Papa Syndrome: Daddy X

On a Sunday morning Catholic Church goers would have to travel to Micoud to attend sermon. That was before the St Ann’s church was built in Mon Repos. For many years Micoud had the only secondary school on the east coast as well. Progresses have been made over the last fifty years on the east coast, but arguably it can be describe as simply the provision of basic necessities. Overall it can be summed up as Pipe borne water, electricity and the access to primary and secondary education. St Lucia’s legacy of community based political representation, leaves a lot to be desired. It is therefore understandable that people do not have faith in their representatives.

Mentioning that a politician is interested in the welfare of the everyday person is usually met with apathy and scorn. What have they really done for us is usually the question. Yes to be fair we have playing fields, the few major projects such as, the fishing complex in Denerry must definitely be mentioned. But really let us stop beating around the bush and asses political representation objectively. Of course we should not expect politicians to do everything for us but we must also remember the person applied for a job and is getting paid.

Our politics has rightfully been labeled chicken and rum politics because politicians are likely to socialize with the constituents at the rum shop, buy a shot for the patrons and maybe a few pieces of BBQ chicken for the people. An occasional “drop in” on the weekends and maybe more heavily during campaign season, should get the vote in. How often do you hear politicians express ideas that he or she is willing to undertake on behalf of the communities. It is mostly a patriarchal relationship characterized by the “Daddy X” syndrome. Daddy helps his supporters find jobs, go to school, travel, and deal with legal issues.

Well if the relationship woks why should we change it. The problem is it is not working because we can do better and of course by doing better both the people and their pappy benefit more in the end. Pappy needs to do something for the people so he can boast about it and the people need avenues to get ahead.

Rather than the relationship between voter and candidate being one, whereby the candidate sees his job as a privilege he understands it is a duty handed to him by the voters. He or she is not” Daddy”, but rather here to serve as the collectively elected representative. In essence the objective of the candidate is to seek out ways of bettering their constituents and the lives of the people therein. The candidate is getting paid to do a job and it is not charity on their part.

This is precisely why I am supposed to shock everyone when I say, we can build a wind energy grid on the east coast of St Lucia. People are supposed to say, how that will be done and why is that such a good idea. Because the east coast is the windward coast, and yes a proposal sourcing funding for a green initiative, would have a great chance of being successful. Not to mention the grid if it is owned by the Micoud north community , will be selling electricity and thus making an income and thereby pay off itself.

When the person you vote for is expected to conceptualize, create and implement projects that will better the communities they represent. Then the people benefit and the candidate benefits as well. The politics is elevated and the people’s standard of living is elevated. And providing that you can actually achieve some effective compressive change, you can be asked to be called pappy. Although one might want to keep that for home. Oh, and definitely do not post the video of you being called pappy on the net either, you’ll soon be on YouTube and TMZ.