Greetings Downstreet on your return back to the board. Your departure had left us with a void of objectivity that is irreplaceable, despite our attempts to salvage credible conversation among the few of us that remained.

Your post as always, showed a sence of balance regarding the subject matter and a somewhat optimistic perception despite our colonial plight.  But in recognition of  that 'half full glass' you equated to Mother's performance, it meant that the standards by which we ought to measure her contribution was already depleted by 50% (the half empty portion) hence no attempt can be made to exculpate her from her miserable performance.

But more to the gist of your rebuttal is the perception that Mother gave us whatever she had but our parents also bore some of the responsibilities for dissuading us from the arts.

Said you on this,

>>>>>From the point of view of Mother England, she gave us what she had, what she knew, .....<<<<<

Downstreet, sorry bro, but I have some trouble digesting this as I believe nothing could be further from the truth. Mother did not give us what she had, that was reserved for her lawful children in her house; her English Gentlemen. Mother saw us as "the *******ized children resulting from her philandering Husband" and treated us as such. She ensured that all her lawful children were exposed to her culture, her arts, her social structure and prepared them for the perpetuation of a system that assured their continuity of dominance over us, even in our own country. Our educational structure was simply a by-product of her conduct, one that would eventually prepare us to ease the burden on her when "our day of abandonment (call it independence, if you must) arise. In this regard, it was simply Mother's default plan as she bought her time and gradually eased us out from under her domain when we were no longer any benefit to her.

Mother also did not "give us what she knew" in fact,  she made sure we did not know what she knew. Mother reaped the benefits from our naivete by plumeting every aspect of our economy, leaving us with a "raw materials mentality" and had preferred to import us to man the factories in her country rather than giving us the know-how of mechanization. So those of us who had excaped her tentacles at home, surely could not have avoided it when she came calling.

Mother had won again!

>>>>>....that our parents chose not to send us to play Pan, or piano, or to encourage us to fporm ensambles to sing dance or act, is on Them, don't blame Mutha for that....<<<<<

Street, It is important to remember that the stranglehold Mother had on us had encompass every aspect of our lives; politically, socialy, economically and in some cases, religiously. And in the case where a dominant force becomes so ingrained in any country, the populace tends to emulate that force which is precisely what we did.

She debased our culture as inferior, removing any semblance of our African Herritage. Her efforts of cultural clensing incorporated those only of her tradition, even our attire, though not conducive to our climate was influenced by her. Her designation of servitude on our people was so deep that we could not have envisioned our children adopting any other lifestyle othet than those which she had deemed appropriate for us . And worse yet, as the coup de gra`ce of her influence, she made us sing in the hot sun, God save our gracious Queen, long live our noble Queen..... long to rule over us.

What a....., Mother!

VLO

My apologies to the word police.

Oh VL I wish I had the time to take you on with this one. You are going to have to make do with a couple o lines.

I wholeheartedly support Downstreet's "glass half-full approach". I could easily have written his post myself.

Whilst we continue, even today, to pillory mudder for her shabby treatment of us we are blinded to our own responsibility to effectively address our educational and cultural development.

Instead of looking back, why not cast a critical eye on how well we are doing currently

How comparative is education system today with (a) the caribbean, and (b) the world ?

Mango,

I will chalk this up as my loss but as this is the type of topic that can stand the test of time, please feel free to bring it up again and not starve me for too long.

VJL