OPINION: Just For A Loaf Of Bread? Nah!

JUST FOR A LOAF OF BREAD? NAH!

Alvette ‘Ellorton’ Jeffers

“Good name in man and woman, dear my Lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls;

Who steals my purse steals trash;

…But he that filches from me my good name

Robs me of that which not enriches him

And makes me poor indeed.” (Othello Act 3. Sc 3.)

Barbudans’ defiance of the ruling Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP) government sometimes draws ridicule from ABLP’s supporters and some non-supporters too. They consider them to be willfully disobedient. With those disapprovals comes the suggestion that, notwithstanding the existence of their Council, they should accept as a fait accompli, that power to decide what gets done on the island of Barbuda ultimately rests with the government. These non-sympathizers seem to prefer their demonstration of obeisance to the government and a rejection of the notion that they have agency. People are not bound to display fidelity to any authority, especially one that is hostile to their self-interest. If that was the case, colonialism would still be in existence. A significant number of Barbudans do believe that they should have a decisive role in the shaping of Barbuda. They are not prepared to allow PLH and the government to decide, by themselves, what kind of place Barbuda should be. From what I have observed, those are the beliefs that direct Barbudans’ efforts to end the government’s monopoly of political power. That is going to be an uphill struggle. But it is a struggle they seem willing to endure. “Men, when they come to feel their strength and to be conscious of their responsibility and their value, will no longer suffer another man to impose his will on them and claim the right to control their actions and thoughts.” (Antonio Gramsci, Selected Writings 1910-1920.)

What is this imposition Barbudans are seeking to repel? They are witnessing the implementation of a development program, of which Peace, Love and Happiness (PLH) is its vanguard. This economic program disempowers, normalizes economic dependency, and prioritizes the private accumulation of wealth. Any claim to the contrary is patently disingenuous and is made to beguile the most susceptible. The Antiguan government is gleefully aiding and abetting the process. It is so single mindedly committed to the foreign

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investment class, that it cannot begin to imagine an alternative policy that would enable Barbudans to become economically self-determining. The absence of such a policy when combined with the act of dispossession and enclosures, are all intended to make Barbudans solely reliant on the sale of their labor to avert penury. Additionally, the transfer of communal lands to investors, establishes their right to draw lines of demarcation on land and in the sand. If Barbudans breach those lines of demarcation, they face arrest. It is what has already happened to them while they were on their way to their beach. PLH and its ilk are allowed to manipulate the environment to add value to their enterprise, and they have been accused of displaying minimum concern for the danger its manipulation of the environment poses for the animals, birds, plants, insects, and humans.

The same political power that has sanctioned their dispossession and is hindering the community’s actualization, is determining their survival by making it contingent on PLH’s self-preserving decisions. Consequently, both PLH and the government hold Barbudans’ lives in the balance. To ask Barbudans to be obeisant to the government that is manufacturing their precarity, is asking them to behave like manipulable objects as opposed to acting like human beings who know what they want and what they do not want. At public forums, Barbudans often make it known that the proposed PLH, real estate project could not but be a matter of concern for them since its outcomes were going to be consequential. That is the reason why they want to influence the project’s fate. The government ridicules Barbudans’ calls for public engagement and it asserts that they lack any expertise to judge the merits of any investment project. In the now famous Privy Council case, John Mussington, and Jackie Frank vs the Antigua Government, the ABLP government presented those same specious arguments to the court. The February, 2024 judgment has affirmed that Ms. Frank, Mr. Mussington, and every other citizen have a right to subject government’s projects to scrutiny because they are citizens of the country. Nothing else is required. The Privy Council’s ruling instructs the Government to adhere to this basic democratic principle. Nevertheless, the government still thinks and acts otherwise. It continues to tell Barbudans that they and their Council have no pertinence to the plans for Barbuda. It does not stop at berating their intellect. Recently, it went a step further. It is now proving to them that it can dispossess them of the natural autonomy they possess to determine how their family titles can be used. The government has appropriated the Burton’s family name and over their public objections, it has used it to name the new airport, whose existence is still to be determined by the court. Mr. Burton, who is now deceased, was a member of Parliament. This question, therefore, begs itself. If Barbudans’ family names are not theirs to safeguard, and the government can use them as it pleases, with what then are Barbudans left? This callous indifference to Barbudans thoughts, feelings, and aspirations, marks a new low. By itself, it justifies their defiance and their refusal to adjust to injustice.

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The destruction of Barbuda in 2017 by hurricane Irma, marked the start of the ABLP government’s assault on their personhood. A concentrated effort to make them belief they were nonentities, was started. For only nonentities could accept that they could be “deracinated,” at any time, from the land on which they have lived on for hundreds of years. Insults were added to injury. The threat of police violence was always present, and according to Dr. Hannah Arendt, violence is always used to force people to do what they refuse to do. (Violence, 1969.) Barbudans refuse to accept that they are nonentities or that they can be deracinated at any time. The unrelenting insults, the disregard with which they are treated, and the ever-present threat of violence, have not deterred them from affirming the ideals that accord with their social priorities. What irks the Brown administration most, is that they have not wilted. They refuse to believe the myth that PLH and their ilk are in Barbuda for the good of Barbudans. Their position is the correct one, because it is generally accepted that capitalists treat labor as an unavoidable liability to be rid of the moment new and affordable technologies make its replacement possible. It is for that reason why Antigua’s investors talk about the benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI) worries the Antigua Workers Union (AWU). It knows that they can, for business reasons, make workers redundant and replaceable at any time. But will the workers be allowed to prevent this from happening? Will they gain inspiration from Barbudans? Social observers have begun to speculate on the social consequences for a world whose economy is becoming less reliant on labor for the production of its goods and services. So, do not believe the investors’ hype when they make the claim that their investments are for the good of the people. Such altruism does not exist.

Despite the opposition and the denigration, Barbudans are still trying to figure out the way that will make it possible for them to determine what direction the economy takes. if they are made unable to do so, then they will be facing a future not of their own making; a future which will see them reduced to being a cog in an ongoing economic process that does not function to satisfy their needs. So far, their voices still echo loudly their resentment for the politics that is instrumentalizing their subordination and precarity. That politics expect that they accept their subordination for a loaf of bread. Men and women will not live by bread alone. (Mathew, 4.4) They never have. They never will. Bread fuel the energy needed for the effort to make living rewarding. Its psychological and intellectual satisfaction commences the moment they acquire full autonomy over the processes that nurtures social culture. This is what the ABLP is deliberately hindering in Barbuda. The desire to reaffirm their humanity, when others are being pernicious in distorting it, is the reason why Barbudans are willfully disobedient. I sincerely hope this is understood.

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