Table talk, everything in one. Illustration Copyright © 2021 by Izora Devonish.
DEAR MIA,
May I call you Mia? Madam Prime Minister? PM? Not Aunty Mia. I know who my aunts are and have been, and that would confuse our relationship, or what it is supposed to be.
How to begin?
Not where? We are where we are, and if you believe our elders, we should talk more in terms of the cyclical rather than the strictly linear. We have been where we are now at some time before. Pestilence. Government action. Public reaction. Declaration. Resistance. Self-determination. Only the details of the circumstances, or moment, are altered. That may be the first item to agree on.
You’ve led protests here in Barbados. Remember the one against the municipal solid waste tax? July 24, 2014. We don’t need to reach for Malcolm or MLK, Gandhi, the White Rose Movement or Viola Desmond. Barbados has always had its own sense of ins/urgency: Bussa, Payne, Gabby, Sobers, TT Lewis, Ann Gill…Nanny Grig. Bajans do know how to rumble, not just grumble.
True, the protest you led was not during any pandemic, like the protests we’ve been having the last eighteen months (over everything from Nelson to vaccination), but pandemic, to put it as plainly as we both would, ent stop living or dying, loving or hating, eating or the need to mek money. It ent stop what is necessary in life. And right now, what’s needed, what’s necessary, is for us to be talking more.
There is time. It may not always seem so. At least over a drink or two. For an evening’s exchange, or sharing. Time to talk to, not down to; with, instead of at.
I can’t understand what now, after decades of waiting, appears to be this rushing republicanism. And I can’t understand the belated haste to talk to our people about the meaning of mandated vaccination, but that one may require another meeting. If you’re available. If you’re up for it. Because it would be easier to talk about mandating vaccination with a sufficient supply of vaccines already in-house for the population. It’d be easier, too, if the World Health Organization was all in on this. I hear they have their reservations, their questions.
Questions. There are so many questions so many of us have. I asked my fourteen-year-old daughter the other day to write down five questions she had about Barbados becoming a republic. She gave me nine, then. (I’m convinced she miscounted and was aiming for ten.) The first: What is a republic? The second: Who will be our president? The seventh: Why is it that we want to be a republic? The eighth: What plans are there for us after being turned into a republic?
You could see where she was going. We can agree she’s going to need some help getting there, and not only from her old Papa.
We both know what our elders say (or used to), that tekin time ent laziness. For this republic thing, you hold, quite frankly, all the right cards. A majority government. Past reports in favour of the project. A people largely behind you. A fallen Nelson.
You talk about governing, in the absence of dialogue. You once told me, almost twenty years ago, when you were this country’s first female attorney-general, that you believed in taking your own counsel…. Yes. Yes. For what it’s worth, I agree with you. Sometimes, men and women must be governed. But I’ve seen that movie, too; I know how it ends. Men and women also need to be led, inspired, most importantly consulted by those they have elected to represent them, to serve their very best interests…as you also said to me you believed, all those years ago. Because listening is caring.
So, I ask you, how do you wish to begin?
But where muh manners? Pardon me. I was taught better than that. By far.
Step in. Leff on your shoes if yuh like. Have a seat. The kitchen table is fine—no folding chairs required. Would you like a drink, a malt? Something stronger? I was sorry to hear about your brother. I know what it’s like to lose a loved one unexpectedly. So tell me more about this republic thing, and what you have in mind for vaccination. And what we can do about joblessness, and creating opportunities for our people…. Lewwe talk, as my parents used to say, everything in one.
With nuff respect.
