And So We Said No

I felt a sort of visceral connectivity last night – I watched the tallying of the referendum votes on television while simultaneously checking the (slow, due to heavy traffic) government website, tweeting a commentary for the #WITArmy and having several conversations on Facebook, Gtalk, the phones (landline and mobile) and via text message. The commentary on television was perhaps the best on the proposed constitution that I’ve heard since the process began some seven-ish years ago. The discussion between Andrew Cummings and Renwick Rose (both considered political pundits on the Vincy home front) was balanced and avoided the polarity of opinion that has been in evidence thus far.

And the votes are in; it’s official: by a count of 55.64% to 43.13% the people of St. Vincent & the Grenadines have rejected the current manifestation of a proposed constitution for this country. This is not to say that we don’t want constitutional reform, however. I firmly believe that people want this to happen, but it appears as if we want it on our terms, not on the terms that we were given. There is more, however, in this mortar than the pestle.

I am blatantly not a political guru. My knowledge of politics comes through my study of literature and the political theories that affect literary analysis, and not through in-depth study of politricks. However, I have my own little pet theories as to why the referendum failed this time. My theories are entirely based on my own reasons for voting the way I voted. I voted against the referendum. I couldn’t bring myself to support the proposed constitution for reasons that are, for me, valid and important. Not everyone may consider these reasons valid, but for me they constitute the core of a worldview that goes against my own.

I firmly believe that people voted against the referendum, not because they disagree with the articles of the proposed constitution, but because they wanted to send a message to the country’s current administration. There is an atmosphere of silence in this country generally; people tend to keep unpopular or potentially anti-administration views to themselves. To put it bluntly, people are afraid to speak out openly against the administration, so this is how they got their voices heard. People did not vote for or against a constitution, they voted against the ruling party, specifically the Prime Minister. The majority of the workers in this country are civil servants – the government is the country’s largest employer. It is just sensible that you keep criticisms of your employer to a minimum for fear of retribution. This referendum is a silent indication that people are dissatisfied with our leader. This is sad because, as one Facebook friend said, “the victory of the ‘no-Vote’ is a Pyhrric victory. The reform process was a sacrificial lamb at the alter of partisan politics. It could have gone differently if they had simply listened to the people.” Another Facebook friend had this to say to me when I responded to his emotionally charged status update: “William I just sat here and cried tears tears I aint cry in years. I feel so free, I feel like the enslaved in 1838 on August 1st on the streets of Kingstown. I feel like I could finally talk now” [my emphasis].

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed, in Vincentians, a growing mistrust of our leader. Perhaps I am mistaken in this, but the pervading atmosphere seems to be one where we have no conviction that our PM will do/is doing right by us. It is true that politrickans are generally mistrusted, but there is an unusually strong undercurrent of wariness with regard to our leader. It is unfortunate that the PM decided to take on the proposed constitution as one of his darling projects. Because people lack trust in him, they became naturally suspicious of the proposed constitution. This suspicion (at least in my case) makes for a reading of the document that would be purposely aimed at exposing possible points where power could be abused. Perhaps if the PM had not been so personally invested in the reform process (at least outwardly), the document may have stood a better chance of surviving the referendum.

One suspicion that has been widely conjectured (but not, of course, confirmed) is that the PM’s deep, personal involvement in the “YES” campaign was really motivated by a desire to test his popularity in preparation for our next general election. I have no idea if this is true, obviously, but it is yet another reason why his direct involvement in the process may have been ill advised. The PM himself said (according to blogger Kenton Chance of I-Witness News) “that he and his party ‘[got] the message’ and would renew themselves before the next general elections.” Again, it all comes down people being suspicious – whether warranted or not – of the motives behind the Comrade’s involvement.

Coming out of this mistrust issue, is the issue of confusion and misunderstanding. Here again, I can only conjecture based on my own feelings, and the feelings of several people with whom I’ve been in discussion over the past several weeks. There are sections and articles in the document that I, quite frankly, do not fully understand. These areas were addressed by both the “YES” and “NO” vote campaigns. Unfortunately, the fact that my edification on the matter came from campaigns rather than an unbiased source, only served to confuse me further, and I allowed my interpretation to err on the side of caution rather than acceptance.

I do not, for instance, fully understand the role of the ceremonial president who is meant to replace the Queen of England as head of state. The “YES” campaigners have said that s/he is completely ceremonial, with some minor executive powers that are, in effect, useless. The “NO” campaigners have declared it a travesty that we, the people, do not get to vote for our own President, who is to be chosen by Parliament. But here’s the deal, my reading of the thing indicates that the “ceremonial” president does, indeed, have executive powers, and these are pretty powerful powers which can easily be abused by the Prime Minister (PM in general, eh, not necessarily the current PM). The President, it would seem, has the power to remove any MP, without consent of the people, but under advisement of the PM. Theoretically, s/he can remove the minority leader if the Parliament advises it. Who runs the majority in Parliament? Who chose the President? It seems to me like there’s the potential for the President to want to avoid biting the hand that feeds her/him.

There’s one other main reason (or a collective of three reasons ecapsulated in one) why I chose to vote against the referendum, and why I think other people may have voted against it as well. I received a “personal” letter from my Prime Minister urging me to vote “yes”. This was obviously part of the campaign, but it gave me pause. In the letter, certain reasons for supporting the referendum were outlined; it is these reasons that made me angry, mainly because their inclusion had only one role in my opinion: that is, to incite the people, and (in two cases) to play on their baser instincts.

The letter urged me to vote “yes” and do away with the Queen of England as head of state. Don’t get me wrong, I completely support the idea of a republican form of government, and I completely support the removal of QEII as head of state. She is, indeed, the last vestige of our colonial past and, psychologically, we’d probably be better off if this remaining symbol of our once-subservient status is eradicated. But the “YES” campaign treated this issue with such reverence that it almost seemed as if the other issues were unimportant to them. You can’t expect me to vote for something wholesale on only the strength of one issue. It’s as if the proponents of the proposed constitution were hoping that we’d focus on QEII and ignore other stuff.

The letter also presented the marriage clause as one of it’s selling points. According to the letter, the “new” constitution is great because “it prohibits ‘same sex’ marriages”. This is problematic for me for two reasons. Firstly, marriage is primarily a religious institution (civil union, on the other hand, is not). The constitution has no business regulating a religious institution, especially the same constitution that states, “the maintenance of human dignity presupposes safe guarding the rights of privacy of family life”. In addition, this constitution states that the “Nation is founded on the belief in… the freedom and dignity of man”. It goes further to speak of individuals’ freedoms and “social justice for all”. I see an inherent contradiction in a document that speaks so intensely of freedoms, rights and dignities, yet specifically seeks to restrict the freedoms of one of the society’s minority groups in a way that they have not previously been restricted. I do not think Vincentian society is ready for gay marriage – homophobia is still rife in this country. However, there is nothing to say that our children’s society will not accept it. And is the constitution not for our children? Why presuppose the cultural mores of a society yet unborn?

I think that the inclusion of this clause is antediluvian, narrow-minded and decidedly patriarchal. It also harkens back to the days of Queen Victoria, when sodomy was first outlawed. How ironic that our “homegrown” constitution pulls outmoded laws from Victorian England. Why get rid of QEII and introduce something initially proposed by Victoria Regina? I can only assume that this clause was added to play on Vincentian homophobia – if that isn’t fear-mongering then I don’t know what is.

The third reason for voting “yes” that I was given in my special letter from the PM is the reintroduction of the death penalty for murder. Sorry eh, but this is not a selling point for me. This is obviously one more, spicy clause thrown in to appeal to people’s baser natures. It also ties in with doing away with the Privy Council in favour of the CCJ. I’m all in favour of this, by the way, but don’t tell me that the reason for getting rid of the PC is to reintroduce the death penalty, especially when Adrian Saunders, the Vincentian who sits on the CCJ, is stridently opposed to automatic death penalty. Don’t tell me that the big, bad Privy Council wants to restrict my right to hang people by the neck, because the CCJ, thus far, has not upheld any death penalty verdicts (to my knowledge – I speak further to correction). This is just further evidence, for me, of the misinformation that has been confusing me, and which prompted me to mistrust, thereby forcing me to vote “no”.

I could not, in good conscience, vote "yes". I cannot endorse this document because I think it has some fundamental flaws that offend my ideological stance on a couple things. This does not mean that I do not want constitutional reform, just that this manifestation of it left a bitter taste in my mouth. Nor did I vote along party lines. I do not support either political party at the moment, since I am disillusioned by them both. It is difficult to assert this, however, since people here immediately assume that a disagreement with one party is an automatic sign of sympathy with the other. Sometimes it's difficult to flex your intellectual muscles in this system since everyone wants to label you without actually listening to what you have to say.

I hope the constitutional reform process is not over. I hope that the government uses this opportunity to take the document back to the people for some practical suggestions. Clearly the consultations over the past six years have not worked. Somewhere along the line, something went wrong. I hope the government tries to figure out what it is, and fix it. Unfortunately, I do not think this will happen. According to Kenton Chance (I-Witness News), “[the PM] said [today]… that constitutional reform as a government policy [will] be placed on the backburner.”

Are we being punished for not accepting something we clearly disagree with? The one thing I noticed about the reports of the PM’s press conference this morning, more than anything else, is that he blamed everyone possible except himself. He placed blame and has not yet thanked the people of his country for telling him how we feel. He sees himself as completely blameless in the failure of this referendum when, in fact, he may have been the biggest problem from the outset. It seems that some people just aren’t made for self-reflection.

For other bloggers' thoughts on this check out: I-Witness News, Vincentian Life, Discuss SVG and And Still I Rise. My soul-sister, Empath, has yet to respond, but I'm expecting that she has much to say on this matter.