Just what does it mean to be Saint Lucian? Is there a secret code that must be deciphered, a rite of passage to be undertaken before an individual can be considered a true blue (black?) Saint Lucian? Does one have to be “100 per cent Looshan” to understand Saint Lucians?
Earlier this week, Opposition leader Philip J. Pierre declared over the airwaves the nation’s prime minister Allen Chastanet incapable, for several reasons, of understanding the Saint Lucian psyche. On Andre Paul’s show, What Makes Me Mad, while critiquing Chastanet’s comments about the negative impact of broken homes on the country’s crime rate, Pierre said: “He who feels it most, knows it. So the prime minister doesn’t feel what Saint Lucians feel. And you can’t blame him. He can’t feel it. He can’t understand it. So what may sound very simple for him is actually very complex.”
“How do you know he can’t understand?” asked Andre Paul.
“Because of his history!” Pierre replied. “It’s a complex socio and economic environment that causes these things to happen.” The radio host pressed on: “When you say his history, what exactly do you mean?”
“I don’t want to go into that,” Pierre said curtly. If only Pierre had chosen to leave it at that. Instead he went on to offer proof of Chastanet’s inability to understand what makes Saint Lucians tick: “You know very well that our prime minister cannot speak patois, and you once attacked me for saying so, but it’s a fact! I wasn’t condemning him for not being able to speak patois. What I was saying is that you can see the prime minister’s background; it’s not a background that is . . . Look at how the prime minister speaks. And I’m not condemning him. That’s the fact. He cannot help it. That’s in his DNA. And don’t think that’s a criticism; it’s fact. I speak like a Saint Lucian. I’m a Saint Lucian. They say I stammer but I’m a Saint Lucian! The “Lucianism” in me comes out all the time. My passion is Saint Lucian. I understand what the people of Saint Lucia go through. I understand. I may not have experienced it but I understand it.”
Which of course made him no different from Allen Chastanet. By Pierre’s own measure, he and the prime minister had not “experienced” the problems of regular Saint Lucian life. I might add that nowhere in our Constitution does it say you have to be able to feel whatever it is that true Saint Lucians feel to be considered a son or daughter of the soil. Neither does it demand fluency in kwéyòl as a prerequisite to citizenzhip!
I wish also to take the opportunity to remind others who may think as Pierre seems to think, that English is the language of parliament, regardless of the speaker’s accent—not kwéyòl which is often referred to as “langue mama nous”. Truth be told, the official language in Saint Lucia was handed down by the then Mother Country—which we profess to despise whenever convenient to do so!
