“Power is the ability to tell a politician what you want, and either get it or deliver substantial pain at the next election.” – Mike Rothfield
Barbados has enjoyed a very stable political environment since the introduction of ministerial government in 1954. In general we have had good political leaders and ministers who can be credited for having crafted the level of development that our country has realised.
Politicians are servants first and anything else after. The world in which I live has changed markedly. The fight against the plantocracy is largely over. The fight for basic rights for workers has largely been won. The issues that propelled the feminist agenda and the women’s lib movement have largely been resolved.
The political agenda that mobilised the founders of our major political organisations including Grantley Adams and Errol Barrow no longer fascinates the populace and the youth of today lack an appreciation for the early struggles within the political arena. My grandchildren yet unborn will not feel the same way about our founding fathers as I did. It is like today’s crop of West Indies cricketers have not been trained to have any nostalgia for the 3Ws. In fact, many of them believe that they are better than our cricket legends.
On another level, the phenomenal changes in technology have brought the world that was generally perceived as beyond our grasp to a position in which we can almost click a button and manipulate it and make things happen. It is called virtual reality.
If politics is to remain relevant and politicians moved to a position of service, the electorate must change their posture and expectations of them. There is a sense in which true democracy has been ‘bastardised’. When elections come around every five years, what our renowned political writer George Lamming refers to as the “cock fight” sees political aspirants “slamming tar” or “asphalt” to get a vote.
They don themselves in hats and garments designed only for that season. They appear to identify with the masses who they realise during the election campaign are their masters; the persons in whose hands their destiny lies. It is in this context that they appear to make all kinds of promises most of which die with the euphoria of the campaign. Once they ascend the steps of our august chambers, it appears as though they are now in pursuit of their own agenda.
This week’s focus is not intended to condemn our politicians or to portray them as renegades but more so, to suggest a new posture, a new expectation of future politicians. Not because the current crop have failed but because the world in which they will serve is not the same into which I was born.
To get my vote for the next elections, politicians must declare their hands on a range of issues that are fundamental to the changed social, economic, moral and political climate in which I have retired and into which sixth generation Barbadians will be forced to live and move and have their being. In spite of the fact that we are a sovereign independent nation, we often speak as if we are stooges of global masters whose identity is vague and non-specific.
As the electorate, we are the true masters of the politicians and they are our servants. Put differently, we put them in Parliament to represent our interests and to lobby on our behalf. Persons who aspire to serve in our legislature must lobby on behalf of the populace and not based on their own agenda.
Our politicians have gotten away with “murder”. Not that they have killed anyone but in a sense many have abandoned the issues on whose wind they rode into Parliament. So to get my vote political aspirants must declare their hands on some keys issues that are shaping who and what we become as a people and as a nation.
He who gets my X must declare his hand on same-sex marriages. He who gets my X must declare his position on homosexuality. He who gets my X must show his hand on the issue of the legalisation and decriminalisation of marijuana. She who gets my X must declare their position on medical marijuana. She who gets my X must declare her position on the plan to ban corporal punishment in all institutions in Barbados including homes and schools. He who gets my X must declare their hand on capital punishment. Positions on these “issues of the soul” will either make or break us as a people in a rapidly changing geo-political climate.
• Matthew Farley is a retired secondary school principal and a social commentator.