Having spent over 50 years actively involved in politics, one becomes aware of the fact that political environments are the most mercurial places you can hope to find yourself, either in or out of the election season.
Every area one finds himself or herself – willingly or unwillingly associated – whether among close friends or casual acquaintances can either provoke or invoke stirring, even frightening, sides of each other’s sometimes well-guarded political character.
I must admit that even though my journey through the political network has given me the opportunity to encounter many of the blockages accidentally or deliberately placed to hinder – in some cases one’s desired direction – the reality is, you cannot miss them, neither can you avoid the consequences of the meeting and/or crossing of paths.
Every politician or political aspirant has his or her own unique, deep-seated personal ambition, sometimes only motivated by hidden dreams, or moulded by outside influences fuelled through quests for personal achievement, aided by and through the efforts of political bag carriers not willing to walk the walk, but ready to reap the benefits.
Within this new era of well-orchestrated political profiteering, the bag carriers have assumed a nearly unrecognisable face, hidden behind almost every once trusted social discipline – businessmen, academic fame-hunters, manufacturers, greed-motivated bankers and, within recent times, the newly branded flexible clergy seem now to be fully aware that strength in either of these disciplines can be profitably enhanced if one captures a foothold in the ever politically flexible network.
As I look around, I cannot help but see and feel a chronic, well-orchestrated and frightening devaluation that is embracing our country – not economic but much worse. It’s the devaluation of moral and once cherished societal values. One can no longer experience the common progressive, hard-fought-for-to-attain upward mobility that all Barbadian citizens felt they were a part of. Today, the all-encompassing downward desires forced upon citizens has caused stagnant economic mobility, and, by extension, pride, challenging food shortages and now not seeing the invisible light at the end of the tunnel which is uncaringly guiding or rather leading to the bottomless pit of life-threatening despair.
Former competent leaders of this country – Sir Grantley Adams, Errol Walton Barrow, Tom Adams, Sir Harold Bernard St John, Sir Lloyd Sandiford and Owen Arthur – must all be asking the questions: What is going or has gone wrong? Where, when and why did we discard our socio-political integrity?
We must sooner rather than later, seek to regain it and once again hold aloft our well recorded pride and industry.
– DAVID “JOEY” HARPER
