I wrote this poem when sugar was getting into trouble

Mar 11, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
In the year 1987 I published a book of poems entitled “Revelation Pan Creation, one of the poems is entitled “Sugar Cane”(1984)

Once the world’s Pride
Now crumbling with the world’s worst market price
Under pressure with the best rice
While the oppressors keep throwing their dice
having filled their pockets
With sugar money
Today produce artificial honey
Fighting to destroy the poor and needy
in their struggle for an honest penny
Kings they brought from African lands
To work as slaves in their backlands
Producing sugar under their plans
Black Queens they whipped on the plantation
To strengthen their hold on colonization
Indentured servants coming from India
Suffer the fate as Africa
Living in loggies, drinking impure water
Working sugar cane
And filling the slave masters’ coffer
Beet sugar they say is the best
Still it cannot pass the test
Together we must work
To stop this sugar unrest
If we are to survive in this land
Of the oppressors’ mess.

Many of our politicians today were little boys going to school when I penned this poem on the bank of the mouth of the Potaro River one year before the passing of President Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham who was advocating diversification of the industry. Some were still in pampers when the sugar industry was beginning to experience a serious economic downturn. Sugar was no longer King. Anyone defending the diversification of this industry today is simply playing politics. We cannot as a poor country continue, to carry this burden. St Kitts and Barbados are two of the many countries to dump and downsize sugar to save their economy, so too were many other Africa, Caribbean and Pacific countries. Those billions of dollars given to bailing out a doomed industry could be better spent on diversification, strengthening those positively performing industries and youth empowerment through training and entrepreneurial development, while giving our sugar workers opportunities to better contribute to national development.
RAS AARON BLACKMAN
Poet

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