Back to paganism - or, better yet, atheism!

So, there's those who claim Independence for Bermuda is the symbolic casting off of the last shackles of slavery.

Unfortunately for that argument, slavery existed in Africa long before the Europeans ever arrived. Not only did the Arabs have a fruitful little business going enslaving Africans from around 600 A.D. on, Africans themselves were enslaving Africans when the Europeans arrived - and both Africans and Arabs may well have continued merrily on their caravanning way were it not for the arrival of Europeans like David Livingstone, who was horrified at what was going on and dedicated much of his well-publicised life to speaking out against it.

This is most definitely not a defence of imperialism. Those white people definitely were arrogant and badly behaved, and the effects are still wreaking havoc, in the East as well as Africa. But freedom from slavery as justification for breaking away from Britain - when placed in the historical context - doesn't appear to make much sense.

Ignoring that detail for now, however, I take issue with the use of the word "last".

Because while those repressed British were running around shooting elephants, spreading white European models of government in countries that did not want it, and - according to several of the books I've come across lately - spreading rampant VD everywhere they went (Randy Andy indeed), they were also imposing one more thing on every country they colonised: Christianity.

Well, VD we can control now, so that doesn't necessarily have to be a problem anymore (safe sex people!). Again, ignoring minor historical details, we can go Independent and say that's another symbolic stand against slavery. But that's not the last shackle.

So what, in a country with one of the highest concentrations of churches in the world, where a vocal minority appear to be demanding sovereignty as part of the continuing civil rights movement, are they planning on doing about Christianity?

That is, if the goal is to cast off slave shackles and Independence is one way of doing it, shouldn't Christianity therefore be cast off too?