Two seminal books on Caribbean society come to mind as I watch the campaign for the Dominicas 2009 general elections unfold. They are: Crab Antics: the Social Anthropology of the EnglishSpeaking Societies of the Caribbean by Peter J. Wilson and The Hero and the Crowd in a Colonial Polity by A.W. Singham.
The first book tells us much about the harsh traditional method by which small peasant societies of the Caribbean maintain a primitive form of equality within themselves. In effect this is achieved by holding others back by attacking their reputation and claiming a false respectability to which all must conform. As a result few people dare to break out or think outside the box and so the status quo remains in force and everyone remains the same. It is a kind of forced equality where people do not want anyone to succeed, all ah we is one , but the society gets nowhere.
The trick is to make yourself independent of the crabs. But only those with social or economic means, who are not totally enmeshed in the network of the crabs antics, can enjoy this freedom. The reason for emigration from Dominica during the period of the 1950s to the 1970s may have been mainly for economic reasons, but for many of the present day Diaspora it was also to escape the crabs. The whole phenomenon as practiced in Dominica is clearly expressed by calypsonian Daddy Chess in his song Crabs in a Barrel .
HERO IN THE CROWD
The Hero and the Crowd is an early study of the Grenadian politician Eric Gairy and his conflict with the British colonial government and the Grenadian elite in the 1950s and 1960s. It records some of the tactics he used to galvanise his working class followers and the resistance that he faced from the powers at the time towards his unorthodox methods of social and economic change. Using Gairy as an example, the book then goes on to analyse Caribbean political leadership at the dawn of the era of self government and the independence. Eric Gairy went much too far and absolute power corrupted him. But elsewhere Bradshaw in St.Kitts, Joshua in St.Vincent, Bramble in Montserrat, Bird in Antigua, Webster in Anguilla or Le Blanc in Dominica, these other heroes in the crowd tempered their egos somewhat to bring significant change to their societies.
Here in Dominica we once again have the emergence of a hero in the crowd in the form of Roosevelt Skerrit who is being pursued by the crabs in the barrel that manifest themselves in many forms.
According to the laws of the crabs he must be penalised for thinking outside the box. He is faulted for introducing unorthodox methods of government and dispersal of funds so that it makes more direct and immediate impact on changing the social and economic fabric of society. To them, the traditional slow moving but all accounting colonially instituted civil service methods must remain sacrosanct. Many aspects may have their value but several are obsolete. Change threatens the status quo.
The Red Clinic, the Housing Revolution, free busing for school pupils, the YES We Care Programme and other unorthodox initiatives rankle traditionalists. It also irritates those who have failed in the past, who were once, or in some cases twice, ineffective and short lived ministers of government. It is worse for those whose political sell-by-date is coming to an end and for whom this general election is their last hurrah.
FINDING FOREIGN SUPPORT
As Singham pointed out in his book, After Independence it is difficult for local leaders to throw off the habit of looking towards the home government [or traditional donors] for final decisions. This is especially true in small islands&which can hardly exist without outside financial help. But the traditional donors are no longer as interested in us as they used to be during the Cold War. We look to them in vain, caught as we have been in a trap of past dependency.
The fact is that Roosevelt Skerrit has taken the initiative to seek new avenues of assistance and cooperation by ending the recognition of Taiwan and recognizing the One China Policy and devising creative links with Venezuela and Cuba and joining ALBA and taking on board Petro Caribe. This has saved us during the fall out of the international credit crunch. Dominica has been kept afloat while our Caribbean neighbours are foundering. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, the most respected guide for international economists, Dominica is the only Caribbean state to have had positive growth in 2009. We must maintain and improve on this position. We must not slip back. But the crabs are doggedly trying to persuade people otherwise.
Old former heroes of the crowd also resent the emergence of young radicals on what was once their territory. The statement by my long time friend, former Chief Minister Franklyn Baron, against Roosevelt Skerrit in last weeks issue of the Dominica Chronicle is an example of this. With Mr. Barons record of skillful brokering of land deals at Bell Hall, the Sisserou Hotel property and Layou River Hotel since the 1960s, I wonder whether he would ever have donated any lands to the state that he had been given, or had acquired at a reduced price. But judging from the publics reaction to his intervention it has failed to make an impact.
KNOWING YOUR PLACE
In the book Crab Antics much is written about the pattern of values based on respectability which really is the drive towards stratification. To be respectable is to know your place, once again to maintain the status quo. The charges of corruption leveled against Mr. Skerrit have a similar purpose. That the little boy from Vieille Case has aspired too quickly to have a three bedroom house and has been too forward to accept a gift of land in one instance and an offer of a cut rate price for land in another. Both portions of land happen to be in desirable neighbourhoods. The going rates for the lands in question are at a level that would allow one to get a loan in the range of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Even more ironic is the fact that all of the leaders of the opposing parties who have raised this issue all have houses and land already. And in at least three cases, their properties were handed down to them from their peasant proprietor and planter ancestors. Mr. Skerrit has had to start from scratch. Or perhaps we would prefer him to continue living in the back room of his adopted mothers house in Vieille Case? This is the kind of thing that Crab Antics seeks to achieve.
The other so called bobols were indeed, I believe, an accumulation of stupid errors and ineptitude although I am willing to be proved wrong. But when I reflect on former manipulations by people in power who are now being praised for being so respectable and clean I cannot see much difference:
When the United States CIA transferred US $100,000 to an agent in Puerto Rico to finance the Freedom Partys 1985 election campaign, that was not bobol. When Dame Eugenia Charles devised a Dominica passport selling scheme to raise money so that an honorary counsel could buy a private hotel of which that head of government was the major shareholder, that was not bobol. Indeed I transparently declare that I like many others benefited as a very minor shareholder from the venture.
When the government of Taiwan gave gifts of elegant furniture to the then Prime Minister she kept them as her own and they are still in her former residence, this was not bobol. I could go on and list instances between 1995 and 2000 but these went through lengthy investigation and are on the record and by now you should get the idea. Two wrongs do not make a right, but there are examples on all sides that could be inferred to be corruption in the loosest use of the word.
THE CHOICE WE MAKE
I have another final concern as the author Alec Waugh pointed out in the chapter Typical Dominica in his book The Sugar Islands . Throughout Dominicas history the island has repeatedly reached a moment when things were just about to blossom, when, after careful planning and much effort things were poised to take off. And then, all of a sudden some calamity descended: some fruit disease, some blight, some change in markets, some hurricane, some swing in political events and Dominicas fortunes collapsed once more. So that for another generation the slow building up had to start all over again only to be leveled by yet another misfortune.
I see Dominica at this point now. With projects in place and an economy just beginning to open to better things, with a people energized and educational opportunities ripe and with a young and energetic hero in the crowd ready to go forward as he says to the next level . But we are still influenced by the Crab Antics of our past. And looking down from the edge of the barrel of crabs, one must realize that any false step will mean that we have a long, long way to fall. On 18th December 2009 we shall know whether, to quote Daddy Chess again, its forward we go or whether the crabs in the barrel ideology will prevail.
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