Kothdiwala wants to see a more inclusive society

Barbados cannot afford to exclude anyone from participating in its national development project regardless of race, religion, gender, age or orientation.

According to youth advocate Khaleel Kothdiwala, the need for inclusion goes well beyond recent debates about whether those under 21 should be allowed to sit in the Senate.

“All countries struggle with including, as best as possible, representing people. That is not peculiar to Barbados, but certainly we struggle with it, whether it is persons who are differently-abled, persons of different racial backgrounds, whether it is persons of different religions or anything else that differentiates people, especially young people,” said Kothdiwala, 18.

A bid to change the Constitution to allow representation in the Senate from age 18, and by so doing to allow  Kothdiwala to take a seat proposed by Prime Minister Mia Mottley, failed because of a lack of support from Independent senators.

But Kothdiwala, who is of African and East Indian ancestry and a member of the Muslim faith, has faced questions about more than his age since he officially entered public life as a 13-year-old in 2017.

“My maternal grandmother is from Workman’s in St George, the daughter of a butcher, himself from Workmans, and a mother who was born in My Lord’s Hill, people who themselves descended from enslaved people brought from Africa,” Kothdiwala disclosed.

“My father was born at the maternity hospital that was over there at the corner of Strathclyde and Whitepark Road, being mixed-race and having a very deep and lasting connection to Barbados,” he added.

But according to the newly-enrolled UWI law student, none of that ought to matter.

“The person who comes from Croatia or Japan ten years ago and has become a naturalised Barbadian citizen and loves Barbados and has chosen to leave their home country and has chosen out of the 190 countries on earth to come to Barbados, that person who has no lasting, deep ancestral tie like the rest of us do, is just as Barbadian, just as entitled and just as deserving of the opportunity to participate in public life as an individual like me whose mother’s side of the family has been in the family for 100s of years and my father’s side of the family that has been in the country between half a century and a century,” Kothdiwala contended.

“We live in too small a country to say that he is too brown-skinned or he is too black or he is too white or she is too young or she is too anything at all. We have to make use of the people that we have and we have to get to a point where we concentrate less on how people look and where people come from but what people are committed to,” the young man declared.

On the issue of youth inclusion, he appealed to Barbadians to have more faith in young people.

“Allow them to make mistakes, correct them as people old and young do, but we have to be able to give them the opportunity.

“We cannot afford to not use valuable citizens because when we say you are too young, this person is too female, this person is too much a member of that racial group or that gender or that orientation, therefore you cannot contribute. I think that we would be left with a very small group of people,” he added.

Contrary to popular belief, Kothdiwala said he had not given much thought to participation in elective politics as he is much more focused on his legal studies.

“I know that there are people in Barbados who believe that I desire a career in politics but I should make the point that that is not a thing that I have thought about much and it is not necessarily a declaration from me that I would like to be involved in politics at the elective level,” said Kothdiwala.

“I am focused at the moment on things related certainly to my studies. I have recently begun at the University of the West Indies studying law but apart from that, I think that in describing myself, I try as best as possible to be dedicated to whatever it is that I am trying to do because we live for I don’t know how long, but you cannot then afford to live halfway.

“Clearly law is my passion and that is what I am focused on. But beyond the law, with respect to politics or anything, I have not had the opportunity or the will to give it a great deal of thought at this time.”
kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb