CATEGORY: COMMENTARY
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By Lloyd Noel

The happenings in our political comings and goings, and their ups and downs, have been bothering me for some time now; and while there have been periods of calms and lulls and seemingly passive times, the trend has generally been
to suddenly erupt with a bang.

The concerns are ever-present, and I share them and listen to others concerns in regular discussions - as incidents crop up or get reported in the media. But I was definitely prompted to share them in this forum, as a result of a very moving discussion with a Sister from the days of struggle in Grenada in the Seventies - who now resides in New York.

She was a mere High School teenager at the time, like the thousands who conscientiously understood and participated in the struggles then evolving
in Grenada in that period - but she has gone ahead, matured, and now even more conscious of Grenada’s and our peoples’ plight in these times.
And in reflecting on the discussion we had, and the political happenings in our lands these days - I recalled a statement I saw in a commentary on
Caribbean Politics some years ago, which said, ‘Political values shape what people feel they ought to do, and political behaviour describes what they actually do.’

In addition to the above-generalized description of values and behaviour, we in the Caribbean have always had to contend with what is loosely called - Customary or Cultural patterns of behaviour.

While the culture and customs of people can, and should have some bearing on how they behave and do certain things - they cannot, and should not, be
any excuse or exception to wrong doing, denial of people’s rights and freedoms, and dishonesty or corruption in private or public matters. And even more to the point, in the region as a whole and very prevalent in our Spice Isles - is the fallacy in our political outlook, that because Mr. ’X’ or ‘Y’, or this or that political party while in Government, did or did not do so and so, or closed their eyes to obvious wrong-doings that are
detrimental to the people and Country as a whole - then that becomes the norm for all future behaviour.

In our case here in these Isles, the situation took a turn for the worse since the 2003 General Election results of that November, when the party in power won Eight seats and the Opposition won Seven seats. During the two terms between 1995 to 1999, and 1999 to 2003, when the party in control was virtually and practically un-opposed - things were done, actions taken, decisions made, with scant regard for how or what the people felt. Our un-precedent huge national debt - is the natural consequence of that dictatorial period of irresponsible political behaviour.

And while thinking about our very precarious and alarmingly disturbing economic and financial state of affairs, and the backward trend our politics
is now following, I saw and heard the news report on GBN TV last Friday in which the Minister for Finance was putting the Government’s case for
Parliamentary approval of a CDB Loan of Five and a half Million U.S. Dollars ($5� Millions (U.S.).

The reasons he advanced for obtaining that loan were two fold. One was to service the Government’s huge National debt, including debts to the very
CDB; and the other was to enable the Government to remain Credit worthy. And only two or three weeks ago, the Minister for Communication and Works
was signing Contracts for works on bridges and roads, in the Tempe and Mount Gay and Beausejour areas, that she expected to facilitate the CWC 2007 roads improvement projects in time for next year’s matches in Grenada.And she said then, that a loan of $38 Million (U.S.) was obtained from the
said CDB for those projects.

So we are borrowing from the Lender, to service previous loans from the same Lender; and since those projects, although of a Capital Development
nature, are not employment creative - except at the time of construction - nor revenue earning in any way, it must also mean, therefore, that we will always have to be borrowing from Peter to pay back Paul, once Paul stops servicing his own loans in due course.

The Agriculture and Fishing Sector, through our Farmers and Fishermen; and the Tourism Sector, by assisting the Hoteliers and other Food suppliers with Restaurants - are the areas for foreign exchange earnings to service those huge debts to enable us to be Credit worthy.

And job or employment creative investments, to cater for those thousands of young folks who are liming their lives away - with nothing to do of a
worthwhile nature, and plenty time and opportunities to do wrong and illegal things - are the projects we should be borrowing for, to train our people and make them employable, to be able to compete in the CSME everyone is fussing about.

The obvious shortcomings in the areas above are critical to our development in the months and years ahead, and continued failure to address them with some urgency will be to our Nation’s detriment down the road we are treading.

But of equal concern and needed attention across the board - is the sickening tendency to label everything with grave political overtones; and
every issue that crops up, or at the drop of every hat - depending on whose head it drops from - for those in and around the political arena to falsely
and maliciously make political Capital thereof. And even when the statements are recorded, and the allegations are in written form, so that they can be listened to again and again, or read over and over - the persons responsible still persist in denying the facts, or making excuses, or adding insult to injury.

Take the headlines making stories about the Doctor and the Cuban Male Nurse, and the allegations of Sexual harassment, or in-appropriate professional behaviour, or howsoever they may be described. When the story about the Doctor hit the front page, because he was of the opposition side
of the political divide, those on the other side had a field day in condemning him - and the newspaper that broke the story had many
in-accuracies in its report, all clearly intended to make it sensational and more ugly.

Even in the said paper’s Editorial last week, it still persisted in printing that ... ‘The Victim ... gave a sworn, signed and witnessed
statement, and in addition a taped interview with our reporter, stating that she was kidnapped, raped and sexually molested.’ Now I ask you!! Is that responsible journalism, when the Editor knows very well there was no kidnap or rape? But to join the bandwagon of condemning the Editor of the Grenada Today, over the ‘Cuban at the Hospital’ allegation, those very serious offences are
added.

Even the Government Ministers who have taken up the issue in defense of Cuba; none of those Ministers said anything about irresponsible journalism in the case of the Doctor, simply because he is a member of the Opposition;
but now they may well be having their Cabinet Legal Advisor planning to arrest George Worme for Criminal Libel.

The Pandy Beach residents issue, whatever the rights or wrongs, or whoever has been dragging feet in resolving the matter - that too has taken on the usual political coloring, just as the little ‘White House’ shop near the Tunnel in St. George’s.

Then I heard the Prime Minister, at a meeting near the Stadium, complaining about persons who allegedly pelted stones at Chinese workers in the Stadium.To have done anything like that is clearly a Criminal offence and reprehensible, and I have since heard three persons have been arrested in connection with the offence.

But the Prime Minister was also alleging, that whoever those stone-pelters were, they were being set up by persons with politically ulterior motives, who are against the re-building of the Stadium and the progress that project will bring to Grenada and its people. Not idle young limers of River Road with nothing to do but making nuisances of themselves. Nor the Prime Minister, who has the same kind of irresponsible behaviour on his own Constituency doorsteps just up the road, taking the opportunity to dialogue with the M.P. for the River Road area to try and devise solutions. Instead, the issue is in the political arena as having been instigated by political opponents.

The Prime Minister seems to have forgotten, that those political opponents were in the Chinese camp before him, so it must be in their interest to keep those workers happy and in Grenada, not drive them away. But the ‘politics in everything’ disease is so present and endemic, that worthwhile opportunities to bridge gaps and make friends by reducing enemies are often times lost.

In the same context of politics taking over everything, and taking us backwards into the dark and dismal days of the Seventies and Eighties we all wish to wipe out from our history - we also heard recently of the list of Police Officers, submitted to the Commissioner of Police Office for
promotion within the Police Force. I do not know who signed or submitted the list, but the police grapevine news was that it originated from a political source, when it should have come from the C.O.P. himself to his Superiors in the Ministry.

Now that is exactly what was happening in the Sixties by the political ’guru’ of those times; and among other serious infractions, was the direct cause of the forceful actions taken in 1979 - that in turn brought about October, 1983, and tainted our political history forever.

The patterns of behaviour listed above, clearly do not fit the political values I am sure our politicians had in mind - when they embarked on their dreams of what they felt people ought to do. So the haunting question continues to sadden those of us who supported those dreams at the time - why
allow yourself to embark on those backward - looking schemes, and already doomed patterns of behaviour to sustain you in power?


The many good and worthwhile projects and other achievements, on the positive and credit-worthy side of the political balance sheet - will be
over-shadowed by the many negative and un-necessary liabilities on the debit side; and as is the way life and history unfold - the evil that men do will live after them, and the good will often be interred with their bones.So it was with Caesar in the Roman Empire, and so it has been with Gairy and Bishop in the Grenadian upheavals. I do not envisage any difference when the history of the NNP and its political Leader comes around to be written.And the way things are moving now-a-days the situation can only get much worse - unless a halt is called and implemented, by those with the power, and the will, and the where-withal to make it happen.

Grenada and Grenadians have suffered enough over the years, and they still continue so to do. If ever the slogan of the Seventies was necessary and appropriate - it is now; and that is ‘Forward movement ever, but backward-looking, never.’


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