The dyad of “Comrade” & “Son”

Fri Mar 22, 2013

Recently, in this newspaper my article titled: “Greek Mythology and Vincy Politics” was published. Subsequent to the publication two events have occasioned this article. First, in a call to Star FM’s program “The Morning Scoop”, one day last week, the Prime Minister referred to former Prime Minister Sir James Mitchell and himself as “a club of two”.{{more}} He stated that he could not remember exactly if it was Sir James or himself who first coined the phrase. He went on to explain that they are the only two Vincentian prime ministers who were elected at least three times consecutively. The second event that has triggered this article is the recent booklet released by Sir James, entitled: “St. Vincent & The Grenadines, The Ungovernable.” In the brief 22 page publication, the former prime minister made cumulative reference to the words “myth” and “legend” at least eight times.

The current prime minister’s mention of the “Club of Two”, invokes thoughts of the Greek “legend” of “Castor & Pollux”. According to the legend, Leda had four children: two boys and two girls. Castor and Clytemnestra were fathered by her mortal husband Tyndareus and Pollux and Helen (Helen of Troy) were fathered by Zeus, the supreme deity and Greek god of the heavens, through the surrogate paternity of a swan. By and large the mentions of “myth” in the booklet were in sarcastic reference to and scornful rejection of the widely circulated belief that his agreement to “cut short the life of the parliament” was predicated and contingent upon some nefarious deal for personal benefit, during the famed “walk on the beach” at Grand Anse. As he put it in the book: “Finally, I trust that these reflections destroy the myth that I gave Ralph Gonsalves the job of prime minister.” Also to rebut, rebuff and vehemently deny that a pre-arrangement, as part of the alleged contrived abdication, was a cushy job for his daughter – the “take care of Louise” talk bandied about.

Allegories, ironies and parodies abound. In astrology, Pollux is a star in the first magnitude of the constellation of Gemini, conceivably because Pollux was fathered by Zeus, albeit through the vicarious impregnation of Leda by a swan. Can this be the “swan song” of the former prime minister? Castor is a star of the second magnitude, also of the constellation of Gemini. Its second-tier status, no doubt, is due to Castor’s paternity being that of a mere mortal. Let me hasten to add that in this article, I do not seek to assign, by expression or implication, which prime minister represents which legendary character, nor that there is any such characterization, period. In Greek legend, both are known for their fraternal affection and as protectors of persons at sea. Sir James’ love for seafaring is well established. In his early political life, he, being from Bequia, was disparagingly ridiculed as the “Bequia fisherman”. There is the legendary tale of him getting poetic justice by hanging a “gone fishing” sign on his front door after the 1972 general election, in which the two main parties got six seats apiece and he won the Grenadines seat, making him the “king-maker”, and which he parlayed into becoming the Chief Minister by aligning with Ebenezer Joshua’s People’s Political Party, which government only lasted two years, when a disgruntled Joshua aligned with the Labour Party of Robert Milton Cato, bringing the so-called “Junta Government” to a precipitous end.

“Comrade’s” fraternal affection is equally well-established, being in the perennial habit of referring to all and sundry of the masculine gender by the sobriquets “comrade” and “my brother” and to the females also as “comrade” and “my princess”; and if within close proximity, with an hug or embrace or at least a hand-shake.

The recent booklet by Sir James is replete with anecdotes of his political life, ranging from happy, memorable times of accomplishment, to agonizing and anguished reflections of what he apparently considers as betrayal, ingratitude and ignominy by and on the part of some of his political novitiates, who after they became seasoned politicians, turned their backs on him. Evidence of this is the following quote: “When you sense that those whom you helped and guided no longer relish your presence, it is time to leave them alone. In parliamentary terms, when ministers whom you nurtured over the years begin to challenge your vision, in a country you inspired, it is high time to leave them to their own devices.”

He obviously was nostalgic for the days when he was a god-like figure to whom they all paid obeisance, like the ancient Greeks to Zeus. Such as when the entire Cabinet, in an act of obsequious subservience, ceded to him “sole-authority” of the Ottley Hall project. Now they dared to exert some intrepid fortitude, he couldn’t deal with it. Author Philip Wylie, in his 1942 book “A Generation of Vipers”, coined the phrase “Momism”, which is described as “undue dependence on maternal protection resulting from loss of maturity and independence.” I guess the paternal parallel would be “Dadism”? Maybe he should have done what ancient monarchs and seigneurs did to the keepers of their harems: have performed irreversible physiological emasculations, thereby permanently rendering them political eunuchs. People mature and grow. If all he expected from his cabinets colleagues was to rubber-stamp his policies and programs, then we may as well have had a benevolent paternalistic oligarchy. I am a firm believer in the maxim: “If two persons in business always agree; one of them is not necessary.”

Of his dealings with the ODD (Organization in Defense of Democracy), quote: “I proposed, and they agreed, to receive the Odd delegation. I chartered a plane to bring them all to Grenada. They turned up with their behind-the-scenes adviser, Ralph Gonsalves. I decided to expose their irrelevance and invited Gonsalves to leave the meeting for us to have a talk on the beach.” Whaw!! Talk about contempt!!

The analogy of “Comrade” and “Son” to the legendary Greek duo may not bear a precise similarity, since Castor and Pollux were known for their fraternal affection for each other. This is not to say that no such affection is evident between the former and current dyadic contemporaries. There is much evidence that there is a lot of mutual respect and admiration between them; especially when it pertains to matters involving the person Sir James claims to be the thankless beneficiary of his premature abdication, as in “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Notwithstanding, from time to time there is an unmistakable presence of a sort of cognitive dissonance that comes to the surface. Such is the case in the book: “I did not imagine then that a witch-hunt would take place in my retirement, a witch-hunt costing me some US$400,000.00, and continuing, to the Privy Council, for which I had to dispose of property that I would have preferred to develop.” Maybe the Canouan lands bought at rock-bottom price per square foot and has now been sold, earning astronomical profits, is a compensation of sorts.

The booklet’s subliminal theme of ingratitude, ignominy and betrayal is not exactly analogous of Castor and Pollux, however, as an aside, it is instructive to note that Clytemnestra murdered her husband Agamemnon and was herself murdered along with her lover Aegisthus; by her son Arestes with the complaisance of his sister Electra, in revenge for the murder of their father. The other sister Helen, who married Menelaus King of Sparta and brother of her sister Clytemnestra’s husband Agamemnon, was kidnapped by Paris and was the cause of the Trojan War. The term “Trojan Horse” was coined during this time and “is indicative of a person or thing intended to undermine from within”. In today’s Vincy political vernacular, we call them “white angels” and “earth worms”. Thankfully, kidnap or murder has not played out in this modern-day legend. Let’s strive to keep the tone and temperature down so that we never get to that place.

by Benson Feddows