St George’s: The government of Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell will consider a request from the Grenada National Reparations Committee (GNRC) to rename “streets and other important areas to accurately reflect our history and heritage’’, as part of the nation’s 50th anniversary of independence celebrations in 2024.
GNRC’s request is contained in a letter, signed by its chairman Arley Gill, and addressed to Prime Minister Mitchell.
“For the most of our history, our streets, hospitals and schools have honoured and memorialized individuals that contributed very little and, more often than not, nothing to Grenadian life. Historical research shows that many of the individuals that we commemorate and honour were involved in the Transatlantic Slave Trade or were direct beneficiaries of the slave trade,’’ said Gill, who also is Grenada’s Ambassador to CARICOM.
He suggested to the prime minister that there’s a need to “establish a post-independence monumental landscape to be reflective of who we are as a people, what we want to be as a people, and to inspire future generations of Grenadians to see themselves as one day being part of our national landscape’’.
Dr Mitchell, in a response signed by permanent secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Kim Frederick, thanked Gill for the recommendations.
“Please be advised that said recommendations will be submitted to the Cabinet for its consideration,’’ Gill was told. “Thereafter, this ministry will inform you of the decision of the Cabinet.’’
In arguing for the government to adopt the recommended changes, Gill said that “ensuring accurate historical representation in public places’’ has become a “matter that has garnered regional and global attention in recent years’’.
He noted the example of Barbados and the relocating there of the Lord Nelson statue that “rightfully belonged in a museum and not in a public square’’.
The landscape of monuments in Grenada now is “more representative of the 18th and 19th centuries’’, said Gill, and the GNRC “strongly believes that the time has come to identify and amplify the lives and memories of outstanding nationals, who made valiant contributions to Grenada’s civilization’’.
