He further said he believes these so-called tactics are geared towards disrupting and controlling the BVI population by levelling false accusations at local government.

The premier gave that indication during Tuesday’s sitting in the House of Assembly, while laying the Disaster Management Bill before the House to undergo significant amendments.

The amended Bill proposes to shift the power of control from the governor to the Premier and his government during times of disaster.

“The Disaster Management Bill before us today gives the people of the Virgin Islands the hands-on control over this aspect of our resilience. It complements the principles that are contained in the Constitution,” Fahie stated.

He added: “As we make the amendments to the Bill to put it under local government, this transition in the administration of disaster management in the BVI is long overdue, so as many other things such as the archives and many other areas that we are going to be tackling while helping the economy.”

Time for BVI to awake and see racist and slavery tactics

As he debated the amendment in the House of Tuesday, Premier Fahie said the time has come where locals need to commence viewing the Constitution and many other things from a different lens and not from the view of how the colonial powers have programmed persons to view things over the years.

He said: “We come awake when we look through the laws when it’s dealing with an elected official. But we go to sleep when it’s dealing with the laws dealing with the Governor or any other entity that comes from within the Governor’s area. [This is] because we still have in our mind that we are not as apt in these areas as they are, and that is where we’ve fallen short and it’s not by accident. It’s by design, sad to say.”

“There are some coming out of the UK practising this colonialism in a modern-day form and we must address it and address it now, because we cannot sit by knowing there is undercover racism creeping in the carpet of our territory and we want to continue to ignore because of fear or because they make us feel that if we touch it, they will destroy us whether it is politically or otherwise like they have done in other territories,” he explained.

Fear used as a tool to keep masses oppressed

The leader of government business further said these colonial powers use fear and other political tactics to undermine governments.

He said the do so by painting a discrediting narrative to the masses to pave a path to justify their authoritative measures when they take action.

“When anyone exposes certain things with them, they go after them to try to destroy them and make people feel, ‘never touch that because if you touch that or touch them in ways that they don’t agree, they take it as an insult and they come after you’. They destroy your life, you family and everything,” Fahie stated.

“But they put it under lack of integrity. They put it under lack of transparency and they put it under lack of good governance. [It’s a] modern-day methodology to do what was done even before to try to keep us in slavery even now. And have us doubting each other and looking at each other through a negative lens. I say to my people and the people of all the OTs especially the Caribbean, to remember the words of the bible and the words of the late Robert Nesta Marley, ‘emancipate yourself from mental slavery’.”

RDA a prime example

Referencing the establishment of the Recovery and Development agency, Premier Fahie further purported his point.

“That is something that they put on us because they were saying that we’re corrupt and a lot of us just accepted it. Yes, there was another government in place but not saying anything about them. But that’s what they’re going to do with every government that comes and that’s what we have to understand,” he said.

“The first way to drive a torpedo in any sitting government by them is always to make it look like the government is not exercising good governance and then get a few of us to believe it and stand up and say we have to take care of our own affairs. No matter what government you have in the world, you’re going to hear these things,” Premier Fahie argued.