So many times we ask to raise the bar, and so many times we see it lowered. Yet we still hold on to the idea that one day there will be a change in the political style of Anguilla. We believe that sooner or later the people of this country will stop electing politicians whose only qualification is their skill in “character assassination”. We continue to hope that, instead, the political arena will be characterized by more decency, better moral behavior and the absence of guttersnipes. It is time to demand more and higher levels of decorum from our politicians. If we did we would get a better functioning system with decent and well-equipped ministers. When the bar is set too low anyone can walk over it and defeat the purpose of the dance. Then the entire exercise becomes a farce. Compared to the real world politics, the behavior around here in Anguilla, and the type of politics are embarrassingly low. We really need to revamp it. We don’t have to continue performing at this level.
This type of politics belongs to the Chief Minister – some of his followers and other poorly informed persons. It is difficult to tell anyone that here is a place where to get elected you do not need to be educated or know anything other than how to cuss and quarrel. But the truth is that politics and campaigns in Anguilla have often been based on nothingness — never on the substantive needs of the people. People that now want to carry on that style of politics should not be elected. We have to raise the bar. We should not be continuously looking back. Looking back will stop us from seeing forward. Whereas forward and upward are where we must be headed. Somehow we have been able to keep real issues off the table so in fact there is really no message to put forward or to articulate. Politics has drifted into attacking personalities and portraying them as villains has become the norm.
From early in the 1800s we had one issue, namely, that of breaking away from the prescribed union of islands. That issue is now dead. But we now seem to have turned on one another. That attitude does not yield advancement – it only points to ignorance and mental poverty. Even after all these years we do not know what we want and who is best to help us get it. But let us put all of those attitudes behind us and stop wallowing in yesterday’s rubbish.
Today, nobody is concerned with who have red dirt on their backs or ‘Blolly buds’ in their hair. Those days are long gone! So why carry on with all the demeaning stuff that only serves the illiterate and other such political pigmies. It can only stem from a desire to be nasty and of low – very low – caliber that one would want to take part in such activity. Granted that gossip seems to have more influence than real issues, we still need to change our attitude because it is a real drawback to political progress. The position that now prevails in Anguilla campaigns is that it is usually based on a war of “words” fuelled by who can make the dirtiest and most damaging remarks that will stick. It completely disregards the truth and is far removed from what is really going on. The main purpose is to smear someone’s character.
It can be said that results of elections are not related to real conditions and that they are decided only on the characters’, in the campaign, ability to go low. They invite political indecency and personal attacks because when degrading words are said it tempts the other to retaliate and, as a consequence, the real issues get lost in the melee. Exactly what is the improvement content when politicians slug it out backward and forward with demeaning statements about one another? It results in an “idiotic dialogue”of low life talk that does not belong in the public domain via the podium. It lives beneath common morals. The AUF maintains it standards of not falling into such quagmires. Such talk gives transient satisfaction only to the vacuous and the ignorant. They, unfortunately, have nothing sensible to say and do not seem to care about the results that this nasty political conduct brings into play.
Under no circumstances will the AUF go there! They are committed to the promise of “building the new Anguilla” and believe that such conduct cannot be helpful but rather destructive and disgraceful. As a party, the AUF is eternally concerned with improvement of politics and not its deterioration into a common “hen house” environment. For the good graces of Anguilla, the party seeks to lift up the bar and put Anguilla on a higher plane.
Character assassination is never appropriate because it is a low form of misrepresentation which creates awful repercussions and relies on lies, half-truths, gossip, hearsay and innuendo. It is insensitive to the person it is aimed at. Its purpose is to paint a person in bad light, destroy his character and make him look unwanted in his community. When the CM and his heir apparent’s statements are examined, their authenticity is dubious but their purpose is clearly “character attack ”.
Nearly always, when we analyze material from these sources we find large discrepancies that render the CM not a reliable source. So that what he says should not be taken at face value.The glorification of his attendance at Grammar School is not an educational feat. It must not be accepted in the sense of scholarship. It must be taken in light of the fact there was no entrance requirement and students went there based on the ability to pay. If you had an uncle or a brother or aunt to pay for the tuition you were in. It was not predicated on ability to learn but on capability to pay. The CM was no shining star in that arrangement. The record shows that he could not compete with his fellow students and was readily ridiculed by his classmates for being a slow learner. His schoolmates called him names related to being a dunce. In teaching terms, he might have been a late bloomer. But based on what he says, and how he performs now, that theory is not applicable. His peers are still hard pressed to find anything associated with his intellectual prowess that shows change. What this tells us is that before anything negative is said about others we first should pick the beam from our own eyes – or at least look in the mirror. Something he fails to do! This allows him to say rotten things about people, and to forget he was once ranked among the dunces in the schools of the Leeward Islands, and now by some fell swoop is CM of Anguilla.
“For he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which does not enrich him but makes me poor indeed”. Sometimes, like in any other game, we mark not that you won or lost, but how you played the game. Remember, fellow Anguillians, the verdict is yours.
