For all our history, we have been taught that we are all one happy imperial family on which the sun never set. We used to look with pride at the patches of red across the globe that signalled our “togetherness”. As Independence loomed, the Brits lumped our colonies into one federation or another for easier administration – depending on where we were: from the Federation of Malaya (1948-1957) to the Federation of the West Indies (1958-1962).
In our case, since we all came out of slave plantations and were ruled and schooled by the same iron fist, we developed a strong bond of “West Indianness”; but that didn’t last too long. It all came apart in 1962, when the Jamaicans felt they were carrying the small islanders on their backs and voted to leave the Federation.
Trinidad soon followed, when Eric Williams quipped, “One from ten leaves zero!!” While you may think the Oxford grad was mathematically challenged, the point he was making was that, with all our WI “oneness”, the different territories would be weighing the burdens versus the benefits of remaining as a family. From his perspective, he was channelling Plato – whom he’d studied at Oxford!! – that “there can only be real friendship between equals”!!
Trinidad also left in 1962!! And, of course, from then on – even though his old friend Arthur Lewis begged and cajoled – he left the “Little 8” on their own, as his burgeoning oil industry made Trinis live high off the hog!
The only place where we were a “West Indian Family” was on the cricket field; and even then, there was constant squabbling about why players from some countries were never picked!! Well into the new millennium, Trinidad complained that the rest of what had now become “Caricom” looked at them as an ATM machine!
And we arrive at the present, where any number of Caricom PMs are insisting we “keep the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace” – even in the face of Venezuelan bullyism and threats to our sovereignty. There’s no question there appears to be a strong bond of friendship between our Pressie and PMs Mottley and Gonzales; and on this basis, maybe there’s an acceptance of their good intentions towards us. But even before the Argyle Meet, your Eyewitness had also noted that they were just as friendly with Mad Maduro of Venezuela!!
Plato’s student Aristotle reflected on his master’s aphorism, and concluded there are actually three types of friendship. The first two – based on usefulness and pleasure given – are based on self-interest, while “true friendship is only between good people similar in virtue! So, do they think Mad Maduro’s their friend due to self-interest (PetroCaribe?) or due to sharing similar “virtues”??
Your Eyewitness says, “Show me your company…”!!
…the ballots
So, now that we know the recount of the last elections is constitutionally valid, your Eyewitness hopes the Opposition and their camp followers gonna quit with their nonsense about an “illegally installed regime” being in power!! But he’s waiting for the other feet – the other petitions about the elections – to drop. And even this just-appealed-and-rejected foot might go to the CCJ, where they still haven’t learnt that ever since they exposed how mathematically-challenged they are with their “33 not the majority of 65” spiel, they’re looked at with raised eyebrows!!
But, simultaneous with their insistence that the PPP rigged the elections – from the outside! – some of them have now jumped on the limb that claims the (now legal) recount uncovered enough “discrepancies” to show that the PNC won in any case! They claim the recount showed “150 stuffed ballot boxes; 47 ballot boxes without papers; 1278 missing oaths of identity; 61 dead voters; 4687 absent voters”!!
Well, show the Court, nah??
…on state friendships
Your realist Eyewitness accepts there can be friendships between states. The defining elements of such friendships are “setting aside grievances, escaping geopolitical competition, and constructing a relationship that precludes the prospect of armed conflict”. Venezuela ain’t our friend!!
