STAR Person of the Year 2021

To my eternal shame, I cannot with certainty say where is the source of the Castries River. I’ve been told it starts “somewhere in Bocage,” that it’s less a river than a man-made conduit to allow potentially dangerous seasonal flood waters to flow more or less safely through several over-populated communities of east Castries, through the city center, and into its main harbor. Too often this vital function is rendered impossible, thanks to collapsed retaining walls and rickety bridges, mini Rocky Mountains of trash, plastic buckets, fallen trees, car carcasses and other such detritus.

Save between August and October, the hurricane season, the river that is not a river is stagnant. For countless years it has served as a community latrine for citizens whose modest shelters along its circuitous route are without toilet facilities.

No surprise, then, that many remember still a young man who had chosen two decades or so ago to swim fully clothed in the Castries River. If some cannot readily recall his name, they nevertheless remain convinced he was some kind of mental case, a little bit cuckoo, off his gourd, more than a little nuts. Largely overlooked is that his unforgettable plunge into what essentially is an open sewer had been for the purposes of his own widely appreciated Sunday evening TV show. Of course there are those who cannot help attributing devious motives even to the unborn. A significant number of viewers were self-convinced the show was an opposition party tool, a serious threat to the day’s government, largely because it offered glimpses of unvarnished Saint Lucian life.    

Random examples: There were the stomach-turning clips of indigent half-naked drunks wallowing in their own excrement, while loony lookers-on laughed till tears ran down their ashen cheeks; in-your-face close-ups of unconscionable treatment meted out without intervention to a particular class of citizen—sometimes whispered about behind closed doors but seldom seen. At any rate, not through a macro-lens. Permanently angry public servants hell-bent on making life all the more miserable for lower echelon commuters from the suburbs.  

Especially hilarious were the host’s spot-on impersonations of self-important officials delivering   speeches littered helter skelter with mispronounced multisyllabic words and mangled literary allusions. No one was spared; not the island’s prime minister Kenny Anthony, not even Bill Clinton, who famously feigned ignorance of the meaning of “is,” and was president of Gore Vidal’s United States of Amnesia! 

So, was our fully dressed early morning swimmer in the slime crazy? On the evidence, maybe. But crazy only like a fox is crazy! At its peak, so popular was his show, Lucians, it begat a political group comprising cast members and named “The Staff Party.” The word on certain aromatic street corners was that it had so named itself in comic protest against alcoholic government ministers who spent the greater part of their day in office loos boozing and making out with buxom bimbos, hot to trot secretaries hungry for promotion, and overambitious aggressive jabals, while overheated single moms with impatient toddlers awaited their professional attention.

As absurd as was the sound of the apocryphal tales, many of the tellers were ready to swear on the life of a cousin that they had themselves witnessed the spectacle of drunk or hung-over government-treasury cashiers barely able to stand at their counters without support.  

What had begun as a bit of a giggle soon turned, in the comedy-loaded Christmastime atmosphere of the December 2001 general elections, into a full-blown “serious joke” when the Lucians cast started receiving altogether unexpected encouragement from altogether unexpected quarters. It didn’t take long before their leader decided this could be the perfect opportunity to confirm one of his pet theories: general elections in Saint Lucia are little more than opportunities to receive free fast food, free booze, free baby clothes and enough money to cover house rent for two or three months.  The real possibility that the Staff Party might actually score a couple of parliamentary seats further tickled the leader’s fancy. 

Politics was for him hardly uncharted territory. Politics ran in his veins. Before he hit his teens he had tasted its sweets and sours, also its sugar-coated bitter pills. He’d sat at his father’s feet during debates and make or break negotiations with such as George Odlum, Peter Josie, Tony Torrence, Patrick Joseph in the prime of their time. Then there were the moochers that pretended to be his father’s grassroots connections, campaign managers and other presumed power brokers. (I can’t help wondering how much he knows about the lady jan gajés who made pre-election house calls, perchance to persuade his father to soak his body in their obeah-repelling expensive bath oils!)

For a long time it had been generally anticipated that his father would inherit the prime minister’s throne when finally John Compton stepped down, whether or not of his own accord.  Alas that particular wet dream was rudely cock-blocked, but then we need not at this time discuss the sordid details.

In all events, he had moved on to become foreign minister and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, later to be knighted by the Queen of England. Even the Pope had bestowed upon him an honorary doctorate in acknowledgement of his efforts on the side of good versus sin!  

His mother was the sister of the prime minister’s wife. His maternal grandfather had served both as House Speaker and as the island’s first governor. Our TV star turned politician was only five years old when grandpa passed away in 1980.

Although not yet tested on the miasmic battlefield of Saint Lucian politics, the young man had already proved himself in the area of entertainment. He was generally considered a highly talented writer and performer of carnival-time calypsos, the majority of which painted local politicians in less than flattering colors. His always hilarious, often borderline salacious compositions were especially cherished by the more youthful sections of the society, as were his songs that spotlighted the plight of the local downtrodden.

The months leading up to Polling Day 2001 were like none other—save perhaps 1979, which remains sans pareil. For the first time in its history, the United Workers Party was fronted by a female. As if that were not enough a curiosity, there was the local showbiz whiz kid whose rallies attracted shoulder to shoulder crowds, more than a few obviously from another planet. Truth be told, they were far more interested in his comedy than in his politics. Among his pledges to the electorate: to gift Babonneau with its very own twin peaks, dimensionally equal to the world famous Soufriere Pitons; to widen the Castries River, enough to accommodate large cruise ships bearing tourists eager to buy made-in-Choiseul straw hats and baskets from enterprising east Castries entrepreneurs. What was guaranteed to bring the house down every night of the campaign was the Staff Party’s promise to permit workers unlimited recovery time following major fetes like Emancipation Day, Independence, and other public holidays—with full pay!

When reporters cajoled the prime minister into commenting on the Staff Party phenomenon, he said,  tongue doubtless buried deep in his cheek: “I’ve paid little attention to their activities. But I can see nothing wrong with a little street theater.” He paused before adding from behind a huge index finger: “So long as they are careful!” Considering the Staff Party leader’s nightly lampooning of the government, did the beleaguered prime minister have slander suits on his mind?

As if further to make the 2001 election campaign unforgettable, the island’s U.N ambassador had taken time off regular duties in New York to manage Kenny Anthony’s campaign against not only Morella Joseph’s UWP but also against the ambassador’s ambitious flesh and blood. This was his careful response to a loaded question: “I think most parents will understand me when I say that after a certain age one’s offspring must take responsibility for their actions.”

Ever gracious, this was all Morella Joseph permitted herself to put on the record: “The Staff Party reflects the frustration of young people who feel left out of the system.” By sundown on Polling Day, out of the 62,655 names on the voters register, 229 had cast ballots in favor of placing their country’s immediate and long-term future in the hands of the Staff Party’s clowns. Their leader had personally attracted 97 votes, more than were cast for the UWP’s seasoned candidate Peter Josie, a former government minister. As ever self-deprecating, he revealed his team of fundraisers had raised all of six dollars, which they planned to spend on a KFC chicken and Coke splurge!

Fast forward to the general elections of 2011 that the United Workers Party, now led by Stephenson King, lost to Kenny Anthony’s SLP. Many were quick to credit the several scandals that plagued the UWP almost from the moment John Compton breathed his last in 2007.  It’s easy to forget that even though burdened by killer allegations, some involving a controversial MP and U.S. Immigration, the UWP somehow held on to life. That is, until nearly all of Saint Lucia suddenly caught the spirit of a particular chant with an irresistible carnival road-march beat.

Before long it was nigh impossible to tune in a local radio station that was not blasting out the infectious two-word war cry: “En Rouge! En Rouge! En Rouge!”—reportedly the brainchild of our ace calypso composer, one-time leader of the by now abandoned Staff Party. Somewhere along the way he had jettisoned his earlier cause in favor of a Labour Party campaign to remove from office the party that was a relative’s creation in 1964!

We need not relive the gory details of the recent war that bombed Allen Chastanet out of office, having unseated the Labour Party in 2016. By all appearances the campaign that devoured all but two of the UWP’s candidates continues unabated—with one conspicuous difference. The man who had demonstrated his willingness to take on anticipated lawsuits; to get himself arrested by possibly jaundiced cops and dumped at the infamous shithouse called Custody Suites; who had undertaken a variety of ridiculous one-man crusades up down the country; who had masterminded the crowd-pulling “pan-yo” initiative and the ubiquitous “Chastanet must go” mantra, has vanished.   

Soon after the 2021 elections he had shut down his egregiously uproarious daily TV show Revolución, and taken on a new assignment associated with the minister in charge of city and village council affairs. But trust our unpredictable man for all seasons to rock the joint, just when it seemed the leading figures of the new administration were singing softly and in harmony from the same hymnal.

Two or three weeks ago, a recording of a private phone conversation that the Labour Party’s social media hornets quickly declared “maliciously leaked by its maker” was being shared all over the Internet. The voice in the one-way conversation was unmistakably that of the former host of Revolución, as familiar to listeners as the palms of their hands.

It revealed Kenny Anthony’s purported view that “the kind of reforms Saint Lucians are demanding would require a referendum.” But, said the taped voice, the problem with referendums in the CARICOM region is that very few have succeeded. “Most times referendums offer the opposition the opportunity to belt the government in the gut. Most times, the referendums have no chance of success . . .” Moreover, he and Calixte George had agreed the current government “lacked dynamism; there is no kind of aggressiveness. Really, that will have to come from us. The real question is: How do we get the drivers into positions where they can drive the agendas, because these guys [the government] are not visionary, not imaginative. They need that from you; from me. And if that happens . . . if you can find yourself in some kind of tangential position, I don’t know how that equates for you. For me, well, I’m in limbo, like you are . . . there are 40 to 60 of us like that . . .”

The recorded voice told whoever was, or was not, at the other end of the line that he had consulted with his father, Kenny Anthony and Everistus JnMarie. All had given him the same advice: ‘Work with individual ministers until you find the one that can work with you, take any opportunity to get your foot in the door. From there everything will fall into place . . .’ I wanted to work with the ministers, including Richard [Frederick]—but not directly under him—until I realized those guys had no intention of bringing me into the government this year, or any other year. As far as they are concerned, nobody asked me to do all I did for them . . . I’m really just a burden. The stone the builders rejected will become the head cornerstone and all that. As I watch myself being sidelined in other ways . . . Pip was supposed to have been a transitional leader . . . Hilaire’s ascension is rubbing the entire Labour Party base the wrong way . . . the optics, the poor man’s UWP, the shabine version of Chastanet’s PR . . .”

If there are any political observers who anticipated swift retaliatory reaction, they’ve so far been disappointed. There has been not a word, not a word, not a word. Not even from the identified ministers. At any rate, not publicly. Perhaps they learned something from their controversial firing of three senators back in 1998. The normally outspoken man of the moment is uncharacteristically going about Frederick’s business but away from the spotlight’s glare, in relative silence, seemingly unperturbed. Is he spending his free hours with the “forty or sixty” think-alikes?

Then again there was little new in his leaked remarks. He’d said as much during the last campaign. Indeed, way back to the time of the Staff Party, he had issued the following: “To those who say they are voting party, we ask: why vote for a party with bad candidates? Why vote for a candidate who will be part of a bad party? We will not accept the way St. Lucians seem to warp their logic from issue to issue, twisting their minds to constantly accommodate the color, party, or person they like. In this ignorance, there is no social or educational discrimination. When a hundred men say the sky is green, the sky still retains its blue.” 

What so many of us who witnessed, live or on TV— that famous dive into the murky Castries River—and too quickly marked it madness—may well have seen an artist suffering for his art. There were also other sides to what we thought we saw during the most recent election campaign. We may well now ask ourselves: Did we look into its face and not recognize Courage? It takes a special kind of strength to stand up for your beliefs when all around you others are laughing and jeering. Was Jesus mad when he said what he said that got him nailed to a cross?

Obviously Christopher Hunte has been there, done that. Just as we’ve come to realize how consistent he’s been all these crazy years, so might we in time acknowledge there has always been method in Christopher Hunte’s madness. That he was no more insane than the thousands who followed wherever he led—and one way or another profited. Please say hello to our 2021 STAR Man of the Year!