At last! Bajans seem up for the takedown of the statue of Lord Nelson. Photo of ArtsEtc Editor Linda M. Deane pointing the way copyright © 2020 by Izora Devonish.
THE MOOD, the energy, in National Heroes Square on June 13 was electric. Masked protesters in black; hand-painted signs relating to Black Lives Matter and local social justice issues aloft. Speeches from elders, the youth and the something-in-betweens urgent, impassioned—full of history, reasoning and firsthand witness. Onkphra’s drumming, Rhyminister’s freestyling, AquaFari’s guitar, the protest songs and chants intensifying the messaging that this statue must come down. It was a real moment. And beyond that, it felt like movement. Not another lot of long talk but true call to action.
I swear that if that rally had been anywhere but Barbados, Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson would be down all like now.
“Nelson was a sailor? Give he back to de sea,” quipped one placard. A couple of speakers did step forward in the heat of the moment, with impromptu appeals to anybody with a rope. “Leh we do this ting now!” But, alas, Barbadians don’t have anti-establishment statue-toppling in their blood.
We put our faith in elected leaders to do the right thing and give them deadlines to do it (August 1, Emancipation Day, is the call). We agree to keep gathering and mekkin noise until that happens. Hungrily, we pore over reports and recommendations from twenty years ago about what to do with such a problematic symbol. We refuse to take a knee in its shadow, give it the middle finger instead, en masse, and most satisfying in the moment (not the first time I’ve given the finger to a monument of contested history—but that’s another story). We sign petitions. We do everything except physically storm the barricades.
Why?
For a start, there were actual barricades protecting the brute, plus he had a police guard—measures that were in place for the #BlackLivesMatter march through Bridgetown the previous week.
Were we too scared to be arrested, to be seen to be arrested? Were we unwilling to risk our comfort for a cause? Were we mentally calculating all the other things we have to do in our busy, complicated lives—our families, our jobs and other responsibilities, the weekly shopping and the laundry? Whatever it was, it caused us to hesitate, to glance about unsure at each other, and then, and then...the moment was gone.
The authorities may not be able to rely on Barbadian conservatism and conformity for too much longer.
Worldwide, there is a whole other climate change relating to issues of race, equality and human rights, and it’s leaving not a lot of time and space for reserve and manners. As the logo on several protestors’ T-shirts read: “1526-2020: Enough is enough.” The very recent passing of United States Congressman John Lewis, who was arrested maybe fifty times during his lifetime as a civil rights activist and who was beaten during the March on Selma, Alabama, in 1965, makes me think anew about the nature of protest, in Barbados and elsewhere, and what we are prepared to endure or sacrifice.
I won’t lie. If someone had brought a rope and we hadda drag that brute Nelson down and chuck him in the Careenage that day, it would have been the most amazing, powerful and satisfying feeling—but only in that moment. Such a gesture, ultimately, would have been empty. Someone would’ve had to fish him out again. He needs to be part of the exercise to properly confront and reframe Barbados’ past, so we all can learn—and earn—from it, and move into a more equable future.
Reparations, I call it.
Minister of culture John King has since announced that Nelson will indeed come down—the date as yet unknown, but Government is taking suggestions from the populace on where he might be moved to.
On the way home from the June rally with my daughter and her friends, the suggestions simply flowed, and how, about what to do with the brute. The government is welcome to them.
• Tek de brute down, chuck him in the Careenage. Let the waters claim him like they claimed African lives during the Middle Passage.
• Tek de brute down, put up a Bajan. Put up Bajans. Put up heroes and monuments to black and Bajan history, culture and achievement. Make those the landmarks and the tourist attractions. Make the selection and erection of those new monuments a democratic and national process. Stage town hall meetings and public design competitions involving everyone from primary school children to artists and design professionals.
• Keep de brute where he is, change the name of the square.
• Keep de brute where he is, turn him into public art. Use him as a hoarding for graffiti, murals, and #BLM and other social-justice messaging. And look! Some thoughtful soul has begun the process—there is graffiti already on the base of the statue.
• Tek de brute down, put him at the edge of Buhbayduss. Face him somewhere out to sea with a sign pointing to England. Let pigeons and seabirds be charged with his upkeep.
• Tek de brute down, put him in a museum. A maritime heritage museum will do, or some similar space while we wait for one, recommended every long time since, to be built. Put him as a solo exhibit or with other brutes from our contested history.
• Tek de brute down and cast him into Carlisle Bay. Mek him home for the fishes and the corals, let him work off his sins for the better of the marine environment and give divers something else to look at.
• Tek de brute down and smelt he. Use the metals to build a new, fabulous and more fitting monument to Barbadian lives.
• Tek de brute down and sell he to the highest bidder, foreign or local. Collectors stand ready, for whatever reasons, to pay pretty pennies to preserve him. Take the money and use it to build or finance something of benefit to under-franchised Barbadians.
• Tek de brute down or keep him where he is, but keep on pushing no matter what. Nelson is just a symbol. There are other symbols, systems and symptoms of oppression, inequality and injustice that also need addressing in Barbados.
Really, though, just tek de brute down.
