A change of law we can all agree on...

In yesterday’s midweek Searchlight, I wrote a letter to the editor under the headline “A Change of Law That We Can All Agree Upon…” In it, I ask parliamentarians to consider changing our laws to abolish our oath of allegiance to the Queen, and replace it with an oath to St. Vincent and the Grenadines instead. You could go buy a Searchlight, and get this wisdom distilled into a couple hundred words, or you can read on, and get the unabridged version for free (Save your time! Buy the Searchlight!)

When I was reading up on the changes that the ULP planned to make to the Representation of the People Act, I borrowed a law book from a lawyer buddy of mine. Volume I of the “Laws of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Revised Edition, 1990” contains the Constitution and the Representation of the People Act, plus other laws. (quick aside: did you know that it has been almost 20 years since the laws of SVG were compiled? That all the new laws since 1990 are scattered around in little books and pamphlets that only lawyers have access to? Why don’t we have revised laws dated 2010? How ‘bout 2000? And why aren’t all our laws online somewhere?)

Anyway, when I was flipping through the book, I stumbled on Chapter 6, Section 62, Form B of the Representation of the People Act. Here’s what it says:

PART VIII

Provisions Relating to the House of Assembly

62. Every person elected as a member of the House of Assembly shall, before sitting or voting therein, make the declaration of qualification in Form A and take and sign the oath of allegiance in Form B hereunder.

. . .

Form B

OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

I, ____________________________________ do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Her Heirs and Successors, according to law.

SO HELP ME GOD.

Ah, so there was the despised oath. Loyal readers of my blog (both of you, lol) know that I have been bitching about this oath for a while. I bitched about it during the referendum debate. In December, after the first parliament of ULP III, I complained again about “all those proud black people and anti-colonialists pledging loyalty” to the Queen. It really makes my skin crawl.

But I was shocked to see the oath right there in a regular law. If it’s just in a regular law, can’t we change it? I asked my lawyer buddy, who said nah, you can’t change it. He said that Australia and Canada still swore allegiance to the Queen too. He said that until you become a republic, parliamentarians in Commonwealth countries swear allegiance to the Queen. He said that that ship sailed when the “Yes” vote got its ass kicked in the referendum.

Yeah, yeah, referendum ass-kicking. Don’t remind me. But my buddy hadn’t really answered my question: if the oath is in a regular law – a law we are in the process of amending – why can’t we change the words of the oath?

I went to Wikipedia. Sure enough, Australia and Canada still swear allegiance to the Queen. BUT – and it’s a big BUT – they do it because the words of the oath are in their CONSTITUTION, not just in regular law!! In fact, politicians in Canada (especially Quebec) have been trying to change the oath for a while, but they haven’t been able to, because it would require a constitutional amendment. It’s right there in the Fifth Schedule of the Canadian Constitution.

Same thing in Australia: plenty people wanna change the oath, but its entrenched in their constitution, smack bang in the schedule. They need a constitutional amendment to change it, too.

So, the next thing I did was look in OUR Vincy Constitution. Is the Oath tucked away in there somewhere too? The answer is no. The oath is NOT in our Constitution. I looked in the law volume I had, and I looked in the version that’s online. No Oath.

So we CAN change the oath! Right?

I go back to my lawyer buddy, and confront him with the evidence of my legal sleuthing. (Repeated disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night). He asks me: “Well, what DOES our Constitution say about the Oath?”

I have an answer for him:

• Section 21 says that the Governor General has to take the Oath of Allegiance, but it doesn’t spell it out.
• Section 34 says that the Supervisor of Elections has to take the Oath of Allegiance, but also doesn’t spell it out. Same thing for members of the House of Representatives (Section 39); Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries (Section 58); members of the Public Service Commission (Section 77); and people applying for citizenship (Section 93)
• Then it says (Section 105): “‘oath of allegiance’ means such oath of allegiance as may be prescribed by law”.
• The Second Schedule of the Constitution, which deals with the transition from being a colony to being an independent country, says (Section 7) that “Until such time as the oath of allegiance, the oath of secrecy or in relation to any office, the oath of office is prescribed by law, that oath may be taken in the form prescribed immediately before the commencement of the Constitution.”

Translation: The Vincy Oaths are spelled out by our regular laws, NOT our Constitution. If we don’t have an applicable oath in our regular law, we can just use the old one we inherited from the Brits until we come up with our own.

So, as I said in my Searchlight letter: “In other words, to whom or to what our parliamentarians swear allegiance is entirely up to them.”

Hearing my evidence, my lawyer buddy shrugged and said “Hmm. I guess you can change the wording then.” With that, he went back to drafting some affidavit or divorce or something else lucrative and inconsequential.

THIS IS NOT A SHRUGGING MOMENT!! THIS IS A BIG EFFING DEAL!!

OK, it’s not a ‘free at last! free at last! thank God almighty, we're free at last!’ moment, but still. There are two reasons we should change the Oath, and change it now: Nationalism and reconciliation.

The Nationalism reason is simple. Our politicians should be swearing to be faithful and true to St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Or Vincy citizens. Or our Constitution. Or all of the above. We should NOT be swearing it to the Queen. Seriously: what is the practical effect of swearing allegiance to the Queen? How can you be bound to that oath? Are our leaders answerable to the Queen? Is it their job to advance the Queen’s interests? ‘Course not. So the Oath to her is just a bunch of empty words: “I swear to do nothing. So help me God.”

(The colonial counterargument is that since SVG is a realm of the Queen, and she is our head of state, she represents the embodiment of the country. So swearing allegiance to her is really the same as swearing allegiance to her realm, SVG. I’m sorry, but that’s bullshit. First of all, Queeny has a bunch of realms. So if I swear allegiance to her, am I simultaneously swearing to all of her realms? No offence, but I don’t think our parliamentarians should be swearing allegiance to Canada, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea, thankyouverymuch. Also, how come other countries don’t swear allegiance to their head of state? I don’t hear Americans swearing to Obama – they swear to uphold their constitution. India doesn’t swear to its president, nor does Trinidad and Tobago. They swear to their republic and to defend their constitution. C’mon.)

We have one national hero in SVG: Chatoyer. What did he do that was so heroic? He fought the British and their monarchy. He was a nationalist. What do we do to honour him? We have our government officials swear allegiance to the same monarchy he was fighting.

Am I missing something?

The reconciliation reason is also simple: We’re in a poisoned political climate right now. The NDP has decided to challenge everything that the ULP proposes. Opposing parties are literally in the streets demonstrating against each other. Things are so bad in SVG that we have a Ministry of National Reconciliation.

Now, how do you begin reconciliation? You find something that everyone can agree on, and you agree on it. Changing the Oath isn’t gonna increase the deficit. It’s not gonna victimise anyone. It’s not taking away anyone’s rights. It’s symbolic. It’s profound. But it’s ultimately harmless.

Couldn’t we all agree on that?

Now watch how you tie the nationalism and the reconciliation together:

We already know that there will be a sitting of Parliament on March 3rd. That’s 11 days before Heroes Day, when we honour Chatoyer. We also know that the NDP will probably drag their supporters back onto the streets to demonstrate, and that “the major” Leacock will be out looking to “take the first bullet” as he pledged last week (of course, there were no bullets being fired and the police were unarmed, so it was an easy pledge to make. Good job, “major”. You are so brave.).

So the Government should add the amendment of the Representation of the People Act to the agenda. They should change the words of the Oath to something more patriotic. If the NDP has any sense, their parliamentarians will come off the streets for an hour or so to join in the unanimous passage of the amendment. All sides can make patriotic/nationalist statements, and all say “Aye” to push it through. The NDP will then say that they are still able to put partisanship aside in the interest of the people. The ULP will say that all of their changes to the Representation of the People Act are designed to bring it into modern times, including the parts that NDP is demonstrating against.

They will both say, with some justification, that the new Oath is more significant. They can say that the country of SVG and the rights of her citizens are now front and center in the consciousness of the Parliament, and that all secondary foolishness should be swept aside, in the interest of our people’s betterment, just as the new Oath says.

(The NDP can then go back to trying to ram the gates of Parliament and overturn fire engines.)

Then, on March 14th, up at the Obelisk, ALL members of the House should gather, and, as a chorus (not individually), they should publicly recite the words of the new Oath.

How’s THAT for a national reconciliation moment? How’s THAT for honouring our National Hero?

Yes, the Queen would still be our Head of State. Yes, we would still be a member of the Commonwealth. No, it’s not exactly a consolation prize for referendum defeat. No, it won’t make Arnhim and Ralph sit around a bonfire and sing “Kumbaya.” But it would still be one small step for parliament, one giant leap for nationhood. And it’s easy to do.

Now, we could argue about the words to the new Oath. I would go with something simple like:

I, ____________________________________ do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, her citizens, and her Constitution, according to law, so help me God.

(I’d also add the option for people to “affirm” rather than “swear,” and maybe leave off the God bit, if their religion/beliefs don’t allow).

Logic: Most modern countries swear to either their country or their constitution, or both. Trinidad’s is good (its in their constitution). It says:

“I, A. B., do swear by ............................... (solemnly affirm) that I will bear true faith and allegiance to Trinidad and Tobago and will uphold the Constitution and the law, that I will conscientiously, impartially and to the best of my ability discharge my duties as .............................. and do right to all manner of people without fear or favour, affection or ill-will.”

So TnT has: country, constitution, and a promise not to be biased. Come to think of it, that’s a good addition to ours too. Let’s steal that.

I’d add the “citizens” bit as a tip of the hat to our large Diaspora. In other words, we swear allegiance to SVG, but we aren’t just talking about the people who live here, we’re talking about all citizens, including you overseas Vincys as well. I know, I know, it’s a nice touch.

I’m flexible on most of the language, as long as country and constitution are mentioned. Even if you added that stuff and left the Queen in there as well, it would be an improvement. Not my first choice, but hey, some people love that wrinkled old white woman.

The point is, changing the Oath is easy, it will be popular, and that the time is ripe.

Let’s do it. Tell a friend to tell a friend. Let’s put SVG at the center of our government, where it belongs. It’s an “owning the government” moment that we can all get behind.

…right?

In defence of dictatorships?

I’m beginning to wonder why we went through the trouble of holding general elections last December. I mean, what’s the point of elections if the losers don’t accept the results and the winners don’t act like they won?

As I write this, the NDP and ULP are gearing up for a week of what are essentially campaign events. The NDP is going to have whistle-stop rallies down the leeward side of St. Vincent to hype its supporters up for another “lock the city” moment in their ongoing quest to stage "Road Block Revolution: The Sequel."

Not to be outdone, the ULP is gathering the troops in Biabou, presumably to get their blood boiling for a possible counter-demonstration on the same day.

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t we have free and fair elections 55 days ago? Didn’t the ULP win the majority of the seats and the popular vote? Didn’t the new parliamentarians get sworn in?

Yes? Then why the hell is the campaign continuing as if nothing happened?

SVG just came out of an election campaign that was over a year long. Toss the referendum campaign in there, which was essentially a dry-run for the elections, and both parties have been campaigning for two years straight. The NDP has been electioneering for at least five.

You would think that, in a democracy, campaigning would intensify and then CULMINATE with the elections. The winners would win, and celebrate. The losers would sulk, and get ready for the next election. In the mean time, we'd get back to business, and the government would govern.

Not any more. It seems like both sides have been campaigning for so long, they've forgotten how to do anything else.

These days, the elections are a sideshow. You campaign, you have an election, and you barely stop for breath before you start campaigning again. In the States, they call it the “never-ending campaign.” In this year’s State of the Union Speech, Obama called it the “perpetual campaign.” Here’s what he said:

Now, I'm not naive. I never thought that the mere fact of my election would usher in peace and harmony and some post-partisan era. I knew that both parties have fed divisions that are deeply entrenched. And on some issues, there are simply philosophical differences that will always cause us to part ways. These disagreements, about the role of government in our lives, about our national priorities and our national security, they've been taking place for over 200 years. They're the very essence of our democracy.

But what frustrates the American people is a Washington where every day is Election Day. We can't wage a perpetual campaign where the only goal is to see who can get the most embarrassing headlines about the other side -- a belief that if you lose, I win. Neither party should delay or obstruct every single bill just because they can. . .

Washington may think that saying anything about the other side, no matter how false, no matter how malicious, is just part of the game. But it's precisely such politics that has stopped either party from helping the American people. Worse yet, it's sowing further division among our citizens, further distrust in our government.

So, no, I will not give up on trying to change the tone of our politics. I know it's an election year. And after last week, it's clear that campaign fever has come even earlier than usual. But we still need to govern.

Sound familiar? Is this where we are now in SVG? And can our little rocks afford – literally and metaphorically – to become a microcosm of American zero-sum politics? Is this the final stage in the evolution of western democracy?

I see these people on my TV. They’re demonstrating in Egypt. In Tunisia. In Jordan. In Yemen. They want the end of dictatorships. They want democracy. Most of all, they want elections. Free and fair elections. All the talking heads on American TV are telling me that what the people need is elections.

Then I look at us here in SVG, and I wonder: Are they SURE this is what they want? Because I’m pretty sure I saw Burton Williams – who lost his seat by the 3rd largest margin of votes in the last elections – trying to physically knock down the gates of Parliament with a metal barricade, like some senile, septuagenarian battering ram. And I’m pretty sure I saw Anesia Baptiste and Vynette Frederick – whose positions in the Parliament are owed not to the electorate, nor to any party decision, but the whim of one man – screaming to the mob in the name of justice and democracy.

People say democracy is messy, but its better than the alternative.  Looking at SVG, I’m beginning to wonder. It's not like dictatorships don't have some plusses, y'know?

First of all, dictatorships are good for the dictators. Have you seen better looking 86, 82 and 70 year olds than Mugabe, Mubarak and Gadaffi? I certainly haven’t. They all look better – and younger – than Ralph. I bet the Comrade wouldn’t have aged like an Indo-Trini woman if he wasn’t battling the slings and arrows of outrageous opposition every day. I mean, look at Obama! He’s picked up so many grey hairs in two years that he’s starting to look like Nelson Mandela! It's gotta be better for your national pride if your leader is an age-defying picture of health, rather than a overweight, greying guy with puffy eyes and a limp, right?

Second, until they fall, dictators' countries are stable. People knock stability, 'til they lose it. Iraqis were bawling for the end of Sadaam until people started blowing themselves up in the marketplace, their children couldn’t go to school, and they only had water and electricity for 4 hours a day. Some Italians look back wistfully on the days of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and say “at least he made the trains run on time.” (Of course, they can be excused. Their democratically elected leader is now Silvio Burlusconi, the biggest horndog in the history of lecherous old men.)

The third cool thing about dictatorships is that the dictators can claim to be representing the will of the people, and no one can empirically challenge them. In Egypt, one million people are demonstrating in the square for the end of Mubarak. So what? Egypt has 80 million people! He could say that the other 79 million people are firmly in his corner! That’s what China did in Tiananmen Square, remember? They said, “what? You think we’re gonna be dissuaded by a couple thousand people? We have A BILLION people!” That’s what Amadinejad said in Iran too: “what, you have a million people demonstrating against me? The other 70 million people love me to death!”

See, in dictatorships, no one gets a chance to go to the polls, so they have to resort to big crowds in the town square to get their point across. There is no vote counting, so people engage in the imprecise and subjective art of crowd counting. That's how you get Rose Revolutions, Orange Revolutions, Jasmine Revolutions, etc. People say, "wow, x-amount of people wanna get rid of the government, and the government couldn't mass that many of its own supporters. That must mean that people are fed up and want a change."

Democracies are a little more scientific. Everyone gets a vote.The votes get counted. And, usually, the people with the most votes form the government.

In our democracy, the current NDP strategy is going to run into a messy little fact: As many people as they mobilize, we already know that, 55 days ago, the majority of the population voted against them. Technically, they could get 30,174 people into Heritage Square and the response could/should be “yep, that’s the number of people who voted for you. We got 2,000 more than that.”

One eightieth of the Egypian population is currently demonstrating. In our context, that translates to, what? 1,500 Vincys? I’m sure NDP can get 1,500 people to a rally. Would 1,500 demonstrators invalidate an election? How about 5,000? 10,000? 30,000?

30,000 people voted NDP. 32,000 voted ULP. According to arithmetic and democracy (and law, and common sense), that means the ULP is in government for the next 5 years. With great effort, the NDP could get 10,000+ of their 30,000 supporters out onto the street. I figure ULP can do the same. If we’re gonna set aside election results based on who can fill Heritage Square better, then why have elections at all?

Now don't get me wrong. In democracies, demonstrations are a good thing. All democratic constitutions and laws protect the right to get together and shout through a bullhorn. But, in a democracy, demonstrations have to be either (a) issue-specific, expressing popular opinion on a particular subject; or (b) an attempt to build support as the NEXT elections approach. What you cannot do, though, is mobilize for the end of a democratically elected government. You only get to do that in dictatorships.

Couple months ago, British students took to the street and started rioting. It was an issue-specific demonstration. They were vex that the David Cameron government was raising university tuition (it was a dumb demonstration, because Cameron promised that he'd do just that if he came to power. He had a mandate to raise tuition. But I digress). A few months earlier, the American Tea Party movement gathered over a million rednecks in Washington to basically flex their muscles on the eve of midterm elections. They wanna get rid of Obama, but they timed their show of force for maximal electoral impact. They wanna vote him and his fellow democrats out of office.

Neither the British nor American mega-rallies were seen as threatening the elected party's hold on power.

Here, our demonstrations are neither issue- nor election-specific. Although the elections just ended, NDP wants to force Gonsalves out of office. That's their objective. And the ULP counter-demonstration is intended to prove that Gonsalves ain't goin nowhere. This type of behaviour is not allowed in a democracy! We need a political referee to blow his whistle and penalize both parties for violating the rules of participatory electoral democracy!

By the way, there's a fourth cool thing about dictatorships: No E.G. Lynch. No Vynette Fredrick. No loud, empty, unscrupulous windbags who blabber incessantly on the public airwaves and cloak themselves in "democracy" and "freedom" when you tell their irritating asses to shut the eff up. The dissidents who stand up to dictatorships are high quality people. Bright, courageous, principled. Aung San Suu Kyi. The Dali Lama. Liu Xiaobo. Ahmad Batebi. Malcolm X. etc.

VP’s First Rule of Political Freedom: A country’s freedom is inversely proportional to the quality of its chief dissidents/freedom fighters. The less impressive the “voice” of the freedom movement, the more free the society is.

So, in the USA, Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, you have Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin giving voice to the marginalized masses. Clearly the USA is in great shape.

What about SVG?: Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you E.G. Lynch and Vynette Fredrick.

'Nuff said.

I don't get the logic of the ULP's Biabou rally. The ULP is being silly. They won the elections. They have popular, electoral and constitutional legitimacy. Their victory is fresh. Why are they now trying to beat the NDP at its own game of rabble-rousing? Even if they out-mobilize the NDP this week, do they win an extra 5 years in office? If they fail to mobilize, do they have to relinquish their 55-day-old victory? Their Biabou rally and counter-demonstration are just cheapening the value and legitimacy of their electoral victory. Arnhim's desperate tactics are actuallyway more understandable than the ULP's response. If we weren't gonna take a break from rallies and marches in the year or two after the election, then we should've just bypassed the damn vote altogether. It took me more time to get the ink off my voting finger than it took Ralph and Arnhim to reload and start the campaign all over again.

What do elections mean anymore? It seems that elections are just one possibility on a buffet table of optional paths to power. Lose an election? Ignore that. Force your way to power by some other means.

Robert Mugabe lost elections in Zimbabwe. He refused to leave. He’s still president. Mwai Kibaki ignored election results in Kenya to remain in charge. In Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo is simply pretending that the recent elections didn’t happen. He’s daring someone to force him out.

Election results? What election results?

Here, Arnhim and his minions are on the same path. Sure, if we won the elections, we’d take that. But we didn’t win, so we’ll take something else. The NDP is hoping to use anarchy to do what they couldn’t do by the ballot. And the ULP is planning to answer, not by pointing to their electoral and constitutional legitimacy, but with some crowd muscle of their own.

So we’re stuck here with this hybrid, worst-of-both-worlds system: No stability, typical of democracy. A reliance on mob pressure and social networks to oust or maintain governments, typical of dictatorships.

Me? I’d just like us to pick one system and stick with it. At least for the next year or two. I need some peace and quiet. And it would be nice to hear some actual serious thought on how to govern in these turbulent times. 'Till then, somebody get me the Facebook address of those kids in Egypt, I wanna have a word with them...