“All politics is local,” said former US Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill, but a recent excess of rhetoric in Barbados prompted by domestic politicking is making waves across the region.
Following the announcement that Mara Thompson, the St Lucia-born widow of former Prime Minister David Thompson, would be the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) candidate in the January 20 by-election for the seat in the parish of St John left empty by her late husband, Owen Arthur, leader of the opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP) and another former prime minister, expressed his unhappiness with this development in terms that were, to put it mildly, disappointing.
St John has long been a DLP safe seat and that the BLP would seek to mount a strong campaign is not surprising. Neither is the strategy to depict Mrs Thompson’s candidacy as an attempt to play the sympathy card and impose dynastic politics on Barbados. What does surprise is the tone employed by Mr Arthur and his colleagues and the very personal nature of their attack on Mrs Thompson. Here is what Mr Arthur is quoted as having said at a campaign rally on Sunday night:
“I do not believe that there has been a greater affront to the Barbadian democracy and to Barbadian womanhood than the affront that the Democratic Labour Party is putting before the people of this parish and… of this country. There is no Barbadian woman, who could be the wife of a St Lucian politician, that could dare run in St Lucia on the grounds that she is running to be the queen of St Lucia and if it cannot happen there, why can it happen here? It is an insult and an affront to democracy. Why is it that that which is totally unacceptable to everybody else in the Caribbean, must now be foisted upon us?”
Politics may be a high-stakes game but these are low words coming from a hitherto much respected regional statesman. Mr Arthur is, after all, regarded as one of the leading integrationists in the Caribbean and, as prime minister, had held lead responsibility for the implementation of the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME). He was, moreover, highly critical of Mr Thompson’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, especially Guyanese, and the ambiguity with which the DLP government appeared to be approaching the regional integration project. Why, before his return to frontline politics, he was even being touted in some circles as a potential commissioner in a hypothetical Caricom Commission.
The heat of the moment alone cannot explain away this unworthy appeal to xenophobia, illogic and ignorance, which has set the tone for Mr Arthur’s colleagues. The BLP deputy leader, Dale Marshall was, for example, of the view that if the first claim on health care and other resources is for Barbadians, then the “first claim to a seat in Parliament should be to a Barbadian boy or girl.” But the real vitriol came from former BLP senator and Cabinet minister, Lynette Eastmond, who claimed that the DLP was discriminating against Barbadian women in handing a safe seat to Mrs Thompson: “all the women that look like me and sound like me that were born here, nobody ain’t look at me and say that ‘I going to get a safe seat for you…’”
It may well be that, as some have suggested in Barbados, there is frustration in the ranks of the BLP that St John is a safe seat for the DLP. But Ms Eastmond’s attack hints at deeper social divisions in the island state. But worse was to emanate from Ms Eastmond’s lips: “If in Barbados I had to go on a political platform and tell you that I am coming to represent a constituency because my husband send me, wunnah would steupse and walk ’way. You all won’t take me on. So wuh is the difference between me and Mara? Because I born here? Because I ain’t come from no dynasty? Because I ain’t red? Because I got a Bajan accent?”
Such utterances perhaps say more about the speaker’s insecurities and prejudices than anything else, but frankly, they are unbecoming, even if we have become accustomed to the politics of the gutter in some parts of the region. And Mr Arthur should take the blame for setting the tone.
Mrs Thompson, as far as we know, is a naturalised Barbadian citizen and constitutionally eligible to run for parliament. Her place of birth should have no bearing on her candidacy, though her intellect, integrity and commitment should naturally be subject to scrutiny.
Local politics alone cannot justify such an attack with its racial and xenophobic subtext. Further, it makes a mockery of the notion of a single, integrated Caribbean Community. Mr Arthur is wrong: his attempt to demonise Mrs Thompson is an insult and an affront to the region.
