It simply makes no sense to have a national day for every Olympic gold medalist in the Caribbean!

Frankly, while the over-enthusiasm of Caribbean governments in calling for public holidays in honour of Olympic gold medallists is understandable, it also underestimates the reality that governments have not or have not adequately considered the actual demands of the people.

In fact, most of those who call for a “holiday” to commemorate the two Olympic medals (gold and silver) won by Julian Alfred have little idea or concern about how the holiday was announced, or by whom.

Every country has two sets of holidays – one set is designated public holidays or national holidays and the other set is religious holy days.

Yet St. Lucia already has more than a dozen such holidays — so many that investors in labor-intensive businesses such as call centers complain that they may have to pay for a dozen working days for work that is not completed, with some companies requiring employees to be on site on local holidays to serve overseas clients.

The number of Saint Lucia’s holidays had long exceeded its usual average quota, and many years after Independence Day (February 22, 1979), Saint Lucia had to withdraw recognition of the Queen’s Birthday in order to make that day a national holiday.

A similar situation still exists with independent states and republics awarding orders of chivalry to nationals who have rendered good service to the Crown during and after colonial times, giving rise to national awards of similar or even greater national status (such as the Cross of St. Lucia), as the number of those deserving of the honour increases every year.

While it is easy to call for a “holiday for Julian Alfred,” there is little explanation of what should be done, where to start, why and how it will benefit the star athlete and the country, and when the holiday should be given—whether it should be an annual Julian Alfred Day etched permanently on the national calendar or a one-time day off?

Anyway, think about this: If Julian succeeds in inspiring hundreds of young Saint Lucians to follow her example (and that of Laverne Spencer and Janelle Scheper) and achieve every talented athlete’s ultimate dream of qualifying for the Olympics and bringing home Olympic gold medals starting as early as 2028 — and every four years thereafter — wouldn’t it make sense to create a new national holiday for everyone?

There are many things we can do to honour great figures in global sport, but even with the best of intentions, pressuring governments to declare a holiday for Olympic gold medallists is unwise.

Any new national holiday would likely replace an existing one, and each one has sparked complaints or protests, including St. Lucia’s December 13, a date with its roots in historical lies.

St. Lucians originally observed December 13 as “Discovery Day” (since time immemorial) to “celebrate” the fact that Christopher Columbus “discovered” the island on his second voyage in 1493, even though he never landed.

Other conflicting accounts include that Spanish explorer and cartographer Juan de la Costa included the island in his map in 1499; another theory is that the island was also depicted on a globe produced by the Vatican in 1502.

However, Columbus’ own diaries contradict his claim to have “seen” the island on the Feast of St. Lucy (the Christian patron saint of the blind), which led him closer to South America in search of the elusive land of gold known as El Dorado.

Colonial historians completely wiped out the local indigenous peoples in the name of God and a papal bull known as the “Principle of Necessity”, wiping out indigenous peoples such as Columbus from their own lands as empires and queens fought for the New World through genocide of indigenous peoples.

But regardless, the Caribbean people’s absolute love for festivals has ensured that 46 years after independence, December 13 remains the country’s annual national day – now upgraded to “National Day”, making Saint Lucia the only country in the world where Independence Day and National Day are not the same.

Nor does anyone seem to care about the huge invisible cost of designating every working day as a formal day of rest, namely the huge loss of normal working time, measured in the value of each hour of at least (or most) a normal eight-hour workday, across all forms of employment.

This is an incalculable waste and will inevitably lead to a gradual increase in the country’s annual revenue losses.

Carefree, nonchalant, ecstatic Caribbean sports commentators also tried hard (fortunately unsuccessfully) to persuade the prime ministers of Dominica and St. Lucia to commit to publicly designating public holidays for their respective islands’ Olympic champions.

However, the fervent calls for a public holiday for every winning athlete or global sporting achiever in Caribbean countries, while well-sounding and well-intentioned, must be tempered with wise consideration and realistic reasoning to guard against the possibility of unintended and difficult-to-reverse consequences.

Take Cuban wrestling champion Mijain López Núñez, who this year won his fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal – a five-time world champion and five-time Pan American Games champion, having won gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2012 London Olympics, the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

If the Cuban government had designated a national holiday for Mijain after his first Olympic gold medal in Beijing 16 years ago, would he have five public holidays in the country today?

If Jamaica designates a day as Usain Bolt Day and Sheryl-Ann Fraser-Pryce Day when it and other past medalists win gold, how much space is left on the country’s calendar dedicated to sports holidays?

Barbadians call it “silly play” or “just silly games”. (Play silly games)

Caribbean governments must therefore be careful to avoid setting a precedent by making similar requests to other global achievers in world sports, such as former Mr. World and Mr. Universe Rick Wynne of St. Lucia, champion bodybuilder, West Indies captain and Pakistan cricket coach Darren Sammy, or any other achievement that makes their countries proud on the world stage.

So what about posthumous awards for those who qualify retroactively?

This less obvious excess of Caribbean nationalism can easily lead governments to make mistakes by acting too quickly and thinking too slowly.

Indeed, rather than rushing into anything, the governments concerned should “keep working” (to borrow a popular Caribbean phrase originating in Jamaica, meaning “to do better…”) – for example, by launching a national consultation on how best to commemorate, reward and honour those who created these monumental moments.

Such consultation is not limited to online participation; citizens can have access to consultation opportunities wherever they are in the world, using traditional and modern communication methods, including billboards and public service announcements, in sufficient time.

These measures will also help develop popular democracy in the Caribbean at the community level, with media support, public and private support, through innovative hybrid strategies for Caribbean citizens in the “age of the Internet of Things” and increasing reliance on everything from information technology (IT), artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality to biometrics and humanoid robotics.

However, declaring a public holiday just because other workers would like to take a paid day off or simply “stay at home” is not a good idea.