When it was announced that retired University of the West Indies economist Sir Frank Alleyne was tasked with delivering feature remarks at the 2014 annual convention of the ruling Democratic Labour Party, there was an air of expectation that at last some deep and insightful perspective on the economic challenges facing Barbados would have been offered, and that a long-awaited statement of a coherent strategy to reverse the economic slide would have been unfurled.
Unfortunately, Sir Frank abandoned his instinctive training as an economist and instead chose to make the theme of political democracy the central plank of his address.
And what a disappointing foray into an unfamiliar subject it proved to be! The gist of Sir Frank’s address was the claim that since the Government had been duly elected in 2013, critical voices, commentary, demonstrations and expressions of alternative views were attacks on democracy.
The sad irony of Sir Frank’s address was that, what in his mind was a defence of democracy, proved in actuality to be a crude and unsophisticated expression of the traditional authoritarianism that Caribbean populations from the darkest days of the plantation to the present have been struggling to overcome.
It is the instinctive reflex of the authoritarian ruler to empower the state at the expense of institutions and practices which facilitate popular intervention. Indeed, from the earliest 17th century origins of liberal thought in Europe, there was always the understanding that the quest for majority rule should always be tempered against the reality of the “tyranny of the majority”.
Our authoritarian rulers conveniently hide behind the false claim that popular opposition is contrary to democracy, but hardly a day passes when a demonstration does not take place in the capitals from which we claim our political traditions. While authoritarian types always lean towards the strengthening of the state against the people, true democrats instinctively demand the empowerment of society. It is left to the people to judge on which side of the democratic fence Sir Frank has located himself.
But some deeper questions need to be raised. What is happening in Barbados today that makes authoritarianism appear so attractive to our governors? Our ministers threaten to break heads, our Central Bank governors abandon long-held practices of Press briefings and healthy exchange, our Prime Minister transforms silence and non-communication into a political virtue, and retired academics abandon their professional training . . . .
An answer perhaps lies in the deepening of the economic slide and the extent of policy captured by outside agencies at the expense of local decision-makers. In such a context, local rulers, in their helplessness . . . see people’s demands as a troublesome obstruction.
No wonder, we are encouraged to wait every five years.
• Tennyson Joseph is a political scientist at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus, specialising in regional affairs.
