The giant Goliath is beating his chest. He is the most powerful man in the land. He has captured a Party that was not his and one by one he is picking off his opponents.
And he is changing the fabric of the structures set up to help him; The very standards that ensure our growth as a country.
So, unfortunately, even if he gains those tenets of legacy and heirloom for which he fights, there is no guarantee that any of his political appointees will still be positioned to ensure implementation and upkeep.
And since the permanent Civil Service, the usual policy implementers, are in such a weakened state, we fear even for bureaucratic longevity.
For the keepers of the records are hardly on the job. The permanent advisors are, increasingly, not in a position to offer advice. But while their authority is being stripped, their responsibility for the financial and administrative management of the Ministries remains intact.
For now!
But we have not heard that those, save one, who have been picked off by the giant are converted; That they have signed on the dotted line and have become, like him, Bonafide party members.
So, best case scenario is that he has an incohesive band of soldiers that cleave together as well as iron and clay.
His latest recruit has stopped talking to the people and that is not good. Yes, he may be involved with the rated programme and agriculture but who knows that?
The history of our #1 at large vote getters should frighten him if not, at least, provide a reality check.
For, in being assimilated, he may have lost purpose and if he does not speak up, his value to the people, and to his new family, may be severely diminished.
So many transients around Goliath! Where will they go next for David is still in the fields sharpening his skills and saying as Macbeth once did:
“If chance will have me king, why, chance may
crown me
Without my stir.”
(Macbeth Act 1, Scene 3)
Must the 13 go as those who speak honestly have said? Perhaps 12; Leave mine! And if every constituency says this! Well, you get the picture.
Still, it feels as if we are on the road to nowhere. And the efforts of the rulers, considerable in many respects, still appear as the proverbial ‘drop in the bucket for the demands of governance in our modern-day world and the impacts of geopolitics loom large.
Perhaps if affairs of state did not so frequently beckon them to foreign lands, they could be better focused on the people’s interests at home.
Neither is there cohesion in Saul’s army. They argue. They fight. They scream about who will face Goliath but they cannot agree. Yet they tremble in fear.
Each wants to be in charge but refuses to subordinate his own ambitions to the needs of the people. They have long forgotten that the road to greatness is called ‘service.’
And while they argue, the people’s pain intensifies. We are still, as an example, concerned about the increasing isolation and abandonment of the elderly.
We still abhor the fact that we dismantled our well-established public health system that monitored, visited and looked after them.
And we reneged on the call from the World Health Organization: “Health for All by the year 2000.”
We were there!
Health care is now a factor of affordability and, primarily, it has been replaced by ‘sick care.’
So even if all 13 were to go, would the Territory be better off?
All we know for certain is that we should be ashamed about the precipitous fall of the BVI. She was kind to all of us and we treated her like a lady of the night, each for his own pleasure.
We are now hardly a place where hope thrives.
We claim to love the children and yet we have traded their future for a quick ‘buck’ and for shiny metal objects that snuff out debates.
For years we have been asking the 13 to talk about our current circumstances and to devise ways in policy and or law to ensure that future BVI leaders do not become so autocratic with the people’s power and avaricious as to end up detained on foreign, or any, soil.
They have steadfastly refused.
And we imagine that the way the overlords are treating us must be, in part, because they do not trust us.
Possibly, they believe that, by our silence, we are comfortable with lawless and corrupt behaviour; perhaps, even complicit.
But they err in throwing out the baby with the bath water. And their duplicity shines forth in many ways. We still have the Order in Council, un-revoked, as a reminder.
The children deserve better. We are shamelessly eating their bread while they go hungry.
The elderly, the real giants upon whose shoulders we stand are, in some respects, left in squalid helplessness and various stages of destitution, made more so by the vaporization of opportunities that is driving children from the country to seek better futures overseas; The increasing absence of the social safety net and the demise of the extended family.
At least , on Tortola, a Good Samaritan and her Team exist and use their own resources to make a difference.
The Authorities have known this for years and have indicated their good intentions to do something. But the road to hell is paved with many a good intention.
We even went so far as to have a cadre of health professionals outline a blueprint to assist the elderly. But that offer was rejected because, in BVI, politicians are omniscient but the plight of the elderly remains unchanged.
Nevertheless, Goliath is beating his chest and calling for a worthy challenger. He has distinguished himself as a master craftsman in politics; If only that prowess will see him excel as a statesman.
Regardless, we get to be spectators of his exploits on Fridays.
Happy Friday!