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The various demands on our time do not allow us to reflect on significant historical events.  That is why we, as a nation, have decided that this event is significant enough to generally shut-down the country to give Barbadians a whole day to reflect.

We are generally a nation of former slaves and indentured servants who were forcibly brought to Barbados, and who were eventually freed from servitude.  That is the historical fact that we should remember.  However, we are not given a whole day to remember historical facts, but rather, to reflect on its relevance to us, our family and community.

Perhaps the most relevant aspect of Emancipation is for us to maintain freedom from enslavement for ourselves and our children.  We are to continuously fight ‘battles’ to maintain our freedom so that our children either do not have to, or so that they can learn to do so more effectively.  Therefore, we should periodically consider whether we or our children have been gradually enslaved by anything, and then battle for our and their liberation.  Emancipation Day is the formal day for that reflection.

The obvious current slaver that has enslaved both us and our children is pornography.  In a moment of sheer lunacy, we have provided our children with tablets and smart phones with Internet access, where they can watch other children being raped repeatedly, while we do nothing.  Our unwillingness to engage in this battle on behalf of our children and those being raped is unconscionable.

Why are we actively desensitising our children to the violent rape of other children.  The answer is obvious.  It is because we are enslaved by pornography, and are willing to sacrifice the next generation of Barbadians in order that we can maintain our perverse addiction.  On this Emancipation Day, we should, of all people, be the most ashamed.

It is time to free our children from the bondage that we have purposely placed them in, for the sole reason of us selfishly maintaining our dangerous addiction.  It is time for us to seriously consider the harm that we are deliberately inflicting on the emotional development of our children.  It is time for us to stop justifying our misguided ‘right’ to view children being raped, long enough to see the hopeless enslavement of the victims that we are facilitating.

It is time for us to stop our meaningless debates of why so many youth are acting irresponsibly and actually start to do something about it.  Shari Veronica of Naked Departure fame has given up on Barbadians, partly because of our eagerness to sacrifice our children to this modern slavery.  We appear to have lost all empathy for our children, and our actions demonstrate that we simply do not care.  We are incapable of fighting this emancipation battle for them because we have chosen not to liberate ourselves, but to wallow in the proverbial mud in the pursuit of pleasure.

When children are damned by their parents, and when parents are so enslaved by pornography that they cannot even see the damage that they are inflicting upon their children, then we, as a nation desperately need help.  Hold on Barbados.  Help is on the way.

Grenville Phillips II is the founder of Solutions Barbados and can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]