#BTColumn – A bittersweet goodbye

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

by Marsha Hinds

Six years ago, I was invited to submit the first Today’s Woman to this space. I keenly accepted, and I must say I largely have enjoyed the space to share thoughts with the public. I have a circle of people who email feedback constantly and who also help me to frame out the parameters of consumption by telling me when I was way off mark.

The space has helped my intellectual thought pattern to remain simplistic, even as I was forced to do something very different in doctoral studies.

The article space kept my thoughts grounded to a level that ‘ordinary’ people, I hope, could read and understand.

This kind of tempering is very valuable for people who dabble in the academic arena – it is an important check when dealing with content that could soon become esoteric and ivoried.

This column sought to explain more broadly what gender is and why reaching gender equality is an important endeavour for a small, open, post-colonial economy. It also offered real time social commentary on the current issues of the day and filled in some of the historical information about our institutions and practices.

The first Today’s Woman was positioned as this one is, just on the cusp of the celebration of Independence. The last one sits in the same position, and it truly is a bittersweet moment for me.

It is bittersweet to sign off of Today’s Woman in its weekly format, and it is also bittersweet to reflect on my nation as we move toward another milestone.

I am returning to Canada in 2021. Many people over the years have asked me why I choose to stick myself out so far in the work I do in the advocacy space for women and girls. The work comes with somewhat of a price.

I am branded a miserable man hater who complains about everything. The label has never really bothered me because I have a privilege.

I am a citizen of two spaces and I fought hard and long to make one space better because I knew when I was mortally tired I had options.

I know a lot of passionate and dedicated women in the advocacy space who could never approach it the way I did, who will not be able to carry on in the way I did, and I have never questioned why because I carried on in privilege.

I have thought long and hard about whether I could sustain Today’s Woman from Canada. I have come to the conclusion that while I can still have an opinion, it will not be as often as every week.

I want to do other things with my time. I want to leave the space open for the women working here to command. Knowing me as I am, I will still offer a comment now and again, but the right thing to do is to open the space.

I remember writing in that first column that Independence was a favourite season of mine. It was time to celebrate a beautiful nation with delectable food and one of a kind rum. Barbados remains beautiful as a physical space.

There are beautiful beaches and lovely places to walk and fellowship. There is always a cock or sheep or cow nearby to add the island feel to the beautiful breezes.

Barbados is also an island with a broken political system, and an economy that is based on a sector that was morphing before COVID and which seems permanently altered after. The island, like many of the territories that make up the CARICOM region, is philosophically adrift with the fallout being seen in the health of the institutions most closely aligned to the nationalist project. It is not by accident that the Caribbean Examination Council, the workers’ unions and the credit unions are all in a state of decline and confusion.

Prime Minister Adams and our flirtation with globalisation were overlaid on the engrained capitalist plantation economic structure.

The consequence has been a systematic undermining of the framework of self-determination and the nationalist project. In between, we have seeming spurts of victory like the removal of Nelson, but broadly little else changes.

Crime is going in the wrong direction largely because of our refusal to accept and address the generational family dysfunctions that continue to produce individuals so affected by traumatic episodes that they find issue in coping at even the most basic level.

This is compounded by the failings of the educational system and the breakdown in community structures like sports clubs. We are producing children who opt out of the system with badly bruised egos and psyches along with reinforcement of the abuse and trauma they live in homes.

I move on to other spaces feeling as though I have made my contribution toward trying to highlight the challenges in Barbados as well as possible solutions.

I will miss the tropical paradise that is Barbados, but at the same time I am looking forward to the rules and sensible government that is Canada.

Blessed Independence to you all, safe rest of 2020 and a fulfilling and safe 2021.

Marsha Hinds is President of the National Organisation of Women.