#BTColumn – 2020: Year of great cultural achievement

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.

by David Comissiong

If we Barbadians are thinking correctly and insightfully, we will recognize that 2020 was the year in which Barbados racked up its most outstanding achievements in its entire post-Independence era.

I am referring specifically to the magnificent manner in which our Barbadian nation and society rose up to deal with the enormous existential challenge of COVID-19. Indeed, I am of the view that this is a story of indigenous cultural achievement that we need to document in film, and to share with our citizens and with the international community.

This historic Barbadian achievement consists of the following elements, among others:

1. The construction of the state-of-the-art 220 bed Isolation Centre at Harrisons Point in the space of one month — a truly amazing indigenous Barbadian effort;

2. Barbados’ outstanding Chairmanship of both the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) during the months when COVID-19 initially hit our region — and the brilliant manner in which Barbados engaged with the Secretariats of both multinational organizations to mount highly acclaimed regional responses to the pandemic. Stellar examples of those responses are to be found in the work done by the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), and by the Barbados based CDEMA and Regional Security System (RSS);

3. Our imaginative engagement with both Cuba and Ghana in recruiting teams of nurses to serve in Barbados in the fight against COVID-19, inclusive of the brilliant strategy of developing specific facilities and capacity to deal with COVID-19, separate and apart from our already existing health care system;

4. Barbados’ hosting of dozens of cruise ships at a time when virtually every other country in the world had spurned them. It should be recalled that this international ostracism of the cruising industry had led to many cruise ships and their passengers and crew being stranded, resulting in a significant number of persons actually committing suicide. Not only did Barbados exhibit exemplary hospitality and humanity in hosting the cruise ships over a period of months, but we also repatriated some 25, 000 cruise ship passengers through our airport;

5. Our Government’s remarkable humanitarian response to the outbreak of the social crisis back in May 2020, with a host of measures to protect Barbadian families, workers, and businesses;

6. Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley’s outstanding international advocacy — not only on behalf of Barbados and the Caribbean, but on behalf of the entire developing world. Prime Minister Mottley was virtually everywhere — from the UN General Assembly, the IMF and World Bank, to highly acclaimed interviews on CNN, BBC and other international news media. Indeed, so outstanding was her performance that she was selected by her international peers to co-chair the joint World Bank / IMF Development Committee;

7. Our Government’s development of such innovations as the 12-Month Welcome Stamp;

8. The crafting of home grown creative responses aimed at protecting the Barbados economy, such as the “Barbados Economic Stabilization and Transformation” (BEST) plan;

9. Barbados’ winning of the 2020 Cruise Destination of the Year Award, in recognition of the assistance that it rendered to so many cruise ships;

10. The many innovative Arts and Culture programmes developed by the NCF and the Ministry of Culture, designed not only to engage with and provide resources and outlets to the nation’s creatives during their time of need, but to also facilitate them to make an artistic/cultural contribution to the overall COVID-19 response effort; and

11. The tremendous role played by the Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 Task Force in organizing the national COVID-19 response effort — inclusive of Minister Bostic’s enunciation of a new national motto of “No Retreat, No Surrender” — and the very commendable manner in which the national population responded to that effort and that motto.

It is against this background that I would like to suggest and recommend that an initiative should be undertaken to produce a documentary that chronicles what is perhaps the most remarkable episode in the entire post Independence history of Barbados.

David Comissiong is Barbados’ Ambassador to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)