In the wake of yesterday’s double murder, which took the life of contractor Glenroy James and Nation photojournalist Christoff Griffith, Prime Minister Mia Mottley has declared now is the time for Barbadians to take the issue of mental health and wellness more seriously.
Speaking in the House of Assembly on a motion prompted by the Black Lives Matter movement, the Prime Minister said: “Even as we come to grips with the horrific murders yesterday, we have to understand that this country cannot continue to bear the weight of mental health problems anymore, and there is no disgrace in treating people for mental illness.
“We have seen nine people in the last 15 months lose their lives at the hands of three people whose mental capacity was at the very least questionable.
“There is more to mental health than not being diagnosed as bipolar, or not being diagnosed as schizophrenic. It is all about wellness, and this starts with knowing who you are and loving who you are, warts and all, strengths and all.”
Mottley continued: “We have not sufficiently rooted our families to love each other, and remove some of the other disorders of public health, not COVID-19 but violence. If we are going to do that we have to call it for what it is. In my view, the disease of violence is rooted in our lack of identity, and that is why this Government, and I pray to the point of tears that those who have responsibility for leading this country going forward will recognise that rooting our people is extremely important so that they can swing with the winds but not break, they know who they are and their responsibilities and not just their rights.
“This can be achieved by a people, whether it is these voices here in Parliament, or the elders, or the young who want to be global voices, whatever it is, we have to settle on a mission that there must be a culture of love and peace to raise people so they can go out and do good works.”
She spoke on some of the challenges Barbados has faced over the years in dealing with race relations, and cited the example of her uncle, Elombe Mottley, who was considered a radical when he spoke of economic enfranchisement in the 1970s.
The PM declared: “I have an uncle who would have been called a rebel and outcast in the late 1960s and early 1970s for saying working-class people should be given opportunities they did not receive before, who understood the need for economic enfranchisement. The social enfranchisement came through the work of our National Heroes, like Charles Duncan O’Neal, Sir Grantley Adams, Sir Hugh Springer, and Sir Frank Walcott, but the most difficult is the economic one.
“I cannot imagine that this Parliament would have at one stage been a source of oppression, but this political party did a lot more to turn this place into a place of empowerment than any other. That is what roots us – having removed the vestiges of legal discrimination for the most part.
“And shortly, the Member of Parliament for St Peter has to bring the Anti Discrimination in the Workplace Act, to this House, and another act that seeks to ensure that discrimination is justiciable not only when the state commits it, but when individuals do it. While the fundamental rights and freedoms of the Constitution imposes this on the state, there is no such imposition on private individuals, and this is wrong, but we will deal with it.”
In reference to the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in the United States, which sparked a round of Black Lives Matter protests worldwide, Mottley attributed the overwhelming response to the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic opened people’s eyes to the injustices of the world.
She said: “The pandemic has laid us bare; from leaders to paupers have faced it, it has taught us the value of life, of family, of work, our environment. It was a “reset” many may argue was essential for humanity.
“The virus has also laid bare the racism of the world because if that virus had not come and this pandemic was not virulent, the potential for the response to George Floyd’s death would in my view never have mushroomed as much as it did, but we had the attention of the entire world as it was trying to heal from a pandemic. In the midst of this, an act that is all too much a part of our history became a part of our present and threatened to be a part of our future.
“We have to be able to hold our own as a people, confident we have come far, but there are still aspects of our own society where vestiges of discrimination and hatred reside too comfortably for us. All Bajans have to take this responsibility, especially in the way we treat each other, and the unit of strength and success in our society, the family, the village. I pray we will continue on this course.
“Our Covenant of Hope speaks to renewing our national consciousness. There are too many people who can strive for more but find it hard to do so because they feel they are not good enough, and this has stopped us from doing more as a nation. There will be difficult conversations, but we must study the two volumes prepared by our National Reconciliation Committee commissioned by a previous administration in 1999 as a reference point, not only to see how far we have come in the last twenty years but also how much further we have to go.”
