We must be confident in our new republic

Barbados’ road to Republicanism represents the completion of an important cycle in our development as an independent country among the global family of nations.

The pathway which was established by former Prime Minister and National Hero, The Right Excellent Errol Walton Barrow, is being completed 55 years later by The Right Honourable Prime Minister Mia Mottley.

On November 30, we become the world’s 53rd former colony of Great Britain to become a Republic, and unabashedly claim our national sovereignty, losing the symbolic strings that tie us to our former colonial master.

It is not only emblematic that we enter this new phase on this anniversary of our Independence from Britain, but it represents a singular show of strength and confidence in ourselves as a people, that we undertake this transition in spite of one of the most traumatic periods in the history of the world.

We have, as a nation, sought to manage numerous challenges that have converged during the COVID-19 pandemic to create a most uncertain period.

The brothers and sisters of the Credit Union movement and their representative body, the Barbados Co-operative and Credit Union League (BCCUL), are proud to mark the historic occasion and to pledge our continued support of the economic, financial, social, and educational development of our country.

As with most seminal changes in the life of a nation, not all our citizens will respond in the same vein and at the same time. It is expected that there will be diverging views, and they ought to be respected.

We too in the credit union movement have successfully managed our various stages of growth, allowing all views to contend respectfully, but carefully managing the processes and sensitising our membership to the benefits and risks that may occur along the way.

There is no doubt that over the past 55 years of our independence, we have been forced to manoeuvre through many treacherous periods of economic and social malaise. However, on each occasion, it has been our inimitable Barbadian spirit of pride and determination that has propelled us.

We are presently facing one of the most challenging stages in our recent history and it has caused us to lean on all our powers of resiliency. The pandemic has taken lives and has brought significant pain to our livelihoods as individuals, institutions, and corporate entities.

We do not know what the future portends. What we are sure about, however, is that as a nation we are fortified in the belief in our capacity to confront whatever comes before us in the measured, confident, and surefootedness for which our people have been known.

To the leadership and people of Barbados, the Credit Union movement across the island, salutes our nation on this historic transition to becoming a Republic.

Hally Haynes, President of The Barbados Co-operative & Credit Union League Limited