At the start of the month, Barbados’ former Prime Minister, Owen Arthur, officially departed the island’s Parliament and elective politics. Some weeks prior, he had indicated that he would not be running again in his St Peter constituency after the island’s legislature had been dissolved.
Uniquely, he is the only Barbadian Prime Minister to have sat in Parliament with every other Prime Minister of his country. He was also a participant in key national, regional and international decisions that have made the island and the Caribbean for good and ill what it is today.
His intellect, detailed interest in and knowledge of history and literature make him one of a small number of former Caribbean Prime Ministers well placed to record dispassionately the region’s recent history. That is to say, write from their particular perspective about what really happened on issues such as the end of preference, the decline of Caricom, or about relations with the US, UK and others.