BARBADOS IS becoming truly a strange place in many respects.
We have now reached the stage where verbal attacks on anyone who takes a position that differs from that of the Government have become almost endemic.
Yet each day we are bombarded by platitudes and fulsome statements by members of the Freundel Stuart Government about how citizens have a duty to be engaged and to be part of the solution. It would appear, however, that one can only be part of the solution if the position taken concurs with those who rule.
The latest episode was played out last week in the House of Assembly when Minister of Education Ronald Jones exhibited another case of “foot in mouth” disease in relation to the stance taken by the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union (BSTU) (and now the Barbados Union of Teachers) that its members will no longer grade school-based assessment projects unless they are paid by the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC).
According to the minister, the union should reconsider its position because: “These are our children. It is not about collecting $100 or $200 or $300. It can’t be about that today. It surely can’t be about that. It has to be in the interest of our children.”
We believe it is only fair then to ask the minister: Who was it about when Government decided to impose tuition fees on Barbadian university students at the University of the West Indies (UWI)?
Perhaps the minister may want to answer a similar question on behalf of his colleague, Minister of Health John Boyce, who also announced last week that Barbadians using the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) should prepare for the introduction of user fees.
But, in usual fashion, Minister Jones did not stop there, he went on to imply that either the BSTU or its members, or both, are stupid, when he declared: “I’m not anti-union. What I am anti is stupidity…”
So now, apparently, it’s stupid to put a case to your “employer” that you want to be paid after doing a particular task for decades without charging. We may be wrong, but it is possible that teachers have children attending UWI, that they and their children will get sick and have to visit the QEH, that they are financially stretched while waiting for their income tax returns, that they had to pay the solid waste tax, that they, too, felt the impact of the temporary increase in VAT that now appears permanent — and the list goes on.
It is quite possible that on closer examination the fee they are proposing for their correction duties may be higher than what CXC may consider reasonable, but rational, responsible leadership would encourage discussion rather than public abuse from a platform that offers almost blanket immunity.
However, the larger issue must be that operatives of this Government must move away from what appears to be an almost natural inclination to vilify whenever someone says “we don’t agree with you”. It is clear from the latest public opinion poll that the vast majority of Barbadians don’t agree with most of the positions taken by this administration, yet there is no movement to draw and quarter its members.
Mr Jones and his colleagues surely can do better. We are sure they possess the intellectual capacity to engage meaningfully and constructively and ought therefore to pitch their utterances at a much higher level.