The Tribune

By Rev Canon Sebastian S Campbell

Chairman of National Heroes Committee

MONDAY October 9 is National Heroes Day in the Commonwealth of The Bahamas. (Legislation declares the second Monday in every October as National Heroes Day). To accentuate the magnificence of these servants, October should be observed as Bahamian History Month. The National Heroes Committee urges all Bahamians and friends to celebrate our nation builders and legends at this time.

ANNUAL NATIONAL

SERVICE

On Sunday, October 8 at 9.30am there will be a special service of thanksgiving (The Annual Green Mass) at St. Gregory the Great, Anglican Church on Carmichael Road, New Providence. To this I invite all Bahamians and friends to come and let us celebrate together. Both government and opposition are requested to be represented. The same invitation is extended to our ecumenical body, the church and to all Faith Groups

Sponsorship is presently being sought to have a live broadcast and telecast simultaneously. Every effort must be invested to elevate the importance of this national event. It will certainly help for all churches to accept our invitation to this year's dedicated service and indeed to all Sundays immediately preceding the second Monday in October every year to the celebration of our National Heroes. It is so attractive to have every church involved a form of celebration for our heroes that would be uniquely theirs.

COMMUNITY

CELEBRTATION

For some years now, the Old Scholars Association of Fox Hill has celebrated National Heroes on the actual Heroes Day. This year will be no exception. St. Paul's Baptist church is the venue on Monday, October 9 at 11am. Fox Hill will celebrate their very own legends. I certainly look forward to being there and joining with them in celebration. This indeed is to be encouraged throughout our country. Every community can certainly follow the example of Fox Hill and thus entrench the celebration locally. It is your heroes you celebrate; no-one should dictate who your heroes are. Please get excited or stay excited as we raise this celebration to its rightful place in our psyche of celebrations. It has just come to our attention that The Church of God of Prophecy, the National church, will in grand style celebrate the heroes of their Faith on National Heroes Day. I applaud them for accepting this outstanding invitation and thus being trailblazers in establishing a tradition. I look forward to joining in this celebration.

Green Turtle Cay, Coopers Town, Abaco, the Bluff, South Andros and Bimini are communities that immediately come to mind that have either a heroes park or wall of fame whereby they single out their local people for the status of Heroes. The ideal will be to have this in all our communities, scattered across our Bahamas. In January of this year four acres of land at Botanical Gardens was dedicated on the anniversary of Sir Milo B. Butler's passing, to become The National Heroes Park. In his budget address in May, the Minister of the Environment and Housing stated that his government is dedicated to the completion of that park. We are so hopeful that soon and very soon, it all will become a reality.

It has been a long and tiresome march to be where we are at present with National Heroes celebrations. However, we are not quite there as yet. The National Honours Bill was passed by parliament; this replaces the colonial honours we have had for so long. It is still to be enacted. I urge the government to appoint the Advisory Committee that is set out by legislation to govern the issuing of these awards. It is long overdue and should have been done by the previous government, however, so sad, time got away from them. The Advisory Committee is the only thing left to be put in place so that our Honours system might become functional.

Let us celebrate, marching onward. The National Honours Bill will have government entrenching the celebrations. We are simply catching up with countries in the region which have gone ahead by leaps and bounds in the celebration of their heroes. We congratulate countries such as Barbados, Trinidad, Jamaica, Antigua and St. Kitts among others. They are pace-setters in this region in the achievement of this cultural ideal, the lifting up of their legends for national veneration and thus teach generations who their Nation Builders really are, thus replacing the rogues taught to us by a lopsided colonial system as being our Heroes.

With our Heroes celebrations all arranged I encourage all Bahamians to get involved. If you are planning your own celebrations then we would certainly like to know and wish you success.