THE EMERGENCE of sustained opposition to specific policies in Barbados has presented the ruling Democratic Labour Party (DLP) with a new political challenge for which it appears unprepared. Accustomed to political disagreement wrapped in official opposition clothing, the Government has reacted to the new resistance movements as opposition plots to unseat it, and has contributed to a weakening of its position. Two recent issues serve as cases in point.
The first is the proposed Cahill waste-to-energy project. Whilst the potential problems with the project were first brought to public attention by the Leader of the Opposition, it is clear that Barbadian concerns transcend narrow party considerations and motivations. Spontaneously created online discussion forums comprising environmentalists, engineers, physical and social planners, neighbourhood groups and local and international citizens spanning many ages and social backgrounds, have come into existence bound only by genuine collective anxiety.
This is a new kind of democracy in action,consonant with the digital age, with knowledgeable, internationally connected persons spontaneously organised to address a common problem. Such movements have far more access to knowledge and technical expertise than the traditional parliamentary representatives can claim, and their politics and modes of organisation are in many ways unconcerned with narrow partisan contestation, but are often built around single-issue but collective concerns.
However, the ruling party seems unable to understand these developments. Insecure about losing political power, and unable to delink any alternative perspective from the fortunes of the official opposition, it views the new resistance movement as an opposition grab for power. With each new hardened position, the Government succeeds only in alienating larger sections of the public, when an honest, more democratic and less partisan response would have sufficed.
Similar errors have been seen with CLICO, and most recently, in the Government’s response to the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW). An incredible amount of political capital has been expended by the Office of the Prime Minister simply to deny the NUPW a claim to “victory”. It is like a 45-year-old father arguing with his five-year-old son over who won the lime-and-spoon race.
From its earliest days, the ruling DLP appeared unable to respond appropriately to the new democratic social movements of the 21st century. Upon assuming office, a number of independent academics and researchers, some of whom had remained unmolested despite their open criticism of former Prime Minister Owen Arthur, were silently banished from state-owned radio and television, once their views contradicted Government perspectives. What was an initial hint of intolerance, has now metamorphosed into a complete catalogue of hostility.
As the organic resistance movements to specific issues deepen, the Government has erroneously fallen back on its instinctive authoritarian, partisan response. It has self-fulfilled its own prophecy and has transformed everyday alternative viewpoints into a potential electoral problem.
• Tennyson Joseph is a political scientist at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus, specialising in regional affairs. Email tjoe2008@live.com.