Ready for battle

ADDRESSING the opening gala of the Democratic Labour Party’s 62nd annual general conference at the party’s George Street auditorium headquarters on Friday night, Prime Minister the Hon. Freundel Stuart suggested that he is ready for the upcoming political battle.

The Prime Minister was speaking to a packed auditorium of party-faithful when he issued a battle cry of sorts, as he quoted Shakespeare’s King Henry V:

In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility, But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger: Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage.

Prime Minister Stuart, while acknowledging comments that he talks too little, says he likes to listen and observe.

“I am hearing the blast of war blow in my ears and you will be hearing from me over the next few months, as we go towards that historic day. When we come back here for the 63rd Gala Opening I will be thanking you once again for all the hard work you would have put in to ensure the renewal of the mandate of the DLP.”

Prime Minister Stuart says he is not going to attack people in politics, but he will explain them. He said “somebody has to put him or herself through the trouble to explain the present leader of the BLP to Barbadians and I am going to do it.”

According to the Prime Minister, “I am not ashamed to be a Bajan … And I do not believe that the best interest of Barbados will be served or can be served by allowing an arch-conservative in the BLP to preside over the destiny of hard working, working class men and women in this country.”

Stuart stated that he had a choice between the DLP and the BLP as a teenager, but did not feel that the latter coincided with the vision of the type of Barbados within which he would want to live.

“The gospel they preached was not the kind of gospel that held out any hope for me as a young man living in a modest village in St. Philip. I could change my circumstances in such a way that I could rise to be the Prime Minister of Barbados.

“I find it very interesting that so many years after the formation of the other political organisation that they have not got past who they are at and with now.”

He made reference to former leader of the BLP Owen Arthur and what he described as a missed opportunity during the 15 years that he led the BLP.

Prime Minister Stuart told the audience of a conversation that took place between himself and Arthur early one morning while in the Lower Chamber before the sitting started. It was at that time Stuart said, he told Arthur what he had against him in politics.

“You were born in the working class of Barbados. You were raised in the working class of Barbados. You were educated at the expense of the working classes of Barbados. You were given the very rare opportunity of getting a chance to lead the most conservative political organisation in Barbados, the BLP. You were given that chance in 1993. You led it for 15 years.

“After 15 years of leading the BLP, given your origins, given all the support that went into your formation, when you were ready to give up the BLP you had not brought along anybody from your class to whom you could hand it. You had to hand it back to the conservatives.

“I said ‘As far as I am concerned that is a blot on your escutcheon.’ You wouldn’t correct it so it falls to me to correct it,” he told Arthur.”

The Prime Minister said this was an opportunity which Mencea Cox wanted in 1958 but the “snobs and elitists” in that organisation did not feel that a former taxi-driver should be one to take over the organisation.

“So they decided that the leader of the BLP to succeed the founder who was going off to be the first Prime Minister of the West Indies Federation, should be Dr. Hugh Gordon Cummins. I said to Mr. Arthur. The opportunity that you got, Cox wanted and could not get.”

Prime Minister Stuart stressed that the conference’s theme of Barbados First refers to every single person, no matter their station in life. “… Because although we are not all equal in terms of what we have or what we know or what we do, the DLP has created in this country, equality of opportunity that allows every single man and woman and child, to embark on the journey of realising his or her aspirations.

“That is what putting Barbados first is about. Putting the real salt of the earth people of the country who built it, putting their interests out front so that the society could be energised and recreate itself and we could be all the better off for it.” (JH)

Pics called DLP Annual Conf Opening #…

Photo 5

Prime Minister Freundel Stuart presents Samantha “Sammie G”Greaves of the St. Michael Central constituency with the Trident Youth Award for her contribution to the calypso arena and for being a positive role model.

Photo 1
Yannic Boyce of the St. Michael North West constituency received a Trident Youth award from Prime Minister Freundel Stuart for her academic achievements.

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Omari Eastmond of the St. Michael West constituency received a Trident Youth Award for his contribution to the field of science.