Let’s begin with a serious quote borrowed from local author and political commentator Dr. Anderson Reynolds, who has seen the need to assure one and all he does not support either of our political parties, or, for that matter, any political organization. Not without justification. A son of Vieux Fort, he has often publicly pledged that his first loyalty is to his country Saint Lucia. It is out of love for the land that gave us birth that he has often pleaded with his fellow Saint Lucians to put country before political party considerations.
As he observed recently: “I suspect the SLP isn’t seeing the elephant in the room. Philip J. Pierre’s political career parallels that of Dr. Kenny Anthony. Therefore, in terms of substance and approach, when we switch from Dr. Kenny Anthony to Phillip J. Pierre won’t we simply be getting a weaker version of the person for whom the 2016 election was a vote against? This 2021 election is a race of high stakes, a race for the country to make major changes, not least of them being constitutional reform. So why replace a tired old horse with another tired old horse?”
It’s good to learn of his thought process, and one would hope many other citizens would use the Reynolds yardstick in deciding where to place their confidence in relation to this country’s imminent future. Inspired by his words, I have come up with the following serious quiz:
Are you familiar with the TV game “Twenty Questions?” Well, here are my own twenty. Come along, let’s have a bit of productive fun that does not require us to dumb down with copious amounts of mind-altering beverages. Take time to not only read through them but actually to stop, think, before you answer my Big Twenty as honestly as you can.
1) Are you pleased that politics in St. Lucia has become a dirty game? Is there any law that says it has to be so?
2) Which of our main political parties has traditionally shown itself with its violent adherents to be by far the nastier, demonstrated disgraceful public behaviour and low-rent tactics?
3) Which party’s election mantra has always been: Win, we win; lose, we win; lose you lose; win, you lose?
4) Doesn’t that incipient guiding philosophy necessarily explain Labour’s never-ending, senseless, belligerent, disruptive behaviour throughout the intervening five years?
5) Doesn’t that frame of mind run counter to any form of openness and goodwill, cooperation and sense of unity for the country’s sake?
6) Will we, on our little rock of Saint Lucia, in consequence be forever subjected to this damning modus operandi of the St Lucia Labour Party?
7) What do you think it will it take to stop the unending war with such a belligerent entity? Is such a thing even possible?
8) Would a completely new slate of candidates, expectedly strong in their opposition as they should be, but rather more forward thinking, less pugnacious, more genteel . . . quite frankly, more intelligent, be instrumental in influencing their followers and raising the standard of Saint Lucian politics?
9) Are the SLP’s more prominent hacks and regular followers, the visible so-called “surrogates,” themselves so entrenched in those long-held inferior behaviours that there may very well not be any significant change in the ugly characteristics that bombard us on an on-going basis?
10) How did the shameless call to violence by a leading light of the party grab you when she encouraged fellow party followers, and others similarly handicapped, to abandon their sense of nationalism and emulate the insurrectionists among Trump’s followers, even goading Saint Lucians to make “our House of Parliament your Capitol Hill?”
11) Again, did you not wonder how another Labour Party surrogate—and reported head of a women’s organisation who is paid big bucks to advocate for less fortunate women and their families by seeking to educate them and improve their lot—could pen a post on Facebook cursing in the scummiest way a blind, disabled woman who just happened to be a follower of the incumbent party? Did that not turn your stomach? And should that copycat insurrectionist not be reported to the well- intentioned Canadian organisation that feeds her?
12) Do you discern any real love or concern for Saint Lucia and its reputation among those people and others who take traitorous pleasure in putting out on the world-wide web the most damning lies about their own homeland?
13) Where is their love of country? Do they show an ounce of it?
14) Aren’t we all doomed with such characters within the hierarchy of the opposition party that by some devilish hocus-pocus could—God forbid!—end up in the governance of this country?
15) Have you ever thought that our most notorious persona non grata could end up in government via the win-at-any- cost, more than ever desperate, Labour Party?
16) Shouldn’t a party’s most prominent bobolist be expelled from parliament should he prove guilty of any variety of fraud?
17) Which of our political leaders is more pleasant, charismatic, articulate, confident, demonstrably a believer in hard work, a thinker, a man with a heart?
18) Does Saint Lucia want to be led by an incorrigible pessimist or by someone determined to find the silver lining even in the darkest cloud?
19) And here’s the big one: How about a conventional debate? Come on now, wouldn’t that be something, huh? What do you say? Who would you choose for the role of moderator?
20) And here’s another biggie, which I will answer: In sum, if we compare the two parties, what do we get? UWPees: more civilized, positive, tolerant, no history of bellicosity, a magnet for responsible “surrogates.” It is unimaginable that followers of the UWP would stoop so low as to toss human waste at participants in a political rally of their opposites. The UWP has never engaged in any attempt at turning Saint Lucians toward communism; never persuaded young men to offer themselves for training in terrorism in Libya. Dear understandably incredulous reader please revisit locally recorded events dating back to the mid-70s. I promise you’re in for a shock!
I have no desire to live under a pseudo communist regime, or under a party that openly declares itself Socialist. And I would guess, neither do you, dear reader. I want a better present and future that include personal freedoms for our young men and women. I don’t want to see our country again at war against itself, as some of us experienced back in the 70s, with unforgettable horrid consequences—a situation that leftovers from the era would like to see again. Confidence and optimism are key to a better future, especially in these confounding days of COVID-19.
P.S. Dear Prime Minister, please ensure that as our country’s leader in a second term you tackle—as Dr Anderson has advocated—the recommendations of Suzie d’Auvergne’s Constitutional Reform report, unceremoniously dumped by Kenny Anthony’s Labour Party administration shortly before the 2016 general election, on the false but revealing premise it was “too obsessed with the power of the prime minister!”
This article first appeared in the March 2021 edition of the STAR Monthly Review. Be sure to get your printed copy on newsstands or view it here: https://issuu.com/starbusinessweek/docs/star_monthly_review_-_march_2021
