Collectively We Must Shoulder Blame For Montserrat

Make no mistake about it.

Political representation is at a low ebb, perhaps at its lowest on Montserrat, since the right to vote in Parliamentary elections.

The fact is the cupboard is empty in terms of quality candidates at the upcoming elections. Things can get more challenging as the choices will be greater now, since all sorts from all quarters realize that based on eligibility and performances of the elected, candidates only need to wash their feet and come, get in, do nothing and be rewarded financially for life.

Parliamentarians who set the island on a strong socio-economic path should be handsomely paid. This keeps them from indulging in mischief. How then does a spouse qualify for a part of the deceased parliamentarian’s emoluments until death? Can a tiny resourced society afford such especially if spouse is a liability? Consider the burden on future tax-payers, since the national productivity is non-existent across all sectors.

Weaning the dependency on the UK taxpayer is not a serious official policy. A rude awakening is on the horizon as the UK has its steep mountain of domestic issues and its geopolitical power wanes with every passing year.

The prospects of lower grade aspirants to political power are real. The premise on which entry to political office is made is hardly any different to the reason students choose law or medicine as a career, which is to make big bucks at the expense of the gullible. Service to humanity is hardly the central focus in these endeavours and politics must be seen as the avenue that sets the cultural pace for every undertaking on the national stage.

A bunch of parliamentarians, with monstrous self-serving agenda and empty of any passion for real, sacrificial service to country and its people, reigns on Montserrat. There is rarely any real ability or capability to think through national problems. Hindsight, foresight and insight to marshal the present and the future to our sustained benefit is hardly part of their collective portfolio, as gleaned by their discourses in Parliamentary debates, on radio or other pronouncements.

The peoples’ business is perceptively not on the pecking order. And cannot because persons can only live and give what is truly of their nature: the idea of taking from and not giving to others is the pattern. This attitude has never been a formula for success in human relations at any time in man’s history. It is central however in determining progress or lack of it in all our ways in this volcanic era.

But in a democracy like ours, parliamentarians are a reflection of the mindset of the electors who dutifully created them and sent them, big salary in hand, to set themselves up, with greed and corruption, never not a part of their business equation in the election cycle.

Collectively we must shoulder blame. We do not value ability. We are personal and petty. We think low and below. We do not see the wood from the trees. We love a bellyful on nothing. We bribable. We like who we like. Others get baskets full of water. Independent minds get cut down. We do not know that we do not know. We are in a bad state. We call evil good – wearing the church hood.

Many of them are disbelieving that they succeeded at the last election with such ease. Their ‘red-up and fed up’ mantra worked. Don Romeo was exceedingly popular. In fact Premier Don Romeo is known to have schooled his son to seek popularity as an education is secondary to being acclaimed by the masses. Prosperity then looms.

Without actually wanting his leadership, others still rallied. He perhaps did not want himself. But Don despised the thought, rightly so that the opportunistic and bitingly ambitious Claude Hogan, with nothing to distinguish him as worthy of such or much honour, would be pumping his chest – the Lord is Claude – as Hogan salivated profusely and expectantly at the prospect of seeking to upset Don’s first chance at the helm. Don knew the task was too much for him. Down on confidence, he was missing in action from his desk for days after the election – a horrible start. Given his low pulse readings, he may still.

Premier Romeo better know that he who does not lead will be led by those who have narrow interests, hurting us all. Thus power is given to unelected and duplicitous bureaucrats, many too unfit to make decisions on behalf of the masses but who enjoy the power play for the self-gain, in settings in which he is told what to do and when on national issues.

He was ordered to fire Claude Hogan; sooner would have earned him credit. Similarly was dictated too on the Chairmanship of the Bank of Montserrat; interestingly given to a native Montserratian, who for some thirty odd years still a resident American; and this against the advice of the Manager of the Bank with the awkward logistics of dealing with a Skyping Chairman, who perhaps pulls rank at whim; and with internet irregularities too, all which can spell inefficiency in this light.

The Chairman’s initiation and elevation in the business of the Bank emerged solely on the strength of his blood connections to a famed, politically shifting, Red-UP supporter, with (non-pharmaceutical) expertise, in determining the election prospects of and the policies and machinations of many failed governments in the past; through wide ranging election gimmickry to win votes for favoured candidates; from even institutionalized residents, with unstable mindsets, not fully cognizant of their roles in the process; the only requirement is a mere heart-beat of the infirmed resident for that moment!

When one thinks of this beloved isle, with all its unique underutilized human prospects, its children especially - who escape to be reared in a cold foreign culture, it ushers gut-wrenching sadness. All the possibilities for a bright future that are so wantonly squandered, disappoint and depress.

Does it amount to a hopeless situation beyond redemption?

Note: Claude Gerald is a Social Commentator on Montserrat. Find him at ceegee15@hotmail.com