IF IT IS NOT GOOD FOR THE GANDER, THEN CAN IT BE GOOD FOR THE GOOSE?

Perhaps, both major political parties here may subscribe in varying degrees to a version of male chauvinism no matter the camouflage; and given our legacy of patriarchy, it is not unexpected.

A natural corollary of that Chauvinism/patriarchy is “male paramountcy” in our political organisations which the political leadership may either equate to effectiveness or perceive as a “critical success factor”.

Let us for argument sake concede that Kenny (because of the perception or reality that he is in absolute charge) has consolidated his paramountcy in the SLP; let us also concede that Chastanet is trying to catch up with Kenny in that regard.

Let us also concede that we have no evidence to suggest that Kenny’s “paramountcy” has never been used to subvert the democratic processes or to alienate the hierarchy of the SLP.

Can we also concede that there is no such evidence against Chastanet?

According to voices of Richard Frederick, Michael Flood, Former Prime Minister Stephenson King, Dr Claudius Preville, and lately for AG “Doddy” Francis, the answer is bone-chilling!

The latest to join the chorus are the UWP Women in Action (WIA).  It does appear that the sabre-rattling inside the WIA about male chauvinism and paramountcy within the leadership hierarchy of the UWP is well-founded.

“Hats off” to the Sealy (WIA Secretary) for her courage not just to speak out but also to demonstrate against a dangerous trend in our politics. She has done it not just for the women in the UWP, but for all the women in St. Lucia and in the process, she has outshone even the Leader of the Opposition. Miss Sealys must be regarded as a trendsetter who is worthy of emulation.

Coincidentally, Ms Sealys’ allegations and action therefrom have surfaced at a time when a UWP-leaning Talk show host excoriated a young lady who made an “unforced error” on his show; and upon the realisation of the error, she courageously offered an apology but that didn’t pre-empt the talk show host from having his full pound of flesh.

The said talk show host has followed a precedent he set when the PM apologised to him for labeling him Media terrorist; ironically, he came out as a media terrorist with a vengeance against the obviously stunned young lady who probably felt molested by the host’s merciless pursuit and desire for a pound of flesh.

In retrospect, the talk show host clearly overstepped his boundaries. He didn’t do justice to his own professional ethics.

Will the media workers endorse that behaviour?

If male chauvinism is bad for politics, then it is even worse for journalism. Moreover, if it goes to the point of using “terror tactics” like the talkshow host did to intimidate a guest on his show, then we need to condemn in the strongest possible terms and to swiftly nip from the bud. What is not good for the gander cannot be good for the goose!

SHOULD DR LEWIS LECTURE SENATOR MARY?

Introduction 

How do we explain Senator Mary Isaac’s notorious misconception that government  legislated a 5% wage cut for Public Servants for the fiscal year ended March 2015 that never materialised?

How do we explain her infamous “walk across the parliamentary floor” in the House of Assembly when a member was making his contribution?

How do we explain her persistence with the misrepresentation that St. Lucia has had three years of negative economic growth?

Is she ready for parliamentary and ministerial office?

Among other things, this article seeks to analyse her contribution to the Budget debate largely in the context of those issues.

UWP wolf in CSA Presidential Camouflage?

After hearing the Senator’s contribution to the Budget debate, I am now more than ever, convinced that her candidacy on the UWP ticket may not entirely be based on merit or arguably she may bringing any value to the UWP party. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that her eligibility as the candidate for South Castries was based more on a “behind the scene” deal to sell the soul of the CSA to UWP than merit.  Hence, the popular claim (that she was a UWP wolf in “presidential” clothing seeking to ride on the backs of CSA workers for political gain) is well-placed and tenable.

Masked in CSA presidential camouflage, Senator Mary Isaac tottered precariously along the UWP-CSA tightrope pretending that her mission was to fight the cause of CSA workers until the sheer “gravitational force” of her recent controversial endorsement as UWP candidate for South Castries resulted in her crash landing on the UWP side of the fence.

Reflection of the Chronology of events

In hindsight, the chronology of events well-documented in the public’s eye over time has made it easier for us to put her actions and pronouncements into context. Upon reflection, we are now able to explain her “testicular fortitude” – not in terms of industrial relations courage and principles but -in terms of an overwhelming political agenda motivated by the pursuit of power; we are also able to explain her irrational and persistence of intransigence (and one might argue her sabotaging of the wage negotiation process) was not as a consequence of “testicular fortitude”, but was all part of an ongoing UWP campaign strategy using the CSA as the platform. In short, Mary was simply using her position as president of the CSA and the CSA itself as a platform to campaign for herself and the UWP.

When will the Comedy of Errors End?

Mary’s comedy of errors reached a crescendo when she orchestrated her appointment as general secretary of the CSA while simultaneously wielding presidential powers, knowing fully well that her endorsement as the UWP candidate for South Castries was imminent; and notwithstanding her “overwhelming” endorsement, she still continues in the positions of general secretary and president of the CSA.

The nation waits with baited breath for the next move of the embattled CSA president turned UWP Senator and now endorsed candidate for the constituency for South Castries.

Female version of the "Guy"

If all of the above represent “symptoms” of the controversial Senator Mary’s political character, then arguably we have to admit that we may have a female version of Guy Joseph on our hands - if not a female Allen Chastanet and a female Ezekiel Joseph (who are both before the courts for corruption) in the making.

Contrary to any belief that Mary may be the beneficiary of the untenable chronology of events which circumscribed her political sojourn prior to her controversial endorsement by the UWP as candidate for South Castries, it may well result in deepening her own personal and political dilemmas. While, they may have contributed to putting her in the limelight, they may not remotely translate into electoral success which I assume is her ultimate goal. Moreover, if her presentation in the Senate is any indication of the quality of discourse she will bring to parliament, then she is far from ready for the job.

Snapshots of Senator Mary’s Budget Presentation

To put the argument in perspective, let’s take snapshots of her presentation during the senate debate.

In her presentation to the Senate, Mary argued that “All gov’t want to do is cut”; but in the same breath, she was advocating that gov’t should cut out the director positions in the public service.  She also posited that she would displace the current “crop of NICE workers” and replace them with a “crop of youth”. She went on to categorise some NICE workers as beggars.

One of Senator Mary’s dilemmas is the reconciliation of her pronouncements about a high rate of unemployment with her reckless desire to displace the current crop of NICE workers (who are doing a sterling job providing home care for our vulnerable senior citizens) and replace them with a "crop of youth”.

 Why didn’t she propose that she would instead build on the NICE programme by designing a counterpart employment programme targeting youth unemployment?

There's also the issue of labeling some NICE workers (who according to a UWP placard-bearer were “niggas”) as “beggars”. In the context of the UWP’s reluctance to condemn that placard-bearing “Nigga’ slogan, Senator Mary’s pronouncement is no Freudian slip, no accident! The fundamental question: why would a trade union president want to characterise some gov’t workers as “beggars” and why would she want to join hands with an institution who failed to condemn a placard-bearer who labeled NICE workers (who are part of public service) as Niggas?

In her presentation, Mary also posited that the country was not on the right path. The logical question is: Is the CSA on the right path?

The CSA and the UWP have one thing in common and that is they are both divided down the middle and, in both instances, the division is caused by the incompetence of the leadership.

Senator Mary has created history by being the only Trade Union president in St. Lucia who is also a UWP Candidate. How therefore can the senator have the moral authority, the legitimacy to advise gov’t about right path when she treading on a woefully wrong path?

Mary must be careful about making thoughtless and illogical generalisations: She suggested that she is against the kids laptop programme pointing that the students were misusing the laptops by “breaking the code” and downloading (I assume) forbidden material. In her attempt to excoriate the gov’t for the kids laptop programme, she was directly and indirectly making a stinging indictment on our children, parents and teachers. But the paradox is, while she was making her case about the misuse of the laptops, she was in the same breath generalising that parents had no electricity and no internet. How can students with no electricity and internet download (and again I assume) the “forbidden material” she was referring to?

It is difficult to comprehend why a self-professed mother of four and an aspiring politician would engage in profound negativity of that magnitude against our youth (which she incidentally claimed were better candidates for employment under NICE).

Notwithstanding her profound contradictions and reckless generalisations, she didn’t tell us what she would do differently. Would she stop the laptop programme? What would she replacee it with?

Her reckless negativity continued unabated with the claim that there were no science programmes in some secondary schools. Unfortunately, she did not cite those schools! I therefore await the Minister of Education to clarify as I’m aware that (in the pursuit of universal scientific literacy) it is ministry policy that every school must offer science!

The comedy of errors reached its peak when the Senator postulated that the geothermal research project can result in the volcanic eruption of the sulphur springs. Even the Grade 7 science student would not subscribe to that misconception.  (On the lighter side, I wonder whether is her embrace of non-science and pseudoscience that has caused her to seek a Canadian passport in preparation for running away when that eventuality according to her happens.) The sum total of those reckless pronouncements makes Mary unfit for both parliamentary and ministerial office unless we are comfortable with more Guys in government.

The basic mathematics of economic growth

Senator Mary fell into the same mathematical/statistical trap of all the UWP colleagues when she reported that there were three years of negative growth.

She also cited the claim of low productivity reported in the Social and Economic Review; but she also said that there were just a hand of lazy public servants suggesting that the mass of the lazy and unproductive workers in St. Lucia was found outside the civil service.

Mary bashed our intellectuals - even when her leader of Opposition is an intellectual luminary; and more critically even at a time when the UWP needs intellectual support to put its house in order. By her anti-PhD sentiments, she came across as being profoundly anti-intellectual. Also by her failure to understand a basic mathematical algorithm (such as -0.70 – (-1.93) = +1.23) also seemed to suggest she is equally “academically lean”.

I am not suggesting by any stretch of imagination that politicians should be quantitatively bent; but, if however, an aspiring politician (who was a head of a government department and president of a union and who may have had years of exposure to figures) is still apparently challenged when it comes to the interpretation of simple mathematical computations and basic statistics (which generally tend to be at the heart of negotiations with the employer) to the point of feeding the public with misinformation, then s/he is not only unfit for the position of union president much less for parliamentary or ministerial office. In fact, it is becoming clear that (despite her new status as a senator), she was misled into believing that government had legislated a 5% wage cut which never happened suggesting that she has not grasp the basic difference between the estimates of expenditure and the policy which circumscribe it.

Closing advice

Based on the wide spectrum of seemingly aberrational issues and missteps (ranging the politicisation and chasm of the CSA to an obvious lack of intellectual grounding befitting a senator) which has overtime consistently plagued Senator Mary, she needs an urgent refresher! Perhaps, new lectures on industrial relations, the budget, fiscal policy, the economy, universal ethical principles, statistics, information technology and (of course) mathematics may help and . . . perhaps, Dr Lewis can volunteer to be one of her lecturers.

THE SILLY ERUPTIONS IN SOUFRIERE

The eruptions of violence in the town of Soufriere had some hallmarks of a “cluster bomb” terrorist attack which momentarily threatened the national security of the Tourism Capital; but, at best, it was simply a silly and “out of character” transient juvenile explosion which threatened to mar the image of St. Lucia's world-renowned triply honoured rustic town.  In more ways than one, when it comes to honour, Soufriere is to Saint Lucia what Derek Walcott and Sir Arthur Lewis are to us. She is indisputably our Tourism capital, our only World Heritage Site and our historically renowned famous breadbasket.

Whether or not the gangs from Soufriere caught that “virus infection” of gang violence from the Jamaican Garrison culture and they are in turn unleashing it out on the innocent Sulphur City is a matter of wild conjecture; or whether or not the genesis of it is linked to circumstances peculiar to to Soufriere is equally a matter of conjecture. The concern remains that Soufriere may be potentially infected with the deadly virus of gang warfare and we need to deal with in a profound way to weed it out with a sense of urgency before it takes deeper root and spread to the neighbouring communities of Choiseul, for example.

The volcanoes may not have erupted in millions of years; but suddenly, the town of Soufriere is facing an unexpected eruption of volcanic proportions.

Some restless young men from the town who have organized themselves into unsavoury gangs are engaging each other in a deadly game of fire which in my view is much too large for a town as small as Soufriere.

Notwithstanding the commendably strong and decisive response by the Soufriere police to nip that organized violence from the bud, the scars have been carved and the marks may remain etched on the landscape for some time. We can only pray that there's never a recurrence again.

However, the police intervention is definitely not the total solution.

Soufriere, despite its awesome and breath-taking geographic magnificence, is the third poorest community in Saint Lucia. Unemployment and vulnerability are also very high. Poverty is estimated to be at a whopping 42% with vulnerability at 57%. Unemployment is estimated to be at 19%.

Why would a town which is so viable in tourism and potentially agriculture which was once boasted as being the breadbasket of St. Lucia and now boasting a highly successful tourism sector with world-renowned and award-winning resorts like Anse Chastanet/Jade Mountain, Jalousie Resort and Spa, Ladera, Hotel Chocolat, etc be ranked as the third poorest community in St. Lucia? Why would a town with a successful and model institution like the Soufriere Regional Development Foundation which to some extent is a kind of “redistribution mechanism” of the tourist dollar be plagued with social and economic problems of the magnitude which it now faces? Something must be wrong, somewhere.

Except for the “occasional vagrant” on the street, the indicators of poverty are however barely visible to the visitor until s/he journeys into peripheral Soufriere. If you want a bird’s eye appreciation of the magnitude of socioeconomic problems facing Soufriere, then you may have to take a trip outside the mainstream town to the communities like Baron's Drive on the Southern flank and Palmiste on the northern flank and draw your own conclusions.

But are those epicentres of poverty also the epicentres of the eruption of the violence? Preliminary analysis suggests not at all!  The young and restless of Soufriere's poorest community have hitherto conduct themselves admirably despite their economic and social poverty. 

According to police reports, the epicentres of the gang warfare are in the centre of the town from Market road to Bridge Street. However, according to a police source, the extent of the warfare may also have tentacles in neighbouring Choiseul.

A young man from Morne Sion, Choiseul who is allegedly a very close associate of the alleged Gaza gang leader from Market Road was arrested and charged for gun-related offenses related to the warfare.  A police officer disclosed to the writer that the presiding magistrate agreed to grant temporary haven to the apparent Gaza gang leader in Morne Sion, Choiseul in lieu of remand at Bordelais; but that apparently didn’t abate the feuding.

Sources close to the family of the accused man from Morne Sion indicated that a major police raid happened in Morne Sion shortly after the magistrate agreed to the arrangement, resulting in a series of new and fresh charges against the alleged culprits. 

An eyewitness told the writer that on the day of the fierce gun battle and missile war, another man from Choiseul believed to be a gang member was seen running for shelter along Market Road when the battle got too hot for him. It is reported that the police also had him in custody.

So the big question is: what is going on? How did this thing start? How did the "fellas" from the normally peaceful Choiseul Community get entangled in a gang warfare in Soufriere? The police must do thorough investigation into the potential criminal networks or pockets thereof spanning Choiseul and Soufriere and swiftly nip them from the bud.

The Members of Parliament must also do their bit. Both Hon Harold Dalson (MP for Soufriere and social transformation minister) and Hon Lorne Theophilus (MP for Choiseul and the Minister for Tourism and the Creative Industries) are well-placed to design intervention modalities to limit and control the unnecessary delinquent skirmishes.

Indeed, Hon Dalson has proactively pledged to intervene to help forge peace and unity among the warring factions.

In conclusion, the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force deserves the highest commendation for taking the bull by the horns to restore the town of Soufriere to normalcy. The troublemakers are now all behind bars and a strong deterrent has been established.

The cooperation of citizens was also exemplary. All in all, a strong and decisive message was sent to potential troublemakers and Soufriere can now celebrate  Easter and their Kweyol Jazz in the peaceful environment the town is accustomed to.

However, the problem may not necessarily be over! The real challenge ahead is for the stakeholders to work with target communities, developing programmes which specifically focus on the "restless", unemployed and vulnerable youth and help foster a greater sense of social responsibility, social competence and ultimately a deep sense of psychosocial reciprocity leading to a profound sense of national pride and national responsibility.