As Barbados prepares to mark 60 years of Independence and five years as a republic, a new digital timeline has been launched to make the island’s history more accessible and guard against the loss or distortion of its national story.
Speaking at the launch of the Barbados @ 60 Timeline on Wednesday at Pelican Village, Prince Bazawule, co-founder and head of design at ESLOV Digital, said the project grew out of an initiative created a decade ago to mark Barbados’ 50th anniversary.
Prince Bazawule, Co-Founder and Head of Design at ESLOV Digital. (Photo Credit: Shamar Blunt)
“Ten years ago ESLOV Digital created a 50 in 50 project,” he explained. “For 50 days before Barbados’ 50th, we worked with our students from the BCC and put out a creative piece which defined and told the story about Barbados every single day.”
That experience, he said, led to a bigger question: “What if you could explore Barbadian history in a simple and accessible way?”
The resulting digital platform allows users to browse Barbados’ history by decade, from the 1960s to the present-day 2020s.
The timeline is built around bite-sized historical milestones, each accompanied by resources ranging from photographs and videos to music, slideshows and documents, Bazawule said.
“The most important resource on this timeline are the actual milestones,” he said, noting that each entry includes a brief description designed to make the information “very easy to take in”.
Users wishing to delve deeper can follow the source attached to each milestone and access the full document or resource.
Some of the audience at Barbados @ 60 Timeline launch. (Photo Credit: Shamar Blunt)
The timeline covers a broad range of national developments, including legislation, music, sport, health and other significant milestones.
It will also eventually incorporate user-generated content, although submissions will first have to undergo a verification process.
For Barbados’ Ambassador to CARICOM David Comissiong, who partnered with ESLOV Digital on the initiative, the project carries significance beyond simply documenting the past.
“When there is an absence of a coherent story of who you are, when you are not clear about and secure in your identity, a vacuum is created,” he warned. That vacuum, he said, “can easily be filled by all types of false, negative, foreign controlled narratives”.
Ambassador Comissiong argued that Barbados’ history gives the island a unique identity.
“Barbados is a very special country,” he said, pointing to the island’s history as “the world’s first out and out slave society” and the resistance, resilience, courage, determination and cultural creativity of its people.
With the 60th independence anniversary approaching, Ambassador Comissiong said the occasion provided an opportunity to examine “the outstanding milestones” that define Barbados and help shape where the country is going.
“When something as important as a 60th anniversary comes around, you have to embrace it,” he said.
(SB)
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