The idea of the territory establishing a National Heroes Day has been on the burners for some time. However, with the recent announcement of the formation of a National Heroes Award Committee, it appears that we have gotten one step closer to that goal. The committee is said to be researching the development of the award, and hopes to complete the process and name the first national heroes of the Virgin Islands in 2015 — most likely in time for the next general elections.
The significance of such a day would be to recognise in one holiday the men and women who have contributed greatly to the development of the territory. Some reports have indicated that the intention is to strike St. Ursula’s Day from the territory’s calendar of holidays, to be replaced by a National Heroes Day.
St. Ursula’s Day
However, with too many holidays, and the popularity or obligation to celebrate most of the others, St. Ursula’s Day stands out. This holiday, which is generally little understood and perhaps too European, appears to be under the axe. However, in order to honour the contributions of heroic Virgin Islanders, are we committing ourselves to a series of ironic positions and doing harm to our history and economy?
Firstly, by removing St. Ursula’s Day we will do away with the holiday that honours our discovery and the bestowing of our now iconic name “Virgin Islands,” by which we have come to be Virgin Islanders.
Secondly, by celebrating all our heroic figures in one holiday we will lose sight of each individual’s unique contributions. As more names are added over time, the holiday will become cumbersome, making it even more difficult to honour each individual.
Thirdly, we should look at our recently concluded August Emancipation Festival, which honours our enslaved ancestors by celebrating their 1834 emancipation after more than 270 years. This celebration has been given three consecutive holidays, in part because of all the commercial activity surrounding the observance. However, to spur this commercial activity we formally close down the whole economy for three days, and tacitly for the whole week.
‘Memorial Days’
In conclusion, I believe that “Memorial Days” would be a better alternative to a National Heroes Day. They would remove the need to eliminate or keep expanding on the numbers of our holidays. Memorial Days would act like holidays, except without the general suspension of work. They would be days when our territory recalls and honours significant events and individuals in our history.
For this, the Public Holidays Act could be expanded to include Memorial Days as part of a wider VI calendar of public celebrations. On Memorial Days, government websites as well as other media outlets could provide a biography of the day’s heroic individual or historic event, while our schools could mention them in their day’s curriculum. Using this approach, the public could learn of our history spread out over the calendar year.
Finally, I do not agree with any idea or plan to remove St. Ursula’s Day from our calendar of holidays, or to celebrate all the heroic figures in our history in one “cluttered” holiday.
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