On March 25, 1965, one of the biggest upsets in boxing history occurred when a brash Cassius Clay, who would later change his name to Muhammad Ali, upset the more experienced and imposing boxer in Sonny Liston. While Clay was considered the underdog in this bout, his first round knockout of Liston with the alleged “phantom punch”, to this day, is still a point of contention. Those who watched the events unfurl that night swore that Liston took a dive. Many theories to this day exist as to why this may have happened: from Liston being in debt to the Mafia, to his being afraid of the nation of Islam. Whatever the reason, we’ll probably never know, but youth did win over experience.
On April 22nd after a hard fought election campaign, the Victor Banks-led AUF political party assumed control of Anguilla’s government with a whopping six out of seven seats. Right away the word mandate was being used. And based on their manifesto that was put forward, it appeared that finally we had in place a government that could, and would, go toe to toe with the British – a government that would not be pushed around, one that finally had the cojones to finally demand that Anguilla be treated with the respect that it deserved. So what has happened? We continue to get edicts from the British as to what we can and can’t do, while our government is all but missing in action. What seems to be the problem? Is there more going on here than meets the eye? Maybe we have to go beyond the apparent, for those in whom we placed our future seems to not be up to the task.
We have been subjected to actions by this government without fully having a say in any of it. We are constantly reminded that a democracy is an interactive process, and we the people are responsible for its success or its failure. It is a process that each and everyone of us must work tirelessly at if our country is to become a place that we can all be proud of. We must work hard for equality, fairness, and the inclusion of all, not just the top one percent, in our country’s prosperity. It is up to each and everyone of us to do our part. We will also have to guard against our destruction from within. Let’s be aware of the wolves in sheep’s clothing. We’ve suffered long and hard, and we’ve come too far to allow ourselves to be flummoxed by anyone, least of all our own government, for that matter.
It is sad to see where we are and what has happened to us. What we have in our Westminster Model of government, a gift from the British, is a system that is irretrievably corrupt and broken – where the man and not the law takes center stage. Our constitution is of little use because it lacks the benchmarks, the checks and balances of good governance. We have in place a government that’s arrogant and treats its constituents with very little respect. What ever happened to the promises that were made? What happened to kinder and gentler? It’s business as usual. The only thing that has changed are the faces.
Now it’s got to the point where we are waiting to see what the British will do. There is no love lost between us and Great Britain, but we continue to be her loyal subjects. Our government has done a complete 360 degree turn about on us, and we’ll see if Britain assents to what our own wants to do to us – and if that happens then we’re worse off than we’ve ever been. Marcus Garvey said: “A people without the knowledge of their history and culture, is like a tree without roots.” And let me add, as Winston Churchill said: “He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.”
Now to my point. We’ve been under the aegis of the British Government, in one form or another, since our inception. In 1976 they gave us Ministerial system of Government and, as Whitman Browne pointed out in his book, From Commoner to King, “the English did not encourage mass political participation in the Caribbean Islands. Those ideas of John Locke which encompassed the commoners in England and influenced the U.S. Constitution had to be rediscovered through trial and error in this area.” Mr. Browne went on to say that: “There was no real commitment by the British colonizers to a timely forging of sovereignty by the African and Asian descendants on the islands.”
So what then are we left to conclude? They’ve given us this sophisticated and complex piece of machinery known as the Westminster Model which is basically, in the words of Charles Wilkin QC, an “elective dictatorship” one step removed from a banana republic status. So after all is said and done we expected this AUF government, who on paper, looked, at first glance, more than capable and competent to deal with any situation that may have arisen.
Upon second glance, however, things are not as they appear to be. We find out after the fact that our indigenous banks are to be amalgamated, that the ISL will stay in place, that several drastic, but possibly important pieces of legislation will be passed without proper debate, regardless of what we say. We find out that the FCO is possibly applying untold pressure on this government without any sort of pushback and is acquiescing to their demands which lead one to ask the question, what happened? Is there more to this than meets the eye? Are we as a democracy not entitled to know what’s going on?
We seem to be our own worst enemy. We will march in defense of foreigners working on our shores at the Flag Project, but we won’t lift a finger in defense of our own livelihoods. We will patronize foreign enterprises, while driving past our indigenous stores. There is an old saying that says: “You dance with who brung yer.” It’s easy to understand that in today’s Anguilla, where everything is so expensive, you go where you can get the best deal, but at the same time we must remember how we got to this point. The time will come when we will wish that we still had an Albert Lake or a John Proctor around. Time will tell.
In his Independence Day address, Dr. Eric Williams admonished the newly Independent country of Trinidad and Tobago that: “The first responsibility that devolves upon you is the protection and promotion of your democracy. Democracy means more than the right to vote. Democracy means the recognition of the rights of others. Democracy means equality of all in the eyes of the law. Democracy means the protection of the weak against the strong. Democracy means the obligation of the majority to recognize the right of the minority. Democracy means responsibility of the government to its citizens from the exercise of arbitrary power and the violations of human freedoms and individual rights. Democracy means freedom of worship for all and the subordination of the rights of any one race to the overriding right of the human race. Democracy means freedom of expression and assembly and organization.”
That being said, can we in all honesty say that what we’ve been exposed to in Anguilla, in the last several months, is in any shape or form, a true exercise in democracy? Is that what democracy looks like when we see established protocols in the House of Assembly being tossed by the wayside, when we see the supporting cast of a one party rule rising like puppets in support of the party’s agenda? Can we honestly say that what we’ve seen and heard in the House is democracy in action? It’s as though we’re watching an episode from “The Theatre of the Absurd” where the suspension of disbelief acts as an antidote for what’s actually happening.
Folks, this government campaigned on a specific premise, one that would get Anguilla back on its feet, for if anyone would know what was needed, it would be them. After all, most of the problems that we now face occurred on their watch. Was this a ruse or was the campaign being disingenuous? What is known is that we cannot continue to operate the way we are. What we are seeing is a government which thinks it has a mandate to do what it deems necessary. Never mind that each district has its own representative, what we see is a collective rubber stamp for whatever comes down the pike.
As we start 2016, we have an obligation to fight for our country. We elected a government that we thought would do the right thing. Our mistake was that we did not ask the right questions during the campaign. We gave this government a free pass and this is what we get in return. It’s not too late to avoid the impending shipwreck that awaits us. It would appear that Captain Bligh has decided that he knows better than any on board which is the best course, and history tells us what fate befell the good Captain.
Dr. Williams concluded his Independence Day address with the words: “All that is democracy finally rests on a higher power. It rests on an informed and cultivated and alert public opinion.” Can we honestly say that we’ve been informed, that we’ve been alert or even cultivated? We have a very long way to go and unless, and until, we actively involve ourselves in the process, we will be nothing more than a banana republic who in the words of V.S. Naipaul, over some 50 years ago, characterized Caribbean leaders as Mimic Men, to which Mr. Wilkin QC added: “The said thing is that they mimic the despots like Mugabe and Chavez, rather than Mandela.”
So while things are not always what they seem, it is up to we the people to extract change, change that we can believe in, and, while a much younger Cassius Clay could take out the much more crafty and experienced Liston, let us hope that our government can rise to the occasion, that of matching wits with the more crafty British government, no holds barred. Let us take Dr. Williams’ advice that “our democracy rests on an informed, alert and cultivated people.” So let us set aside petty politics and make a once proud people, once again, hold their heads up high. Until then, may God bless us all and may He continue to bless Anguilla.
