No man can serve two masters

“For either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” Taken from the Gospel of Matthew, this prohibition against divided loyalties is fundamental to Christians’ declaration of faith. Muslims make similar declarations.

The Koran proclaims, “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Messenger.” In fact, virtually every faith enjoins its believers to enter into an exclusive relationship that is untangled and unthreatened by any affiliation to a competing faith.Religions, however, are not the only institutions that demand the fealty of their community. Governments do so too as various national anthems can attest. Indeed, our Anthem serenades this loyalty:“St Vincent land so beautiful,With joyful hearts we pledge to thee,Our loyalty and love, and vow,To keep you ever free.”

Canada’s national anthem is equally insistent and demands from its citizens, “True patriot love in all thy sons command, O Canada we stand on guard for thee.”And no national anthem is more militaristic than that of the USA which bellows, “And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in the air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there…conquer we must our cause is just and the star spangled banner shall wave over the land of the free.”Governments, however, do not rely solely on the inspirational power of patriotic songs.

Rather, virtually every government in the world treats loyalty as an act of law written into very constitutional fabric that binds the society together as a functioning and self-protecting entity.

The reason here is simple. In an international community where the interests of nations sometimes conflict, and sometimes irreparably so, governments need absolute certainty of the undisputed loyalty of their citizens, and none more so than their legislators.

The framers of the Constitution of St Vincent and the Grenadines understood this. For as pharmacist and social commentator Matthew Thomas correctly informed us, our Constitution flatly declares that no legislator who declares an oath of loyalty to a foreign country is permitted to serve in the Parliament of St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Indeed, in 2016, the government of SVG raised the bar of loyalty by implementing a change in the Oath by Officials Act so that Vincentian officials now swear their allegiance and service to SVG rather than Queen Elizabeth II, her heirs and successors. SVG, of course, is not alone in affirming that its office holders must swear to the Constitution and Laws of the country rather than the Queen of England.

Jamaica does precisely the same thing. Our Oath now reads, “I do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to St Vincent and the Grenadines, that I will uphold and defend the Constitution and Laws of St Vincent and the Grenadines, and I will conscientiously and impartially discharge my responsibilities to the people of St Vincent and the Grenadines. So help me God.” And Prime Minister Gonsalves defended this change because it makes the Oath, “more consistent with the sensibilities of the people of SVG.”

SVG’s Oath of Allegiance, however, stands in stark contrast to that of Canada. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her Heirs and Successors sit at the citadel of the Canadian commitment to country, constitution, and citizenship. So the very thing SVG repudiates – swearing allegiance to the Queen of England, the Canadian Oath embraces.

A Vincentian legislator with dual Canadian citizenship would therefore be now in the extraordinary position of swearing fealty to Queen Elizabeth II on one hand while simultaneously rejecting that oath on the other. In fact, Vincentian legislators who have dual American citizenship occupy the identical position. The American Oath of Naturalization reads, “I hereby declare that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to foreign prince, potentate, State, or sovereignty particularly to the country of which I have heretofore been a citizen.”

This declaration utterly and fatally impales any notion that a Vincentian legislator can credibly claim that his oath to the USA does not undermine his oath to SVG.All citizens of SVG have a right to know that our legislators serve one master:

the Constitution and Laws of SVG. This is not optional. Our laws demand it, and rightly so. For in this ship of state that is sailing on the seas of destiny, when hurricane force winds hit us as they will, and we sing, “What e’er the future brings, our faith will see us through,” we need to know that our legislators are making that pledge from an undiluted commitment to SVG without their lifeboat of citizenship in North America.