I SEEM TO RECALL that when the North Vietnamese and the United States finally agreed to peace talks on the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, it took something like 18 months to get started.
That was because they were arguing over the correct size and shape of the negotiating table. They were just following protocol.
The other day, Lewis Hamilton found himself sitting on the left side of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at lunch. The Formula One Mercedes champion driver started to chat with the Queen, only to be gently chided by her that he must save it for a bit later.
Protocol demands (we learned) that at dinner the Queen always spends the first course talking to the person on her right; when the second course begins, she speaks to the one on her left. When all others at the table follow suit, then everybody gets spoken to and nobody feels left out. You don’t mess with protocol.
Now, this strict task master, even when followed for all the best reasons, can be awkward in the extreme. Many years ago, the Queen paid us a visit, which ended with a lively cultural presentation at the port.
As Her Majesty stood on the side “balcony” of the Royal Yacht Brittanica with Prince Philip and others, enjoying the dance troupe, the rain came down. Presumably protocol indicated that if the Queen turned away, the show would be over, and she didn’t want to disappoint the young dancers, so she did not move a muscle, despite getting wet as well.
In a few minutes I had an inch or two of water in my shoes, and still we stood watching the dancers trying to keep their energy level up while being soaked to the bone and pounded by the rain. And while I respected her for it, I must admit it was rather ridiculous.
Finally, the Queen having asserted the royal determination, even the rain itself gave up, turning into drizzles and then finally stopping (or maybe not, we were so wet it didn’t matter). This allowed the dancers to file up the gangplank of the royal yacht to personally greet and be thanked by the Queen.
Now, if observing protocol, even for the most noble hearted reason, as cited above, can still make a situation almost ridiculous, then what do you say when it is asserted after its observance simply renders you irrelevant?
At a post CARICOM summit Press conference two weekends ago, flanked by the St Vincent Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves on one side and the Guyanese President David Granger on the other, our very own Prime Minister Freundel Stuart claimed that he was following protocol in doing nothing to help avert a possibly disastrous national strike by the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW).
In what may become the best self-definition of what some errant columnist may have referred to as the Dolittle administration, Stuart, repeating the word used by the reporter, who asked if he planned to inject himself into the looming strike situation, added, for the history books, “I don’t know that there is any obligation on my shoulders…to inject myself anywhere. That is not my approach to public administration and I want that to be made very clear.”
So appalled was THE NATION’S editorial board that they themselves seemed to dispense with their own protocol of trying to offer helpful, well balanced commentary on national issues. In short, they went ballistic, raging as follows: “How in the name of all that is right and proper can the country be on the verge of an industrial relations crisis as a national shutdown looms, and the head of Government in essence declares he is not getting involved unless someone asks him to?”
Oh, for more editorials like that from THE NATION! This was not a one-off strike, said the newspaper; it had been brewing for some time, and the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation (BIDC) issue was merely the straw that broke the camel’s back. It added, “With all respect, Mr Prime Minister, don’t wait for ‘the doctors and nurses’. Inject yourself. That’s what the country expects from its Prime Minister at times like these”.
However, when Minister of Labour Dr Esther Byer did meet (separately) with the union and the BIDC management on Tuesday, the day after the Monday march, and with threats of a garbage collection shutdown being made, she let it be known that protocol was still very much on the Government’s mind.
According to the Government Information Service, “Speaking to the media after the meetings, Minister Byer stated that it was unusual for a minister to intervene in this way without a matter first being referred to her department; however, she said ‘these are unusual circumstances’”.
Now, while the Government waxes on about the proper observance of protocol, we saw former rivals marching together on the street. That photo of the general secretaries of the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) and NUPW marching together, literally arm-in-arm, is also one for the history books.
It portends a new era of cooperation between the island’s two largest unions, and I hope these younger leaders will patch up the quarrels and power struggles of the older generation, which has now left office, and work together in the best interest of their members and the country.
But I wonder what protocol they observed in deciding to get together. Were there meetings of subcommittees and task forces which then made recommendations up the chain of command to assistants and advisers until a memorandum of understanding was finally signed by the two leaders?
Quite possibly. But if you asked me how the NUPW’s Akanni McDowall and the BWU’s Toni Moore managed to come together to march in solidarity, they being both young people, I would offer you this fictionalised version, carried out via WhatsApp:
Akanni: Yeah, Toni, we marchin’ Monday. Wunna coming?
Toni: How yuh mean if we coming? Freundel doing bare foolishness.
And the rest was history.
