The year was 2006. Days before the over-excited country went to the polls to elect a new government. The Labour Party’s Kenny Anthony, although not quite as charismatic as in 1997, was to the ordinary eye still relatively spritely. His United Workers Party challenger, on the other hand, had been seduced out of controversial retirement by desperate power seekers who soon disdainfully shoved Vaughan Lewis aside in favor of their returned perennial leader.
He was obviously not in the pink of health. Immediately after the UWP torch had been returned at a convention in Soufriere to the hands of its creator, he was swarmed by reporters, most of whom questioned his ability to survive the rigors of the campaign trail. His reaction was typical: “I led election campaigns before most of you were born. Trust me, it’s not the Olympics!”
Few were fooled. Certainly not the Labour Party. When it was announced he would be the special guest on a particular episode of my weekly TV show TALK, his regular detractors as well as other concerned citizens expressed fears he might keel over before the show reached its halfway point. Suffice it to say they need not have worried. He proved as quick-witted as ever. As for his notorious sense of humor, it had lost none of its salt. I questioned him on one of the day’s more controversial hot topics: Should his party be returned to office, would he retain relations with Beijing or would it be Taipei?
The speed of his response blew the pants off me: “Whoever gives us more!” For a couple seconds, I attempted to communicate to him, with only my eyes, that he might wish to rephrase his answer. He stared right back, eyes hard as granite. And I said: “You know most people would have a word for such an arrangement, right?”
“And what might that word be?” asked the mariner in his soul. He was obviously enjoying himself. “If the word you have in mind is what I think it is,” he said under a raised hairless right eyebrow, “then I’ll ask you this? What else do we have to barter with? We give them our support at the United Nations and they give us something in return. I have no quarrel with whoever wants to call us prostitutes!”
So much for the soi-disant revolutionaries who imagined him well past his sell-by date. Who had read in his appearance fast approaching dementia. His performance on TALK was all the reassurance the UWP needed that the M in their leader’s name, after all these years, still stood for Magic. Even his natural enemies, yes, enemies, reluctantly agreed that on the recalled evening the old geezer had been nothing short of magnificent!
On a recent evening I caught myself wondering what would be the reaction today if during a televised interview John George Melvin Compton had said what he said that unforgettable evening 25 years ago about our arrangements with foreign governments: In effect, that they were not unlike whorehouse relationships.
What brought to mind the 2006 interview was a recent TV discussion. He could hardly believe his ears, said one of the evening’s two blatherers, when he heard Allen Chastanet “refer to Saint Lucians as barking dogs.” Yes, that again! After all, he went on— as if to remind temporary residents of Mars recently returned home to the Rock of Sages—Chastanet was at the time the nation’s prime minister. Chastanet should’ve known how Saint Lucians feel about dogs. Chastanet obviously has no respect our culture. (I take this opportunity to point out that, depending on how used—and by whom!—the words “respect” or “disrespect” can carry in these times a ring close to the sound of a death sentence!)
The reference to our culture returned me to a news report, two, maybe three years old. It featured a half dozen young males having a hell of a frolic as they tossed several dogs like trash bags off a cliff near one of our more beloved beaches. One of them held the evidently trusting animal by its hind legs, while his friend grabbed its front two. A couple swings back and forth for momentum, and the dogs were sent flying over tree tops, without even a whimper, en route to certain death on the rocks below. The newscaster saw no need for explanation. And judging by public reaction, none was required.
But back to our earlier cited two champions of local culture. No surprise that on the matter of the “barking dogs” trope they were in perfect harmony. So, who was guilty of insulting the popular intelligence? Who demonstrated gross disrespect for local culture? For the record, in a 1941 address at Harrow School in Middlesex, this was Winston Churchill advice to students: “You will never reach your destination if you stop to throw stones at every dog that barks!” Was Britain’s then prime minister targeting a particular individual or group?
Then there is this, from Marks’ Edition of Nursery Rhymes (published in 1835): “Hark, hark, the dogs do bark. Beggars are coming to town.” Who were the beggars here referenced?
There’s also the anonymous Arab saying: “The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.” A source I do not now recall recently sent me this unattributed version: “If people say something bad about you, judge you as if they know you, don’t easily get affected. Remember this: ‘Dogs bark if they don’t know the person.’ ”
As I listened in absolute wonderment to the pontificating pseudo culture vultures, Benjamin Franklin’s warning came to mind: “He that lieth with dogs shall rise with fleas.” In my own selfish interest, I reached for the remote and switched channels. And now, for the third time this month, I find myself borrowing these wise words of Frederick Bastiat: “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in the society, over a course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it—and a moral code that glorifies it.”
Oh, how times have changed since John Compton dropped on a rally in Vieux Fort the following colorful observation: “Toute Layba say voleur, toute Layba say anvyoléur.” Funny how no one felt the earth move in consequence. Was this because Saint Lucians don’t mind being publicly denounced as thieves and rapists—provided the denunciation is spoken in culturally correct kwéyòl? It has become de rigueur during House debates for MPs to decry one another as money launderers, wife abusers, disturbers of the church peace, frauds and liars, with no feathers ruffled. Not even Mr. Speaker’s.
It would be remiss of me (since we are discussing words and their meaning), to leave out Charles Dickens’ sometimes scornful mouthpiece, Humpty Dumpty Esq. “When I use a word,” he had cautioned Alice in Wonderland, “it means just what I choose it to mean. Neither more nor less.”
When the perplexed 7-year-old wondered aloud how one word could mean so many things, Hump haughtily replied: “The question is, which is to be master. That’s all.”
We may as well end with yet another doggy story. It centers on a group of resident expats who had spent months rounding up diseased and starving canines from all corners of our capital. When they had been nursed and their condition had somewhat improved, the expats contacted fellow animal lovers abroad who readily agreed to fly the one hundred or so dogs to Canada for further remedial attention, in advance of transferring them to eager new owners. Somehow word of the laudable gesture got out. In no time at all the expats had become targets for venomous vituperation from citizens with their own unique traditions—especially where their pets are concerned.
The consensus seemed to be that “dem white people care more about dogs than they do about people. Why dey never charter a plane to take sick Looshans to Martinique for medicine.”
Not for nothing did Blake write: “The dog starved at its master’s gate predicts the ruin of the State.” I’m tempted to acknowledge much of our once simply beautiful Saint Lucia has gone to the dogs. But then something tells me that would be open to too many convoluted interpretations. Besides, if there’s one thing guaranteed to bring out pan bangers in delirious droves, it’s the smallest suggestion that our land is in danger of being repossessed. Perhaps I’ll just let lying dogs sleep!
