Religious leader calls for national values

A religious leader is making a call for Barbados to have national values.

As he spoke about the importance of having national values to build a stronger society, Apostle Eliseus Joseph suggested that compassion must be one of the values to ensure that nobody, regardless of their sex, colour, class or creed are marginalised.

“We need a compassionate society because there is something called the politics of holiness. It creates a dualistic approach to life that you are either white or black, you are either clean or unclean; you either have a big nose or small nose. It is a dualistic device that the whole world has used to discriminate the weaker,” he said, as he delivered the sermon at the Barbados Labour Party thanksgiving service at Queen’s Park, this morning.

In a fiery delivery, Joseph commended Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s leadership.

He said Mottley wanted to deliver a “caring government in the absence of government and a caring economy in the absence of a downgrading economy to offer a regulated and upgraded economy”.

“Oh my God I am so thankful that we are out of our domination. We are out of our oppression. Every Barbadian wants a government that cares. And I want to say honourable Prime Minister that you have brought to us a national vision and I want you to cascade that vision right to the very bottom, right to the lowest person in Barbados.

“The question before us is how can we cascade this into government, into the civil service? How can we develop a caring civil service? How can we develop a caring Police Force? How can we develop a caring school that doesn’t allow people to drop through the cracks? . . .  Madam you have one of the greatest visions and I want you to push this vision right through,” he said.

However, Joseph said that revolution in change is not only about changing leadership, but also values.

“We got to change the values because there is a particular value in Barbados that predisposed the past administration to do what they did. We got to change the values and one of the values that we have to propagate is compassion. We have to be compassionate to each other. We can no longer have whites or blacks operating in separate places.”
Joseph also voiced concerns about Barbados’ aging population, which is having an effect on the economy. He said there must be conversation about increasing the population, possibly through migration.

“We need people to carry some weight. Barbadians have been riding free for too long,” he said. (AA)