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Volume No. 2 Issue No. 4 - Monday June 18, 2007
Rivets And Windmills: Adding Policy Focus To Political Vision So That Dominica, the Caribbean Cinderella Can Finally Get Her Invitation to the Ball - Part IV
By Philbert "Atley" Aaron


Background
�Standing on this threshold of time,� writes Honychurch of Dominica, �we can stand up and take stock of where we have come from and what we are. An island of natural splendour upon which man has been a passing visitor in many forms; as Carib warrior, European settler and African, rising and falling through their own periods of domination.

The French influence is everywhere in the Afro-Creole culture; most noticeable in our patois; while the British left the greatest mark on our system of government.� In other words, Dominica is not an easy place to govern. The reasons are many.

One, Dominica, like former Prime Minister Roosevelt �Rosie� Douglas used to say, �is in France.� Douglas meant not only that Dominica is situated between the French Departments, Guadeloupe to the north and Martinique to the south and therefore direct administrative regions, not colonies of France.

Douglas was referring to the political, economic, social, and cultural pressures that France as a developed economy exerted on Dominica through Guadeloupe and Martinique which are receiving territories for generations of Dominica migrants. To hire a farmhand here you have to buy his cutlass for him or else he going Guadeloupe.

Two, Dominica is also in America. After Rosie spent his life in opposition, making makawi with Qaddaffi, when he finally became Prime Minister, kakatwis took him regarding the man Reagan called �the mad dog� and bombed his house almost to kingdom come.

Alas, there was no triumphant state visit with all the pomp and circumstance that the Dominican middle class so loved that those who did not get official invitations on the occasion of the Queen�s visit in 1980s, preferred to sit it out in Antigua. I told you, we turn everything into a lavwe, carnival.

There is no bigger bacchanal in Dominica than foreign affairs, the visit of foreign dignitaries is the real sensay.

Three, Dominica is in the Caribbean, too. This is home. And it does not mean that home is a safe place. Dominica is a neighbor of two Spanish-speaking regional geopolitical adventurist powers, Venezuela, with whom Dominica has had territorial issues over Bird Island or Aves Island and Cuba which for all of twenty years has hosted significant numbers of Dominican students.

In short, the island�s small area, population, and economy mask its political and cultural complexity.

Making Dominica even smaller is that we are more divided than long division. Case in point. There is latent distrust by Blacks of the tiny Arab minority here. That is important because the Arabs are also predominantly in the private sector.

They are the rivets people in Dominica. Skerritt has to be applauded for succeeding where Rosie failed, formally involving them in public affairs.

They, not because of ethnicity, but because of their practical know-how, will bring temperance to public governance.

And that is where the development action is in these days of globalization, efficiency and innovation, in the rivets, not in the windmills. But we do not see that, we there peeping under the table to see if a whole acre of land will disappear there.

Like I said in opening, Dominica has long waited to be invited to the Grand Ball. It isn�t easy. Nothing about Dominica is simple. It drove Patrick John stupid. It raised Eugenia Charles on a pedestal then it gave her a high fall, humbling her.

It addled Edison James, making him tebe. Then, it devoured Rosie Douglas alive and had Pierre Charles for desert. Observers suggest that the strains are beginning to show on Roosevelt Skerritt. Skerritt had better get periodic rest.

Today, Dominica features in cartoonish articles in the international press that discuss whaling, relations with China, etc. I remember similar events as a prelude to Patrick John�s downfall. Dominica can make an otherwise wise man do foolish things.

My question is: Why? My answer is a structural one�anybody that crazy enough to want to be Prime Minister had better know what they going to do immediately after they are sworn in.

Conceptual Frame
First and foremost, the Dominica story is about the pursuit of development. This is how Dominicans usually say it, �development.� They use it as a stand alone noun. There is usually no qualifier, for example economic, political, social, or moral, just �development.� This is very telling. It means that when it comes to development, we don�t know our tails from our elbows. Why?

Because development is a thing of many fields�economic, political, social, and moral, etc. Further, the primary field of development is usually political. In other words, political development comes first. It is politically enlightened leadership that must point the way to the big dance. Only then might economic development follow although not necessarily. Therefore, the central problem of Dominica today is not its size.

Ah Papa, you cannot tell Dominicans that. For them, the primary problem is size, tiny population or little money. Money they will say with a feverish grin on their face like scratch-scratch take them.

Lajan shesh! Dominica too small, they will say. I ask them if they forget the positive side of globalization, which is, in a flat world, small is the new big. You must have an international airport, they say. I tell them worry about things you can change.

Dominica small. It small. What you can do for that? What about the Cayman islands? How about Singapore? No, their minds on China.

I argue something different. Our central problem is that which Plato dealt with in his Republic many years ago. It is called the problem of the philosopher king. In short, it is the question of how to make those in power (the politicians) smart and failing that how to make smart people enter politics.

Yvor Nassief comes up again. And that brings us right back to Alleyne Carbon and Reggie Austrie, the Marlowes of Dominica, concerned with the rivets on the one hand and the Patrick Johns, the Don Quixotes of Dominica and the gulf between them.

I said the source of our foreign policy problems is not in the personalities of our leaders but in our level of development, right down to the maturity of the electorate. So let us remember with what it takes to win power in Dominica.

In Dominica, you have to be two-faced to win elections. One, you have to be a Don Quixote, go up on a platform, wave your arms, talk loud, insult people like black is white, pursue your opponents� wives or children and that will convince Dominicans that you are serious about politics: you are a politician.

That includes the part of your personality from which they expect barefaced lies, distortions, omissions, exaggerations, etc., makakwi. That is the first hurdle, to be accepted as a politician. Then, they have to decide if they should make a cross for you. Ah, now that is when you have to get down to brass tacks, rivets.

Read Earlier Sections
Rivets and Windmills - Part One
Rivets and Windmills - Part Two
Rivets and Windmills - Part Three

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Volume No. 2 Issue No. 2
Morne Diablotins
Help save SMA
Morne Plat Pays
John in hall of fame
The tale of SMA



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