British High Commission launches Commonwealth Competition in Secondary Schools across Antigua and Barbuda

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The British High Commission St John’s is preparing to celebrate Commonwealth Day and the Queen’s Jubilee in partnership with the Ministry of Education and ABS by engaging secondary school students on both islands in a competition themed “Antigua and Barbuda benefits from being a member of the Commonwealth”.

Secondary students are invited to perform in any one of three categories: spoken word (2-3 minutes), song (not exceeding 3 minutes), or drama (not exceeding 5 minutes) and email their submissions to [email protected] by 25 February 2022.

Winners will receive individual prizes, be hosted at a reception along with the teachers who assisted them, and also secure a donation to their schools.

Resident British Commissioner, Lindsy Thompson, commenced school tours today at the Christ the King High School to promote this competition. In her encouragement for widescale participation she noted the importance of awareness and understanding of the opportunities that are available to young people because of the partnerships and shared values that our countries have by being members of multilateral bodies like the Commonwealth.

She said, “Antigua and Barbuda is one of the 54 countries in the Commonwealth of Nations – comprising over 2.5 billion people – 60% of whom are under 30. There is a wealth of student talent here in Antigua and Barbuda and I’m really looking forward to seeing the students’ entries, which will combine with their research on the benefits of Commonwealth membership with their creative and dramatic flair.”

The three winning pieces will be professionally recorded and released to the nation via ABS and other national media platforms on 14 March 2022, which is Commonwealth Day.

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  1. Notes From A Native Son Of The Rock! In this the International Decade for People of African Descent 2015 – 2024 kindly take a close look at the photo of the Schoolgirls at Christ The King High School before it is removed!

    “The Afrocentric paradigm is a revolutionary shift in thinking proposed as a constructural adjustment to black disorientation, decenteredness, and lack of agency. The Afrocentrist asks the question, “What would African people do if there were no white people?” In other words, what natural responses would occur in the relationships, attitudes toward the environment, kinship patterns, preferences for colors, type of religion, and historical referent points for African people if there had not been any intervention of colonialism or enslavement? Afrocentricity answers this question by asserting the central role of the African subject within the context of African history, thereby removing Europe from the center of the African reality. In this way, Afrocentricity becomes a revolutionary idea because it studies ideas, concepts, events, personalities, and political and economic processes from a standpoint of black people as subjects and not as objects, basing all knowledge on the authentic interrogation of location.” Dr. Molefi Asante, Afrocentricity, The Theory Of Social Change!

    Why! Oh Why is “The British High Commission St John’s preparing to celebrate Commonwealth Day and the Queen’s Jubilee in partnership with the Ministry of Education and ABS by engaging secondary school students on both islands in a competition themed “Antigua and Barbuda benefits from being a member of the Commonwealth”. – ANR 02072022!

    This mere voice in the wilderness will suggest that before engaging in the exercise or competition, Students, Parents, and Teachers be guided by the following: “all relationships are based on centers and margins and the distances from either the center or the margin. When black people view themselves as centered and central in their own history then they see themselves as agents, actors, and participants rather than as marginals on the periphery of political or economic experience. Using this paradigm, human beings have discovered that all phenomena are expressed in the fundamental categories of space and time. Furthermore, it is then understood that relationships develop and knowledge increases to the extent we are able to appreciate the issues of space and time.” Asante!

    To The Ministry of Education:
    Some 387 Years from the arrival of our Enslaved Ancestors! 187 Years from Emancipation! 70 Years from Adult Suffrage! 54 Years from Statehood In Association when Black People assumed responsibility for their Internal Political, Economic, Socio-Cultural, Technological, Legal and Ecological Constructs! 40 Years Of Independence! Why is Britain still holding sway on Our Children’s Education! ““If you control a man’s thinking, you don’t have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him to stand here or go yonder, he will find his proper place. You do not need to send him to the back door, he will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit.” – Dr. Carter Woodson, “The Miseducation of the Negro”!

    To The Students, Parents and Techers:
    Can you feel the angst of the wiseacres and wailings and self flagellation of the monarchists! It’s The Commonwealth Not Britain! As VC would say I concede mindful of the Historical Referent Points of Cecil Rhodes whose Society advanced the ideas of the British Empire and The Commonwealth to Jan Smuts in 1917 and the Balfour Declaration of 1926! “It is a question of the Third World starting a new history of Man, a history which will have regard to the sometimes prodigious theses which Europe (Britain) has put forward, but which will also not forget Europe’s (British)crimes, of which the most horrible was committed in the heart of man, and consisted of the pathological tearing apart of his functions and the crumbling away of his unity. And in the framework of the collectivity there were the differentiations, the stratification, and the bloodthirsty tensions fed by classes; and finally, on the immense scale of humanity, there were racial hatreds, slavery, exploitation, and above all the bloodless genocide which consisted in the setting aside of … millions of men (and women). So, comrades, let us not pay tribute to Europe (Britain) by creating states, institutions, and societies which draw their inspiration from her.” – Frantz Fanaon, The Wretched Of The Earth!

    More Recently, when most of the African Countries were ready to jettison the British Crown as being the Head of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta 2015, Caribbean Nations joined forces with The White, European Kith and Kin and Asian Nations to elect Baroness Patricia Scotland who was the British Candidate, flouting and masquerading as a Caribbean Daughter of Dominica with ancestral roots in Antigua (which did not support her until the British Tabloids did a number on A&B’s Candidate, Ron Sanders) when her whole being (The Life Peerage and Baroness) was tied to the British Monarchy and white monopoly capital, and whose sole purpose was to secure the Leadership of CHOGM for Charles! Last weekend, Elizabeth finally “put a ring on it” as Queen Bey would sing! ‘”And when, in the fullness of time, my son Charles becomes King, I know you will give him and his wife Camilla the same support that you have given me; and it is my sincere wish that, when that time comes, Camilla will be known as Queen Consort as she continues her own loyal service,” the queen said in a message released Saturday night, hours before she marks 70 years on the British throne.”

    Parents and Teachers, kindly encourage your students, if they wish to engage in the exercise or competition to research and study those Historical Referent Points From Antigua and Barbuda to Cecil Rhodes to Jan Smuts to the Balfour Declaration to Gaston Browne, Ron Sanders and Patricia Scotland which have been noted above before putting pen to paper or the QWERTY! “If we look around, we see a sea of People of African Descent poverty. //Let’s not fool ourselves and one another; the primary motivation for the evils of colonialism was and still is economic. It is organised crime, the robbery of other people’s land and resources, as well as the exploitation and use of their labour. It is also about the reduction of these people to mass consumers and exclusion from the ownership of the factors of production and wealth creation.” – Mme Lindiwe Sisulu: Hi Mzansi, have we seen justice? Sisulu is a member of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress, Member of Parliament and Minister of Tourism South Africa. She is the daughter of the Late Walter and Albertina Sisulu stalwart South African anti-apartheid activist and member of the African National Congress (ANC)!

    Let me end with this! The British Crown and or Government has never apologized for Enslaving Our Ancestors! The closest the Crown has come to date is Charles’ acknowledgment of the “appalling atrocity of slavery” that “forever stains our history”! Understand the language of enslavement and slavery! “The value of etymology, that is, the origin of terms and words is in the proper identification and location of concepts. The Afrocentrist seeks to demonstrate clarity by exposing dislocations, disorientations, and decenterness. One of the simplest ways of accessing textual clarity is through etymology.” Asante!

    Nuff Said! Now Students “Go Tell It Like It Is!”

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