FROM THE BOUNDARY: To be or not to be…
“People must be informed and be able to make informed choices.” Who said it? Yes, Mother Mia, as I’ve previously called her after the wonderful way she addressed us all in relation to the Covid Wimp crisis. She truly “walked” with us, something she’s said defines her. The quotation refers to the announcement of hers, the edict, that there would be candidate debates in the run-up to the St. George North by-election. Covid apart, why not debates? Yes, let’s hear the candidates. It’s important, and particularly at a time when effectively we have a one-Party State. But by government decree without consultation with the Opposition-of-one and other political parties? Isn’t that a kind of bullying? And how does it square with making “informed choices”?
“Informed choices.” Yes, but what of the ‘Throne Speech’ Republic? Has anyone in the press argued against it? I don’t think so – and neither will I. It’s a matter for the citizens of Barbados. But, like Mother Mia, I too believe in “informed choices”. So to my heroine – why aren’t you “walking with the people” on this one? Why aren’t you exploring with them the real advantages and disadvantages of saying ‘bye’ to the House of Windsor; and having done that, why aren’t you giving them a choice, stay or leave, in a referendum? You’re doing it with same-sex marriage. But this one? Doesn’t responsible leadership DICTATE you hear from the people?
Sure, I worry that this proposal came at the end of the ‘summer of discontent’, which began with the martyr George Floyd but ended with the ‘General-Secretary’ of whatever pushing Venezuela, and its Ambassador, on us, together with Ambassador Comissiong, making noises ambassadors really shouldn’t make, and all accompanied by sirens of so-called ‘Pan-Africanists’. As salt-of-the-earth Mavis Beckles characterised in recent months in another newspaper (27 June): “It is like if some people was only too glad to get a platform tuh air their views… It went from Black Lives Matter tuh evahthing else dat doan matter.”
What else inspired it? The “Manifesto”? If by that we mean the BLP 2018 Manifesto, I’m yet to find it there. Page number please. In her ABC interview for Australian television, Mother Mia seems to have suggested it’s there. Sure, the proposal for a Republic goes back decades, but ALWAYS linked to a referendum. So why not now? After all, it was only
three years ago when, in opposition, our present Attorney-General suggested it was then the wrong time to talk about a Republic but that, in any event, the proposal should be put to the people. Don’t times change in politics!
Frankly, I was disappointed that Mother Mia talked to the Australians before she talked to us. That wasn’t ‘walking’ with us. It felt like abandonment – and so unlike her. And it really didn’t help when she referred to those unnamed “eminent Barbadians” who had exacted commitments to a Republic from the previous Government and Opposition. Is Barbados controlled by an unelected oligarchy? Is that what this Republic will be?
Both sections of the press have noted, with some concern and rightly, that no referendum has been proposed and have asked what a Republic would mean for ordinary Barbadians. There’ve been some powerful letters calling for a referendum. Those by Annette Lashley (27 September) and R. A. Arthur (29 September) in another newspaper, and Walter Edey here (2 October) particularly come to mind. It’s been suggested that China somehow has a hand in it all. Well, China has been very active here lately, and who knows what promises have been made (cf. Advocate, 30 September, p. 7). Does a referendum, then, represent a risk of losing what’s been promised?
Given that effectively we have one-Party governance, without a ref-erendum what’s really happening, do you think? To a powerful SOMEONE, I’ve described it as a “bloodless revolution”. Have I lost my marbles?
Go safely, then – until the next time.
Remembering, from the boundary: “We should never forget that the word ‘republic’ comes from… ‘res publica’, which literally means ‘public thing’, ‘public matter’ or ‘public affair’” (Michael Ray, Advocate letter, 30 September).