts of persons!

    I am asking my fellow bloggers to stick with the FACTS that are placed before us, Peter Wickham and Faria. Let us all start blogging for a SERIOUS PURPOSE and with one cause in mind and that is for our childrne’s future!

    I am asking all fellow bloggers to start dealing with all the issues that we have raised on the table and stick to our argument without appearing as if we want to start voilence!

    This is where they will win with this argument if we continue down that path!

    Let us start to deal with the facts such as

    our social services
    our culture
    our identity
    our rights
    our fear
    our beliefs etc.

    Let us realise that if we continue down the path it would sound nonsensical!

    Let us not let BU get castigated for preaching the truth and giving us our freedom of speech (not that I hide it from anyone who knows me) but let us realise that we want our children’s future to be secure not through the drawing of blood but by sensible reasoning proof and facts!

    This issue is serious:

    I would rather live and know the truth since I would have died and never known it!

  • Anonymous // July 17, 2008 at 8:03 PM

    JC

    Did Peltdown frighten you with that enoch powell speech?

    If yes,well think again – they use that any time black bajans complain about the indo guyanese.

    Any way I have heard very few bloggers mention violence.Negroman has said he is willing to die for his country – and he is entitled to have that view.You have said the same.

    Others including myself have spoken about what could happen when we reflect on the 1937 riots.

    However for the most part JC, people are concentrating on what they feel should be done and many including myself have over and over again pointed out solutions for the government to consider.

    Don’t let any one make you feel guilty you are entitled to your feelings – whether it is anger,sadness,fear – what we need to do however – is to take the debate to another level and I believe your attempt to do a petition is a great start.

    Don’t think about the numbers – you do your bit.

    The first step is always the hardest,and I think this is where we need a community leader to be a moses to lead the people and give guidance in how to make an effective public protest.

  • JC // July 17, 2008 at 8:51 PM

    No anon I am not scared it is that I am sick and tired of hearing persons use that stupid statement that we want to teach hate and voilence.

    I know for a fact that I am threatended when these foreigners would do anything to get NBarbadian citizenship.

    I know personally the misery that these people are causing to some of my friends and they loved ones.

    I know that Peter wickham and Faria just are working for their daily bread and dont give a hoot about us bajans.

    It pist me off when I heard Singh at that film cry it makes him feel good to see that a white woman and a black man are the persons advocating the ‘guyanese immigration.’

    Pllleeeaaseee and a big Stupesss

    No wonder Tom adams got them out of here!

  • Jay // July 17, 2008 at 9:01 PM

    JC said:

    That is why the EU are now trying to make sure that persons have visas to enter their country and the correct documents!

    These people do not want any and every body in their country they want the best brains and persons to be citizens of their countries.

    ————————————-

    Heh,guess which country was added to Europe’s visa free status because of the EPA deal……..none other than BARBADOS of course,also the Bahamas & Antigua.The Schengen visa is probably one of the most difficult visas to get in the world,even rivaling US visas now.They’re just that difficult.

    Imagine if a regularization or amnesty was given,those same illegal immigrants could & most likely would try to move on to Europe endangering the possible visa free status we have with the EU block.

  • JC // July 17, 2008 at 9:34 PM

    Jay I know what you are talking about I made it my business to read about this Schengen visa and I know that this is indeed a great feat for any country.

    that is why I want to protect our pride and decency.

    the professor at the film made sure to look Faria in the face and let him know about the incident which he saw for himself in Guyana wher 500 Indo guyanese were on the left and the afro guyanense on the right . Everyon in Barbados knows that whne we fly our kites brown black yellow or white we fly them together.

    You mean to tell me that not even a kite flying event could bring these guyanese together and then peter wickham will tell me that there is no harm.

    Why then are the trinidadians and jamaicans required to have a visa to go to England! Spare me with your bull shit rhetoric!

  • Anonymous // July 18, 2008 at 1:56 AM

    Good for you JC girl,you had me worried there for a moment that these people who want to stop this debate had gotten to you.

    Many years from now you would look back and be proud of the fact that you did your part for your children and your country.

    That’s why I am proud of David and BU, I am prould of peole like negroman and yardbroom and even myself as well as others too numerous to mention who keep at it even though sometimes we may get tired.

    I keep reminding bloggers that people like wickham and the same annalee davis,and ricky singh and others agenda is to try and portray us as a few extreme bajans who try to incite violence and strife agains the poor,hardworking,law abiding,black bajan loving undocumented ( not illegal) indo guyanese.

    We could talk as long as we want about how it is negatively affecting our health service,our schools,our water supply,our foreign exchange collection our housing – they are not interested in that.

    Now I try to pay attention to the media to see how they are covering this issue – and my goodness talk about censorship.

    Vob tonight allowed a male bajan caller who was against people speaking out against the guyanese – he spoke for almost 12 minutes uninteruppted – no cutting off the air of sections of his discussion by mike brown the producer – however as soon as a bajan woman came on and tried to refute what the man said especially as it relates to the indo guyanese – there was complete silence – mike brown the producer who has the delete button – cut off almost all of what she said.

    Now you tell me that things like that will not drive bajans to the extremes?

    Unless we listen to VOB and CBC,and read the nation newspaper – we will not know how they have been co-opted by the anti- bajan – pro -guyanese group to try to stop this airing of our concerns.

  • David // July 18, 2008 at 6:56 AM

    We find it interesting that this matter is being discussed in the highest law courts of our land i.e.lower and upper houses. We find it interest that which this matter is being discussed at that level the local media, specifically the Nation and VOB given their wider circulation would be seeking to muzzle this issue.

    We would have seen at Solidarity House at the screening of the Annalee Davis ‘piece’ a VOB moderator surprised us all by expressing her strong concerns on the matter of our open immigration policy. We were surprise as well to hear Jewel Forde in the same role. (We find it laughable that Peter Wickham would refer to her contribution on air yesterday but refuse to call her name. Did she not express her views in a public forum? What hypocrisy!!!

  • JC // July 18, 2008 at 7:13 AM

    I will never respect the media in Barbdos they have no backbone.

    Investigative journalism is DEAD!

    Thank God for BU and BFP!

  • Anonymous // July 18, 2008 at 7:59 AM

    Scout I am waiting on you to step up to the plate and call the name of the middle class big – up you say dismissed the bajan workers for all guyanese,and the man who married an indian guyanese and got her as a maid and got his bajan woman living with him too, as well as the licensing authority officer who engaged in a marriage of convenience so the indo guyanese woman can get a passport.

    Isn’t it time to name and shame these persons like even some immigration officers and others who receive bribes and give the guyanese passports etc.

    I want us to be responsible and truthful and don’t slander anyone’s name unless what we are saying we know to be true.

    But those in society must be made aware that we are on to their doings and will make it public so the authorities where necessary can take the right steps.

  • Mintue Mouse // July 18, 2008 at 1:44 PM

    I am willing to sign my name. on your petition
    ALL OF THEM WANT GOING HOME
    THEY COULD LIVE IN THE FOREST.AND HUNT DOWN WILD MEAT.

    THIS IS OUR ISLAND!!

  • Adrian Hinds // July 18, 2008 at 2:41 PM

    Anonymous // July 17, 2008 at 5:28 pm

    Hinds what are your facts? As usual, full of opinion, often (always?) wide of the mark.

    The same fears and assumptions that Powell played to in that speech I see in many of the posts in this and other threads on BU. If he was wrong , what makes us right?
    =================================

    There is much evidence to demonstrate that Powell was right.

  • boredickey // July 19, 2008 at 6:11 AM

    What is Faria’s email address??? He was on VOB last evening and has that station locked down. He said he was born in St.Jude’s Village in St.George, Barbados. He also revealed that he was of Guyanese parentage and that he holds two citizenships…….one herel the other in Guyana.

  • Pat // July 21, 2008 at 8:59 PM

    JC, I will sign your petition and use my own given name.

    For your information, Jamaicans, Trinidadians, Guyanese, and Haitians need visas to get into Canada for a vacation! Some Canadian Immigration officers stated a few years ago that Barbados is the only country in the Caribbean whose nationals do not turn up at the border asking for refugee status.

  • Anonymous // July 21, 2008 at 9:31 PM

    Good lord Pat,

    Do you see where we are heading?

    I don’t think owen arthur really cared about the hard fought heritage our foreparents left us which he has started the destruction of just so.

    A passport and citizenship is a precious gift – it is like a precious recommendation that gets you through the door.

    Guyanese don’t care about stuff like that because every country perhaps with the only exception of Hati – do not want guyanese in any significant numbers in their country.So pride in being guyanese has long been forgotten after the 70s and 80s.
    Those early set of guyanese migrants – had pride in themselves and even their home country – not this lot however.

    So for a while they have been doing forgeries of barbadian passports until owen arthur along with greedy and corrupt immigration officers open the door to easy bajan passports.

    This is why I keep saying it is imperative that ministr mcclean do a thorough review of passports granted over the last 15 years.

    As taxpayers we think it will be money well spent – and where irregularities are found – these passports must be revoked.

    Only last week Jay who is in the USA told us that the shipley visa – which is much sought after by many,many countries have been granted to barbadians.

    You think that reputation came about because of the arthur administration and their loose policy on immigration?

    Do you think they gave us that because of these lovely hardworking guyanese in barbados.

    As a matter of fact I would prefer to see it withdrawn than have these low life guyanese with bajan passports smear our good international image.

  • Hants // July 21, 2008 at 10:30 PM

    Mr.Faria is making a case for those who are concerned about the negative effects of immigrants into Barbados.

    He was born in Barbados and is passionate about defending Guyana and Guyanese not Bajans. His parents are Guyanese.

    He should expect all Bajans whose forefathers were Bajans to be just as passionate about protecting the quality of life in the land of our parents and Grandparents.

  • JC // July 21, 2008 at 10:47 PM

    Government is not infallible. Government is only an executive control, a centralized authority for the purpose of expressing the will of the people.
    Before you have a government you must have the people. Without the people there can be no government. The government must be, therefore. an expression of the will of the people.

    Marcus Garvey

  • Temohpab // July 22, 2008 at 4:58 AM

    Norman Faria in his “honourary ” role needs to stop attacking Bajans and address the issue of Guyanese criminals crossing our border and committting crimes. Also the lucrative flesh trade that is thriving out in the open as is evidenced by the night clubs where young Guyanese females dance in the nude as well as sell their bodies for a fee.

    I only learned just yesterday that a close friend and former work-mate died of AIDS, which he contracted from a young GT girl he married, against the advice of close friends and family. The price we pay for love……c’est la vie.

  • Anonymous // July 22, 2008 at 7:31 AM

    These guyanese women have been boasting about how they give the bajan men aids.They boast about how the iggrunt bajan men are taking it back to their women and wives,so as you see the guyanese are already wrecking havoc in a different way in barbados.

    Guyana has all sorts of diseases;malaria,yellow fever,leprosy and T.B. – yet guyanese come sailing theough our airports and are not checked or kept in quarantine or even sent back.

    A lot of these diseases which we have gotten rid of are now been seen here in barbados again.

    Yet the government allows them in and then wants to spend our money which we could hardly afford to pay the paharmacy for the drugs for diabetics,high pertension,asthma the government pays for health services according to norman faria for illegal guyanese instead of deporting them back to guyana.

  • Someone said the 'BLP Stalwart' // July 29, 2008 at 9:16 PM

    I am convinced that intellectual capacity and reasonableness is not a gift possessed by JC. JCs utterances more often than not, speak to someone who does not know themselves but would jump on any bandwagon without thought and due consideration. Are you part of the vermin seeking to destroy this country? Mind you, I can take blows, but I also deliver with deftness.

  • JC // August 3, 2008 at 2:38 AM

    Like the deftness that was delivered to you on Jan 15, which caused you to end up in ICU

    ‘was it a heart atack’!

    Give me a break! I dont profess to be SMART like ‘you’ however, if you knew me you would know that I will never lick the Bs or Ds ass!

    NEVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

    I have something that you will never have PRINCIPLES!

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