What mirror image do you have of yourself?

MR CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, my first or earlier function here this evening had been to introduce the co-ordinator of the northern zone of the Democratic Labour Party, Mr Keith Simmons.

Nobody here has given me the job to introduce the chairman, but it has always been my pleasure to introduce people from St John. The president of the Young Democrats is a scientist. He was teaching at a couple of Government schools and he came to me one day and he said: “My first interest as you know is chemistry, and this is what I’ve been teaching, but I now have an opportunity of getting into business. What do you think I should do?”

I told him that anything I could do to get him from under the tentacles of the Barbados Labour Party Government, I would personally go and see the people by whom he would be employed to make sure that he went into business with the insurance company, Colonial Life Insurance, and the bank which is at the top of Broad Street.

He has now unfortunately been removed from my constituency by the gerrymandering which was done in 1981 under the aegis of the former . . . you know who . . . . In other words, the part of Knights Village by Four Cross Roads has been allocated to my good friend Cyril Walker. And then another part of St John was taken off and given to St George and another part of St John was taken off and given to St Joseph. As a result of all these complications, I think the party can win it by 4 000 votes.

At the same time, they have strengthened the Democratic candidates in St Joseph, in St George North, as Cyril will tell you, and also in St George South as Mr Massiah will let you know. So there is never a bad happening. I am sorry that I have lost the whole McClean family and all the good people of Knights Village. But my loss is the Democratic Labour Party’s gain. I am proud that my constituency has been able to produce people like Leroy McClean, who is the co-chairman here tonight.

What I wish to speak to you about very briefly here this evening is about you. About yourself. There is nobody running down there against me, so I do not hold political meetings to talk about them. I say let the dead bury the dead. I am here to speak to you about you.

I want to know what kind of mirror image do you have of yourself? That is what I am concerned about. What kind of mirror image do you have of yourself? Do you really like yourselves?

Because you can never really like anybody unless you first like yourself. There are too many people in Barbados who despise themselves and their dislike of themselves reflects itself in their dislike of other people, and people who live next door to them, members of their family, husbands and wives and the ox and the ass, and the stranger within the gates.

One of the problems that I have had after an election is that I know particularly from 1966 onwards, I would like to say that in 1951, 1956, 1961, the conservatives used to do a few favours for people.

A planter would send a man who had a little influence, let us say in Ellerton Village in St George, send him down to Plantations Limited or Mannings & Co, and get some lumber to repair the old house. Or if he had a cheap canvasser like Gawdy Barrow, you would send him to Detco Motors and let him trust a new car. And those people would be motivated into giving their support to the conservative candidate because of the favours which used to be given out to them.

But it really did not matter because the people who accepted that kind of help did not think that they . . . they thought that they would be beholden to the rich people of this island, because

Continued on next page.

ERROL BARROW in an upbeat mood in a meeting

during the 1986 General Election campaign. (FPs)

ERROL BARROW: “What kind of mirror image can you have of yourself? Let me tell you what I mean by image you have of yourself.”

From Page 12.

the rich people were in a position to do personal favours for them. But what the rich people in Barbados did not realise is that they did not have enough money to do favours for everybody who had the right to vote after universal adult suffrage.

That was all right when you had 250 people voting in St Thomas, and probably 178 voting in St Andrew, and probably 311 voters in St Lucy, but when you have 38 000 voting alone in St Michael . . . voting for two candidates, not even John D. Rockefeller himself would be able to do enough favours for 38 000 people to persuade them to go and cast their vote, and exercise their suffrage against the Labour Party’s interest, in favour of that wealthy person.

Which group is wealthiest in Barbados then? Who has the most money to spend? There has never been anybody in the history of Barbados with $6 million at his disposal. The Tom Adams Government had $600 million in each and every year at its disposal . . . and then spit in your face.

So the conservatives now can save their money, they aren’t going to France and Italy anymore because of terrorism, but they going to Tampa in Florida; Vancouver, British Columbia; and California, because they have people now who will spend the workers’ money . . . and they could save their money and thus go off and live . . . like true politicians, while they use your money against you.

Now what has bothered me in this society is that every time after elections, people expect certain things to take place. And although the law says he that giveth is as much guilty of bribery and corruption under the Corrupt Practices Act as he that receiveth, we know that even on the polling day people are given envelopes with $100 bills in them . .. . No. Not a dollar . . . you could only know if it is a dollar if you took one; how would you know it was only $1 notes?

Given $100 notes

What has happened is that the people who were given the $100 notes from the motor cars – the side-men, as they call them – change the $100 notes into $1 notes. That is what happened when Philip Greaves and Asquith Phillips and I sat down trying to get people to bring affidavits, so that we could lock up some of them. Our own people, registered Democratic Labour Party people, said they were not prepared to go into court and swear.

So what kind of mirror image would you have of yourself?

You’re not going to like what I’m saying now. If there are corrupt [people] in Barbados tonight, you have made them corrupt.

I am not trying to make any excuses for you, but I realise what has happened in this society. You have people who are living on the brink of and at subsistence level . . . . Let me put it this way: when I look around and see people who have not done an honest day’s work in their whole lives – I don’t have to call names – are driving around in MP cars, having as ostentatious standard of living, unlike my poor families in St John, who the welfare officer gives $50 to feed a family of ten people for a whole week. What kind of mirror image can you have of yourself?

Let me tell you what I mean by image you have of yourself.

You so much despair of this society that you queue up at Trident House day after day.

Those of you who have read Julius Caesar would know the passage that says: “You have sat the live long day with patient expectation to see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome.” And you have stood the live long day with patient expectation for the man to tell you down there . . . Charlie, to tell you, that you can’t get the visa to get on the 400 to New York next week.

Your greatest ambition is to try to prove to the people of the United States consulate that you are only going up to visit your family, when you know very well that when you get up there, you lost way. And you are surprised when the people at the United States Embassy tell you that you do not have a strong reason to return to Barbados. And you are the only person dishonest enough with yourself to realise that you do not have a strong reason to return to Barbados because Barbados has nothing to offer you. You are not being honest with yourself, but you tell the man down there, “Oh yes, I’m returning”.

The only strong reason I have to return to Barbados . . . I don’t need a visa now . . . the only strong reason that I have to return to Barbados . . . if I had to answer that question now I would be in trouble, because under this dispensation for the past ten years, I never had a strong reason to come back here.

But I want to tell you this, that I believe I am as much Barbadian as they are and I do not like my country being run down the way it has been run down since 1976, and that is the reason why I return.

Had strong reason

When I went to Mexico, I had to make a decision and I returned; I went to the Pacific and I had to make a decision and I returned. I had a strong reason. My reason is that I did not want to see my country go down the drain, but you who are not in politics don’t have a strong reason. Tell me one good strong reason you have to return to Barbados. What kind of mirror image do you have of yourself? Let me tell you what kind of mirror image I have of you or what the Democratic Labour Party has of you. The Democratic Labour Party has an image that the people of Barbados would be able to run their own affairs, to pay for the cost of running their own country, to have an education system which is as good as what can be obtained in any industrialised country anywhere in the world. It is only now that you are reading that in the state of Texas, the government of that state has asked to make the teachers pass an examination. You know what kind of examination? Can anyone of you tell me what kind of examination the teachers in Texas had to sit a few weeks ago? To see if they can read and write. The teachers on CNN news daybefore yesterday, the head of the teachers’ union . . . I saw him with my own two eyes, because at six o’clock in the morning I have finished feeding my sheep and I go and turn on the CNN news and start putting on my shoes and socks . . . after bathing!

Cameron Tudor is asking me what about his sheep. Now I am not going to put his sheep in my Mercedes and drive down Black Rock anymore for him . . . . If people want sheep taxis, I hope they get the message.

The gentleman of the Texas teachers’ union came on the news and he said that he was very proud of the result because only eight per cent of the teachers couldn’t read and write.

If [United States President Ronald] Reagan had to take the test, I wonder if he would pass. But this is the man that you all say in the newspapers how great he is for bombing the people in Libya and killing little children.

I am no Gaddafi supporter, I don’t know Gaddafi and I’ve never had any desire to go to Libya. But this is the man that you all go up at the airport and put down a red carpet for and he is the president of a country in which one of the more advanced and biggest states – eight per cent of the teachers – can’t read and write and he feels that they are better than we. And you feel that we should run up there and take a bow.

Part 2 will be published in Thursday’s DAILY NATION.

ERROL BARROW on the campaign trail with broom in hand ahead of the 1986 General Election.