Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, Oct 15, 2025

‘Your oppressors will never set you free’- Bishop Cline

‘Your oppressors will never set you free’- Bishop Cline

Pastor of the New Life Baptist Church in the Virgin Islands (VI) Bishop John I. Cline has called on the people of the territory to stand up against what he called the imperialistic mindset and colonial heavy-handedness of the United Kingdom (UK) over the territory as it relates to current events.

Bishop Cline made the comments in an address via the My BVI page on November 3, 2022, which he said comes as the VI continues to experience tempestuous times and that there comes a point in every country's history where the fight against external forces becomes more important than the fight between the people of that country.

No suspension of constitution- Bishop Cline

“We will not stand by and see our constitution suspended. We will seek to have the threat of it being suspended removed from over our heads, and we will not stand by and see no election being held in 2023. Let it be known election must be had.”

Bishop Cline argued that it is the collective responsibility of the people of the VI to stand together, while adding that collective responsibility is not just for the executive branch of government.

“It is for we the people, it is where each man must help his neighbour. It is where parents must work with teachers, farmers with fishermen, and the preacher and the pastor with the man on the street. It is where the strong must help the weak all for a better and stronger BVI,” he remarked.

He said in the days of Theodolph H. Faulkner and Isaac Glanville Fonseca, it was not about political party alliance, which seems to divide the VI, but rather, it was about a Virgin Islands bond that represents a people proud and strong and intelligent and full of courage.

“Who would have imagined that 72 years after the Great March we would be fighting for our rights to self-governance or, even worse, fighting against direct rule by the United Kingdom? Who would have imagined?”

Former colonies had removed Queen - Bishop Cline

Bishop Cline added that while many of the former colonies of the United Kingdom in the Caribbean are now independent and some have even gone further and removed the Queen, now King as Head of State, he questioned why the VI is still contemplating what they should do, “Why are we still in limbo about being under the hand of our colonial masters?” he added.

Bishop Cline reminded the UK is the same people that enslaved the VI, murdered and rape our ancestors along with building their country on the free labour of our forefathers.

“We as Virgin Islanders have allowed our prosperity to give us a false sense of security and not true liberty. After 72 years, some seem to be still mentally bound to our colonial past and our colonial masters. I asked you to wake up because your oppressors will never set you free," he said.

Bishop Cline made the comments in an address via the My BVI page on November 3, 2022, which he said comes as the VI continues to experience tempestuous times and that there comes a point in every country's history where the fight against external forces becomes more important than the fight between the people of that country.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
DJI Loses Appeal to Remove Pentagon’s ‘Chinese Military Company’ Label
EU Deploys New Biometric Entry/Exit System: What Non-EU Travelers Must Know
Australian Prime Minister’s Private Number Exposed Through AI Contact Scraper
Ex-Microsoft Engineer Confirms Famous Windows XP Key Was Leaked Corporate License, Not a Hack
China’s lesson for the US: it takes more than chips to win the AI race
Australia Faces Demographic Risk as Fertility Falls to Record Low
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
×