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Contact:
Rose Marie Harris
Tuesday, August 03, 2004 - As Saint Lucians celebrated Emancipation Day
on August 1st, a call has been sounded for a recommitment to strong, positive
and righteous values, while at the same time using today’s technologies and
opportunities to help develop into a proud, industrious, respected, viable and
admired nation.
That call has come from Minister for Social Transformation, Honourable Menissa
Rambally as she addressed the nation Sunday August 1st, 2004..
Minister Rambally expressed concern at the erosion of many of the values for
which the island’s ancestors stood, and which underpinned much of the progress
made thus far: “We are beginning to see a deterioration of civic responsibility
and a growing selfishness that are gnawing away at the social fabric of our
nation. No longer are we taking collective responsibility for our development,
but tending instead, to cater to narrow self-interests and aggrandizement. We
see some among us falling for the trap of get-rich-at-all-costs activities and
eschewing the characteristics of hard work, discipline, dedication, respect and
loyalty that our forefathers espoused in building our nation.”
Minister Rambally also lamented that common courtesies that were taught as
children and extended automatically to each other were now being replaced by
rudeness, disrespect and ridicule, even towards the older, the less fortunate
and the less-abled.
“That is why, my fellow Saint Lucians my message this year is a simple, but I
believe important one. We need to rediscover our Saint Lucianness – those traits
and features that made us a courteous, respectful, disciplined, law-abiding,
industrious and patriotic people. All of the gains that we have made since our
physical emancipation will be destroyed, if we do not truly free ourselves of
the negative values that some of us now practice,” she said.
Activities for the observance of Emancipation will be held throughout the entire
month of August under the theme, “A rediscovery of our Saint Lucianness”.
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