When will we begin to take action?

Poor Prime Minister Tillman Thomas.

He called a press conference on Tuesday morning to report on his visit to the United Arab Emirates for an environmental conference – but all the reporters wanted to know – reflecting the mood of the nation, is when is he going to recall parliament.

And he duly stuck to his inarticulate talking points with a straight face – and at one point, even a mischievous giggle.

He said there is nothing illegal about the suspension (as if any sane person had questioned that), and that people in Grenada still have rights (as if that, too, was questioned).

When the Prime Minister has the time to sit down with William Joseph and Glen Noel and others to craft a half decent answer, here is the question that still needs to be answered: Exactly what is the reason for the delay in re-opening parliament?

That is the crux of the matter.

And while what is being done is apparently based on the letter of the law, is it in the spirit of any self-respecting democratic society?

The provision to be able to suspend parliamentary sitting for up to six months, one will suspect, is to take care of extenuating circumstances – like a national disaster, a country at war, et cet.

Tillman Thomas' own political survival is not an extenuating circumstance – especially so when a country is facing its worst economic crisis in its history, and one of its biggest political meltdowns, save 1983.

Thomas continued touting of his democratic credential gets more hallowed each time you hear it.

President Bashar al-Assad of Syria is still the recognized leader of that country – and I guess technically and legally – he is authorized to send troops to various cities and bomb people he deems as “counters’’ and “terrorists’’.

But there comes a time in politics when, irrespective of what “legal authority’’ leaders clothe themselves in to govern, that there is something bigger that matters –“moral authority’’.

With more MPs opposed to the regime, than supporting it; with the ruling party divided down the middle; with the economy in free fall; with salaries late again – Prime Minister Thomas has lost the moral authority to govern.

He needs to reconvene the parliament or call general elections.

And if he doesn't anytime soon, we – the ordinary people of Grenada – must begin to do something about it.

We must come together and peacefully, through all democratic channels, send a message to this regime -- that our very democracy is worth defending.

Grenada's biggest crisis right now is the failure of leadership – and it’s not only in government.

The NGO and Trade Union leadership has let us down; and the church leadership has retreated into a post-revolution cowardice.

As for the likes of opposition MPs Keith Mitchell and Peter David – I have heard your protestations; I have heard your complaints. They are all welcomed.

But move the ball one step further! Start mobilizing people and bring them together – for real action; or also lose your relevance, as Prime Minister Thomas, already has.

OCTOBER ALL OVER!

The theme song tonight at the end of convention rally of Grenada's ruling National Democratic Congress was "Better Days Are Coming." Interestingly the response chorus to the song was: "They lying, they lying and they lying."

When Black Stalin and then Eric Donaldson did the song -- it was a tongue-in-cheek statement of 'unbelievability'.

And so some of us from the outside watched with unbelievable-awe as guys with the hand grenade, pulled the pin tonight.

The men in charge of the flight, effectively crashed the plane during the ruling National Democratic Congress convention in rural St Andrew's on the eve of October.

The old saying September Remember; October All Over came into full effect.

Inspired by the strategy authored by my good friend William Joseph and built on the long-held leadership ambition of Nazim Burke, the NDC succeeded in tearing its heart out by expelling the foundation members of its 2003 revival.

It traded inclusivity for exclusivity, ignoring the basic arithmetic of politics.

In doing so, Burke got out of the way anyone that may challenge his ascendancy to leadership after Tillman Thomas duly loses his seat in parliament within the next nine months.

But in many ways history is repeating itself.

As he had done in being the RMC's Minister of Finance for a few short days back in 1983, Burke is again set for short term glory, as people settle for long term pain.

In adopting the strategy, the party sacrificed a long term chance for a short term dance -- as the MC for the afternoon rally Ann Peters effectively declared in essence mission accomplished.

If the expulsion was the mission, she was bang on the money.

It reminds me of the US mission in Afghanistan. NDC has decided that victory is not winning against NNP at the polls early next year, but winning against former comrades in September.

New Chairman Franka Bernadine then duly obliged that there is now a party with one view.

It is indeed now a party of one view and many contradictions.

One of the glaring contradictions in the Soviet-style politburo putz  on Sunday is that the party of good governance on the eve of elections has now decided that contracted public servants can hold executive positions.

And in a party that preaches due process, the "rebels" were afforded none, as the divinely appointed submitted to the rule of the mob.

(In another instance of contradiction that was the beef of the gathered press -- we were told no media allowed to the closed door session -- but then George Worme was allowed to witness the process. You interpret this as you may).

Hypocrisy has been in full effect in the lead up to the convention, including a daring silent clamp down on any media the authors of the putz engineered.

There is evidence that there was direct intervention by the Prime Minister's office -- as it had with the Rawle Titus affair -- in influencing the Grenada Broadcasting Network -- in an amazing betrayal and capitulation of a Barbados-based colleague -- to tell Godfrey Augustine he cannot no longer host 'River Stone.'

The reason -- it has become too political and too hostile to the government -- really to mean Thomas and Burke.

A private station was directly threatened last week, as that dreaded call came to the owner that Calistra Farrier should not proceed to interview Glynis Roberts and others.

Other than the blatant hypocrisy of this government, Grenada is facing a cold, dark reality  -- in the context of where democracy is hijacked -- liberty is under strain.

The "heavy manners" is not limited to the "10 rebels"-- and if we don't stand up as a nation, and not just take note, but also act, heaven knows who can be next. 

But on another note, a party that has confusion and ungratefulness in its DNA, is heading for a 1999 style beating that nobody -- not the expelled 10 -- could have saved.

No matter how good you are, it's hard to promote a defective product.

And, in all the political drama which unfolded on Sunday -- there was one moment of classlessness and near treachery that we should not let anyone forget.

The then outgoing chairman Stanford Simon duly showed up to take charge of the meeting on Sunday.

Sensing a tension, he approached Nazim Burke and Glen Noel and said to them if it is the wish of the executive for him not to chair the meeting, he is willing to opt out.

They assured him it is not the will, and then allowed him to start  the meeting -- only to move to embarrass him and unceremoniously throw him out.

Maybe the lesson here is that there are some men whose word you can never take.

And finally, a passing comment.

Now that the men with the hand grenade can claim victory amidst the crash, prove me wrong and test it in the wider playing field.

In the words of the soca hit -- if you bad, touch a button.

Men with the hand grenade

IT is another month end – and as the government continues the maladministration, we were hit with the news that the Thomas-Burke-Noel triumvirate of economic no-hopers have decided to sell the people’s shares in GRENLEC to pay its recurrent public service bills.

The only silver lining in this thinking is that those shares will be sold to the National Insurance Scheme, which is technically owned by the people of Grenada.

Burke, in speaking to his favorite television channel – GIS-Lite MTV – said the talk about the sale of shares – is, well at least premature, but interestingly, not entirely out of the question.

“The government is engaged with negotiations with several companies, to talk about its shareholding in those companies, and the possible divestment of some or all of those shares,” he told MTV.

You see with Minister Burke, you have to become an expert at reading between the lines. His arguments on whatever matter are like his politics – always well said, but never straight. He can be economical with the truth (as he is with paying bills), and is an expert at dealing in “optics” –as his last two budget presentations – which have failed basic arithmetic tests – have shown.

The bottom line, is that for a second straight month, Grenadians have not been told where the cash-strapped government has borrowed money from to pay its current bills.

Minister Burke’s “none-of-you-all-business” attitude is seethed in his contemptuous posture that he is the brightest man in the room, and none of us lesser mortals would ever really understand and appreciate those nuances in financial (mis)management.

But that would have been bad enough, even if it was not a country that is going to hell-in-a-hand-basket we are talking about.

Hand it to Naz, at least he has been smart enough to only grant interviews to some of my colleagues who are either not willing enough, prepared enough nor researched enough to ask the tough questions that will force real answers.

As a nation crumbles – its economy grinding to a halt; its politics a standard joke around the Caribbean – the ruling National Democratic Congress is in “a mother of all battles” to remain relevant, let alone survive.

And so it holds its convention on the weekend – a grand celebration of the failure of leadership – the kind of which we have never seen anywhere in modern Caribbean political history.

On the eve of an election, NDC’s biggest claim to fame is that they have “defeated Peter David” – whatever that means.

Is this how success must be measured? Is that what the last four years was about?

Never mind the failure on good governance and transparency. Never mind the failure to put together a serious economic policy. Never mind policies that now have led to the resurrection of Jonah.

Eight years of co-ordinated struggle against the Keith Mitchell government, was to defeat Peter David, pauperize Grenadians, and lay the foundation for the return of the said Keith Mitchell.

Brilliant guys! I could have never engineered that plan – and I thought I was good.

That’s why we are here, at this grand round-about of nothingness, fueled by hypocrisy and ingenuity.

And so here is the NDC’s re-election platform – you are poorer and more hopeless than you were four years ago, but vote for me still, because we fought and defeated Peter David; and you should still fear Keith Mitchell.

Not even counting the inability of the captain to keep his team together – the basic test in leadership - the abysmal record of this fumbling-bumbling take-no-responsibility government, already qualifies the Thomas administration as the worst since independence.

And as Thomas celebrates on Sunday that amazing achievement of mash-up-ability, I would suggest that on his way to Seamon, he takes a detour to Carriacou, and visit the grave of Herbert Blaize.

Seek atonement for how he savaged Blaize at his memorial service for his perceived failed leadership of not being able to manage the original gang of four – of which he was the most disrespecting member.

Thomas, who always hated Blaize’s “Bind Us Together” hymn, has taken a generous page of the old Blaize failed playbook  – a leader whose uninformed rigid autocracy undermined a good thing – and paved the way for another Mitchell era.

I know the likes of my good friend Sandra Ferguson and other leaders in the NGO community, and some trade unionists too – so fear the spectre of Mitchell’s return that they can’t bring themselves to criticize this administration for “sins” that in another time they would have been marching against.

I won’t call this hypocrisy because I can testify that I was once stricken by that fear – and so let some things pass – that otherwise I should not have.

I have since been liberated from this, because fear should never be the basis of anyone’s existence.

But for bringing us to this place – with the feeling of a one-night stand gone horribly wrong – “civil society” should also now want to join me in proverbially, hanging this leadership in the public square.

And as those “leaders” ponder how to get to this place, enjoy Sunday’s final rites, complete with flag waving cheerleaders, and a fair deal of chest thumbing by the architects of this “victory.”

Glen Noel, Nazim Burke, Willie Joseph – and some other comrades of mine – remind me of the story of the man on a plane with a hand grenade, who celebrates the take-over of the flight because he now has the ability to blow it up.

And to prove that he is now in charge of the pilot, crew and passengers, he proceeded to pull the pin.

Sure he had the ability – but in pulling that pin –he crashed everything.

For Willie, who wondered if I have already put up the white flag, I declare I have duly done so on command.

I surrender all – not to the self-anointed soldier of Christ – put to the men with the hand grenade on the flight.

You run things. Pull the pin.