By G. A. Dwyer Astaphan
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Now that I can once again enjoy almost total lingual manumission, I want to get some things off my chest.
Eight of the nine member territories of the OECS share the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (the exception is the BVI), and of those eight, six are independent nations. The two others, Anguilla and Montserrat, are both British Dependencies.
And of the six independent nations, only one, Dominica, does not have Queen Elizabeth of England as its Head of State.
Has Dominica suffered in any special way simply because it has broken away constitutionally from the British monarchy? No.
And has any special advantage or benefit been enjoyed by the other five independent nations which still cling to Her Majesty and which may now be looking forward to having her son, Prince Charles, or his son, Prince William, as their next Head of State? Not as far as I am aware.
They are all members of the Commonwealth of Nations, an international grouping including Great Britain, many of its former colonies, and its present dependencies.
And they all belong, and have access to, the same sub-regional, regional and international organizations.
But the bottom line is that they make up six of the eight members of the ECCB.
Yet, an image of the face of Queen Elizabeth of England appears on all but one of our currency notes (the only exception is the $100 note which is graced by the face of the Big Daddy of developmental economics, Sir Arthur Lewis of St. Lucia), and on all of our coins, from the 1¢ up to the $1.
Is it because, although all six are independent, five of them still have the Queen as their Head of State?
If that is the reason, it is not a good one, because at least as far as I am aware, there is no law which says that the face of the Head of State has to be on our money. But even if there is such a law, it needs to be repealed.
And if the Queen’s face is on our money, not because of any law, but because people in decision-making, or otherwise influential, positions whether within the OECS or beyond, think that it is the right thing, or a good thing, or even a cute thing, to do, then some fixing needs to be done.
This thing has been bothering me for years!
And the British Government’s recent decision to move in and take over the Turks & Caicos Islands (Man, I cannot believe that I am even penning these words in the year 2009), has only made it worse!
The British Government claims to be taking over its “dependent territory” because of “corruption in Government”.
Well, suppose we had the power to take over Great Britain because of corruption in its Government over the centuries. We might be ruling Britannia until Father God comes back for his damaged and desecrated planet Earth.
Except it’s not we who have the power It’s Brittania. So that’s never going to happen.
And so, it seems that if a controlling state thinks it has to take over a dependency, and with the stroke of an arrogant pen, it can quash election results which put people into a parliament to represent them in a democratic process (the very one which the T & I Islands inherited from Great Britain), then what is there to stop any other powerful state from doing the same to a weaker one, whether or not constitutional or administrative ties exist?
Doesn’t this scare the hell out of you? Don’t you find it revolting and offensive?
And what makes it worse is that it is coming from a nation which has always boasted of being the epitome of democracy and which preaches democracy to Third World nations as if it is Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount.
But the very, very worst aspect of it all is the fact that the community of nations has not uttered a word in protest. Not even a whimper from the G-20 nations who are meeting in London to discuss, among other things, the offshore financial industry, which they want to close down.
They don’t want to close it down globally, you know. Only in places like the Turks & Caicos, Cayman, Anguilla, BVI, Nevis, St.Kitts, Antigua, and so on, while they want to keep it going in Switzerland, London, the Channel Islands, Lichtenstein, The Hague, New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
All of the money all the options and all the world must be under their control.
It is all so shamefully symptomatic of the 21st century’s version of colonialism.
As I write this, I shudder at the thought of this happening under the approving eye of the first Black man to be elected President of the United States of America.
But I’m not judging him. Not yet. He deserves a chance.
Meanwhile, we in the Caribbean need to understand the struggle which we are up against. And we need to network among ourselves and among the other members of the African-Caribbean-Pacific family of nations, to prevent our people from being emasculated and dispossessed yet again in this new age of colonialism.
And when I say “we”, I mean we the people. We cannot leave these things up to leaders. They must take the cue from us. That is what vigorous democracy is all about. The more vigilant and proactive the people are, the less autocratic and bureaucratic our leaders will be.
This is the path which we must take.
And along the way, we need to do all we can to ‘big up’ our own people.
That is why we need to put OECS faces on our money.
Don’t you feel great when you are holding an EC$100 note in your hand? Not just because it is what it is, but because it bears the face of the great St. Lucian economist, Sir Arthur Lewis.
It is a source of pride, inspiration and honour, a son of the OECS gracing the currency of the people of the OECS.
Imagine the $50, the $20, the $10, and the $5 notes, as well as the $1 coin, the 25¢, the 10¢, the 5¢, the 2¢ and the 1¢ coins all bearing the faces of OECS persons.
And let’s not just imagine it. Let’s make it happen. Let’s bring this thing home, Man!
How do we do it? We get the schools and the communities across the OECS involved. Let them research and discuss the names of outstanding sons and daughters of the OECS. Let the discussion go to the media.
This process would be very educational and inspirational, and it would help us to better define ourselves as children of the OECS, and as a proud and independent people.
Yes, I know that we are small and relatively weak. And I know how painful geopolitics can be for weaker nations. But we have to stand up for something!
Let names be submitted to a select panel of OECS citizens, headed up by the Central Bank Governor, Sir Dwight Venner.
And let us tell our story and talk t each other through our money.
