I'M Just Another Shade of Gray

AS A LATE VENERABLE U.S Senator once said –and I am paraphrasing here – people have a right to their own opinions, but not their own facts.

In an appearance on George Grant’s talkshow yesterday, Prime Minister Tillman Thomas gave us heavy doses of his opinion – which he has the right to do – and inter-mingled with anecdotes he tried to represent as fact.

In his calculated anger, he successfully failed to tear apart the main points of my recent commentaries; resorting desperately eventually to impinging sinister motives, and to cast me off as a cheap opportunist.

In doing so he both cheapened his office and strengthened my resolve.

In spite of his innuendos (that are strangers to verifiable facts), neither his government nor party owes me anything; nor have I expected or demanded anything, for which I might have some reason to be upset.

The many invitations that were made to me two years were ago were politely declined either because (a) it was not worth my while (b) it did not fit into my family commitments (c) I could not give up the other stuff I was engaged in at the time and/or (d) I did not feel it was the best career move then.

At no point was there animosity about any matters, and subsequent to this all – I have always volunteered my time, efforts and contacts in non-partisan matters, when I have been asked and when I felt it was in “the national interest.”

Volunteering my time included training government information officers and helping out national committees.

To suggest otherwise is to seek to muddy the waters and to deliberately mislead.

(Out of a deep sense of self respect and not to reduce this to childish levels, I refuse to take the bait to speak in more detail than this).

To equate my commentaries to personal attacks was unfortunate, especially coming from someone that I have privately and publicly shown the greatest respect and regard.

Over the years, including the last few weeks, I have written a lot of opinion pieces on politics, sports and entertainment.

They have never been presented as the gospel of anything – just the view of one writer, using facts as they unfold – interpreting them and giving an opinion.

Of course, no matter what anybody says, there is no one with complete objectivity.

Everybody’s views will be colored by the place they were born, their race, class, family connections, religion (or lack of it), financial interests and that of their families and friends; the sporting teams they back, the music they like – and all those other variables.

What commentators try to do is come to a fair conclusion, given the facts presented.

So Mr Prime Minister, opinion pieces are not true or false, right or wrong. They can’t be, because they are not facts. They are what they are – opinions. You judge opinion pieces on whether the commentator reached a fair conclusion based on the series of facts he might be commenting on.

A commentary piece is different from hard reporting, which just present the facts.

The Prime Minister had a lot of his own opinions on the George Grant show on Sunday; and he sure has a right to them. And we can debate them, like anyone can debate mine. That’s s just part of the state of play.

Where we differ is that I don’t consider his strong opinions on what I wrote a personal attack, though he obviously saw mine as one.

It bothered me a bit though that he found it necessary to set me up as this straw enemy which he needs in his time of crisis.

We all must be careful about trying to suggest other people’s motives, when they have not been stated clearly.

If he reviews all of my pieces, I never speculated on his motives – because they are not only hard to tell, I find it patently unfair.

But in his appearance on Sunday – and sometimes urged on by a willing interviewer – he went on to suggest my motive for my commentaries.

This was the most disappointing part of his posture.

Instead of seeking to debate on the merits or demerits of the points, the Prime Minister threw up a childish tantrum, punctuated by coded phrases, he hopes will intimidate me.

In his mind, he has set up this straw enemy, and convinced himself that fighting this is an extension of his personal crusade in his own war of good over evil.

It is unfortunate for both him and the country.

He once again displayed an uninformed rigidity in which he sees everything as black or white.

Like George Bush, he has a puritanical certainty that there are no grays – you either for me or against me.

Life’s got different colors Mr Prime Minister. See me for what I am sir. I am neither black nor white. I am just another shade of gray.

Redemption after rebellion?

The raging debate of the last seven days has been widely ventilated in the local media and on online fora.

Rightly, it garnered our attention – and in many cases our passion. No doubt there are outstanding arguments that are still to be made, and should be made.

Even while we await those, we must be careful about over analyzing what has happened. In fact, the more appropriate focus should be why it happened.

The issue of why is important, especially since this is not the first time we have had such a rupture in Grenadian politics – and one is left to wonder if ever there were lessons learnt.

At some time in our history we may also come to address the contradiction of us wanting democracy, but frowning upon its greatest strength – the need for debate and dissent. We treat dissent as if it were treason; but if we properly embrace it, that will in the end make this not just another nation – but a great nation.

Some people have tried to equate the past week to 1983.

To do so, is either playing loosely with history; over estimating the significance of the recent developments, or playing to a cheap political choir of fear that 1983 breathes by default. For one, there was never a constitutional crisis, and the government was never in any serious danger of falling.

Neither the MPs themselves nor the general population had the appetite for that. As disappointed as people are with how things have panned out these past few years, they still have not regained the desire to return to what they voted against in 2008.

For all the missteps of the NDC, the New National Party has yet to transform itself into a serious alternative for the independents and the disappointed “yellow people.”

NNP may still win an election by default, but not necessarily by expanding its base, or inspiring a new generation.

There is a dangerous resignation to and about the modern Grenadian politic – a lingering staleness and an uninspired slush.

NNP’s series of weekly meetings has in a strange way kept in the forefront some of its bankrupt ideas and approaches. Mind you, it has played well to the base, but has had very little appeal beyond that.

NDC, for its part, has been on auto pilot for a while (and in good times that’s safe enough), but now the malfunction light has come on.

The party has shown little ability to reinvent itself; the leadership has run out of ideas, and there is a disconnect with the rank and file.

There have been times when the NNP as an alternative had an opportunity to look forward – and lean forward – but strangely at each juncture they have tended to reach to the past – in both rhetoric and deed. (Juts like it did when it brought back Gregory Bowen to the senate).

Rather than explore bold new frontiers, the NNP has been paralyzed by its own internal fears; frozen by the very thought of dreaming something different.

Having not learnt from its recent past, it appears to have done worse than that. It has been ‘miseducated.’

To understand what last week meant, is to remember 1987 and 1990 (not 1983).

For those who forget history quickly -- in 1987 George Brizan, Francis Alexis and Tillman Thomas led a rebellion against the leadership style of Herbert Blaize.

In 1990, concerned that an ailing Blaize, unable to inspire his troops, was leading the NNP to defeat, Keith Mitchell launched a bitter challenge to him and took over the party even while Blaize was still Prime Minister.

Blaize went on to form The National Party (TNP) taking the likes of Ben Jones, Alleyne Walker and Pauline Andrews with him.

This current NDC is obviously bleeding from its self inflicted wounds, but to believe they are fatal is to ignore the fickleness (and in some broad senses "farcicality") of politics.

Six months is a long time in politics, never mind two years.

Ask Brizan and Mitchell. They would tell you, that played right, there could be redemption after rebellion.

I'm A Rebel; Soul Rebel!

From fear of dating myself, I remember those days back in 1986 -1987, when George Brizan, Francis Alexis and Tillman Thomas were so fundamentally opposed to the way Herbert Blaize was treating them, that they had made up their minds that the arrangement was untenable.

By the time Brizan and Alexis had attacked their own government’s economic policy in parliament, blasting the retrenchment plan; to paraphrase Mighty Chalkdust – I picked up my gun (pen) again.

By the time they resigned, Tillman Thomas had joined them in walking out of the Blaize cabinet – convinced that MPs must be treated with respect or else.

I remember those letters in the Grenadian Voice (I was sub editor then, and had to review them all), all calling them selfish, unpatriotic, wanting to have their own way and giving trouble.

Leslie Pierre, Lloyd Noel and Willie Redhead in their columns were weekly blasting their stands. I was the lone writer standing up for the right of MPs to dissent and to fight for causes (in that case, the jobs of public servants), that may put their own jobs at risk.

As far as Mr Pierre and Mr Noel were concerned, the guys were not acting in the national interest.

But I was always at odds about this concept of national interest. Who really defines it? And what really defines it?

By the time they (Brizan-Alexis) decided to go to Carriacou one Sunday morning to give Blaize an ultimatum letter, I was the only other person there.

In fact wheel-chair bound Blaize could not bring his hands up to open the letter, and I had to open it for him.

At the time, I was not sure why they called me that Saturday night and asked me to come to Carriacou with them. I suspected it’s because I was a lone voice in the weeklies supporting their “open rebellion.”

But I was glad to get on the “Carriacou plane” that Sunday morning; because for me, I was getting a first hand scoop in a history making moment. (By that time I was also writing for EC News, Barbados Nation and Inter Press Service).

The first time I ever interviewed Tillman Thomas was about a week after he resigned from the Blaize government.

He struck me as a quiet man with strong resolve, willing to risk his ministerial job in a fight for respect – his own respect.

When Blaize died a few years later, Thomas was the lone voice in the parliamentary sitting that lambasted his leadership skill.

In remembering Blaize, he said – something to the effect – that a man cannot be considered a great leader if he becomes so arrogant that he can’t hold his team together.

Afterwards, I told him I saw his point, but I am not sure a parliamentary tribute session was the best place to make them. But still -- point taken.

That point has been in my mind for long moments this past week.

I just thought last night that it is funny how history repeats itself. And how, after all these years – I am still in love with rebels.