I have delayed commenting publicly on the verbal abomination that was dished out to us in February of this year during, of all times, Saint Lucia’s official 44th Independence Anniversary Lecture by UWI Vice-Chancellor Hilary Beckles.
I deliberately held back all these months in order to observe whether there were similarly concerned citizens generous enough to share their feelings on the speech. After all, there was at the time rather a lot of talk behind the curtains about how much of an embarrassment the advertised speech maker was to our regional institution—and to himself, though he was clearly too insensitive, too politically partisan, and too damn fas’ to realize it, his yearly childhood vacations in Dennery notwithstanding.
So, let me remind or perhaps enlighten you as to that proud, beaming, clueless, chest-expanding faux-pas: “. . . and Prime Minister, I have to say this in public. You see that move, that move that you and Mr King . . . [pregnant pause for audience giggles] that you and Mr King put together? Pure class, pure class! Political sophistication. Sophistication, because of the history. The political culture, as the country is trying to get out of the blocks and onto the highway, trying to find that rhythm . . . that energy to get onto the highway.”
The attendant court jesters cheered shamelessly, as if indeed they’d never before heard anything quite as clever. Not even from the erudite lips of the not so dearly departed brother whathisname. (Were you there!)
But then how inappropriate, how inept, how depressing that the leader of our regional university, should prove too lame to recognize he had taken the dumbest route, whatever his own political leanings. Did he imagine Mr Pierre was elected our country’s prime minister eternal? The visitor had dared to talk calculatedly in the local vernacular about class in its superlative form, when it is clear he couldn’t recognize class if he tripped over it. By all he said on the recalled occasion, he proved he is wholly devoid of it. Class, that is. (A telling recording is accessible on YouTube.)
Now, do you reckon the prime minister might be taking secret lessons from the UWI man on how to run our country? Could this account for why we’re barely crawling, with little chance of making it off the blocks to Hilary’s highway. Please, let us in Saint Lucia not talk about highways! It’s the very last thing we want to hear, having had two highways pulled from under our feet by our inane current leader.
There’s more. In his speech, the UWI leader, in a rather suspect run-down of Saint Lucia’s “specialness,” highlighted two citizens on the staff of the Cave Hill campus. Near-geniuses, by his telling. Only thing is that to many St Lucians, one of the lauded two is widely considered a bungler, maladjusted, of scant intelligence, and totally misplaced on a university faculty. Just goes to show!
There is so much more about that 44th Independence Anniversary address that merits serious questioning, but later for that. One can only hope the Vice Chancellor was appropriately chastised and reined-in by his superiors. Otherwise, that institution of higher learning will not for much longer be iconic.
Publisher’s Note: The author has used a pen name “for fear of any Will Smith type repercussions!”
