The Begging Bowl and the Palin Factor

Prime Minister Bruce Golding of Jamaica created a big stir recently when he lambasted his regional colleagues for always bringing out the begging bowl. I am not sure that Jamaica is innocent in this regard but his point is well taken. We in the Caribbean boast of our independence and annually celebrate the occasion. In this era of globalisation and interdependence, not many if any country in the world can truly claim to be really independent. Even our godfather to the north depends on countries such as China to pay for the cost of its wars and its general extravagance. Its foreign debt is enormous and frightening.{{more}} In our small Caribbean countries, however, begging has become almost a way of life. Even at Independence when we should have been preaching a different kind of message, Prime Minister Milton Cato boasted that under him, St.Vincent was guaranteed financial assistance from Canada because he fought in the Canadian army. Independence was to have provided them with the opportunity to hand out their begging bowl. We would be free, it appeared, to develop relationships with other countries in an effort to beg. The truth is that we have gone beyond seeking assistance for capital projects to begging for just about anything we need. Today this is amplified through the two- China Policy. All of this grandstanding at the United Nations is in an effort to play the tune that the piper calls. In fact what is going on with this switching between the two Chinas is a scandal of the highest order. True enough, countries organise their foreign policy around what is in their best interest, but there appears now to be no principle behind it. It is a question of prostituting ourselves to those who could offer the most, with the least red tape.

There are many people around the world and in our part of the woods who are poor but who have managed to retain their dignity. Can the same thing not apply to countries? What signal are we sending when it so patently clear what is driving our foreign adventures? In a piece on the China-Taiwan division in the Caribbean written last year by Sir Ronald Sanders he pointed to the implications of the split policy. He argues that the division within Caricom “has kept the development of a trade, aid and investment policy for China off the agenda of CARICOM Heads of Government even though China is now involved with the region in a number of ways including as a lending member of the Caribbean Development Bank.” Like many other things CARICOM is unable to come up with a consensus on the China issue. I would have been impressed if countries took positions based on principle or real concern, as in the case of Taiwan, for the fate of the people of Taiwan but the simple truth is that those countries that recognise Taiwan are quite capable at any time of making a switch and vice versa as we saw in the case of St.Lucia and before them Dominica. The Taiwanese who have lost a lot of friends over the years have had to pay dearly for the support of those whom it has managed to keep in its corner. In the case of Taiwan we know what they demand but with a lot of the others we are not sure what are the stakes and expectations of the pipers and what tunes they particularly want us to play.

The Palin Factor

I didn’t know that it was possible for the Republicans to come up with candidates that could match George Bush and Dan Quayle with sheer stupidity, but they have done it. For John McCain to have come up with Sarah Palin as his Vice President leaves one not only to question his judgement but also reflects a contempt for the American people. One of the things that have kept Palin still afloat is the fact that Obama is black. Also many Republicans who did not see McCain as a true conservative have held on to Palin with all her deficiencies. Her interview with Katie Couric of CBS was an embarrassment. How can a country that prides itself on its world power think of having someone like Palin as one of its leaders, in fact a heart beat away from the Presidency? Many Americans say she is like them and so they are comfortable with her. My God! What does this say about the American public? I have always felt that the American public was the most politically illiterate one possible. Could you think of many other countries that could have pulled out Palin to contest the top political ticket in their country?

The Vice Presidential debate takes place tomorrow but is it likely to change anything? People’s expectations about Palin after her recent interviews are so low that she just has to open her mouth and make a few coherent remarks to have some of them claim her fitness to assume the position of Vice President of the most powerful country in the world. Then there is also the fear of being labelled as sexist that might worry her opponents. So she demands to be treated with kids’ gloves. Is this the America that prides itself on being the fountain of democracy? Palin does in fact reflect a lot about America and Americans, a people who know little about anything outside their immediate environs. When Katie Couric asked her about newspapers that she reads, she couldn’t come up with one but tried to beat her way around the question. McCain in the meantime appears to me to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Little he said and did this week in response to the financial crisis made much sense since he kept changing his tune ever so often, but then that is probably the result of the Palin factor.

Is this the America we are supposed to follow, the leader of the free nations? It is really sickening. Hopefully there are enough Americans who are turned off with the Palin tragicomedy and who are not so uncomfortable with Obama’s blackness that they could make Palin history. Tomorrow’s debate and the forthcoming Presidential elections would tell us a lot more about Americans. After the tragedy that was the Bush Presidency, one would have thought that Americans would want to change their image around the world. But then that is America. Let us however wait and see.

Dr Adrian Fraser is a social commentator and historian.