- Response To: Of Dangerous Cocktails and Deluding Credentials:
Who would have imagined in August 1950 that a then 4-year-old boy, scion of “poor” “peasants” from Portugal, would eighteen years later begin to position himself, at the salad age of 23, as a political heavyweight. He was a student among other students criticizing a head of government.
Guiding impressive economic growth in 1968 Jamaica, Hugh Lawson Shearer was the third prime minister of the largest English-speaking nation in the Caribbean. How dare that Vincentian nascent Marxist challenge a prime minister? Though later admitted to the legal bar, because he was certainly qualified so to be, no mainstream political party of the day would admit him through their doors. The voters gave no seat and not even five percent of the population would sanction Yulimo in 1984. Ralph knew his MNU would never create significant grounding with his brothers or sisters in SVG. So, a decade later he decided to disguise his politics, politically stalk Vincent Beach and voila, re-appear as the original crispy-flavoured SVLP. Ralph was a skilled but unpopular political barman mixing socially destructive cocktails of an intoxicating Communist ideology, blending the bitters of politics, brewed of watered-down Stalinist spirits. Yet there he was at 23 in 1968, surrounded no doubt by other students protecting him, confronting a seasoned democratic politician. How out of place could this young upstart be? Was he deluded? Or was he right to stand up with others and act against a Jamaican government that was perpetuating colonial crimes?
The Shearer administration was indeed forcing racial, self-hating and political prejudices against its own Caribbean people.
But did Hugh Shearer jump on a newspaper to rant about how wet-behind-the-ears and immature those UWI students were and how politically transcendent and gloriously resplendent he was as a prime minister?
Only persons who simmer with low-self-esteem, especially as their star nears its nadir, find it necessary to shout about themselves while seeking to diminish others. “Crushing grapes to show their strength”, explaining the actions of some politicians, my father offered this metaphor. For many humans it is impossible to overcome the trauma that attended us in our childhood. Many people, depending on a range of contextual factors, become bitter, not better, and exact revenge for the rest of their lives on those who may offer meaningful critique whether family, friends, fellow citizens.
To the population of 61,000 persons in his own St. Vincent in 1946, Ralph Gonsalves and all other descendants of families from Portugal were, unfortunately, derisively regarded with a social slur, “potohgee”. This insidious weapon of negative socialization induced trauma. Trauma is an injury to the body, psyche and soul, all of which, in most cases, keep recalling the injury decades after it occurs. And like the honeybee’s barbed stinger, which is the weapon which delivers the sting, that stinger can often break off and remain in the skin. “Potogee” was the sting and the stinger of the hypocritical Black and White honeybees, the population of colonial St. Vincent in the early part of the twentieth century, the era in which Ralph “grew up” but maybe never did. “Potohgee” was a venom, the social effects of which would last a long time and, in some cases, a lifetime. How should Ralph have responded to this stone slung at him and his people? It was a venom from a society purposely divided by the colonial psychopaths into economic and social class, the classic colonial MO: divide and conquer. And this Ralph learned to do as well. Gifted with a magnificent and prodigious brain, he wisely chose to arm himself with higher education as an antidote. And, unwisely, in my opinion, a career in the lunge and thrust of radical politics. “Unwisely” because he chose Marxism as his guiding political philosophy, he was therefore regarded as a Communist in a time when Communism was beginning to fall fast into a most disfavoured state. And Ralph followed. Until, that is, he hatched the SVLP / Vincent Beach-get-in-through-the-back-door-strategy . . . and it worked.
What personal dangerous cocktail had handsome Ewart concocted and then imbibed that made him drunk with such egoic delusions that he thought he could challenge a political heavyweight, a prime minister? Hugh Shearer was, of course, like most prime ministers at the end of their trajectories, wrong in his judgement and therefore politically weakened – as is Prime Minister Gonsalves today, almost 60 years later:
I could not believe what I was reading. The author of the article, clearly au fait with the English language, clearly erudite and accustomed to flourishes with the pen, was vociferously using it like a sword to, like a literary Cain against Abel, diminish his brother, to disparage, denigrate and denounce him, a fellow citizen of his own country, the author plotting against a righteous man, gnashing his teeth at him, because . . . that man was . . . once a bartender on a cruise ship? The author of, “Travis Harry and the Dangerous Delusions of Cocktail Credentials” repeatedly swung his sword and bent his bow in odious attempts to belittle Travis Harry, a local hero helping to rouse to responsive action thousands of sleeping citizens of St. Vincent and the Grenadines from their slumber. The writer slid snide comments into his verbiage, viciously attacking, Travis Harry, a citizen – the highest office in the land, remember? And why this ambush in the night? Because, according to the author
That young, successful businessman, that humble human, dared to criticize the “political heavyweight” the great, the omniscient, the omnipotent politician-demigod, “longest-serving” Prime Minister, Ralph Gonsalves, and in addition
that mere human, according to the article’s author, as I understand it, is not capable of criticizing Ralph Gonsalves – nor is he permitted to – because . . . that Travis Harry, [also born with a prodigious, innately forensic brain], this Vincentian, once worked on a cruise ship and therefore, – according to the author – because Ralph Gonsalves is the prime minister, this former Restaurant Manager on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, who was responsible for operations of all seventeen (17) restaurants on the ship but who, according to Ralph – sorry, I mean according to the author of the article – this man used to “wipe down tables on a cruise ship” so he has no right to criticize Ralph Gonsalves.
What? What?? WHAT???
Surely someone has lost touch – as had Pharaoh – with reality. Could this be the condition psychologists refer to as psychosis? The American Psychological Association defines psychosis as, “a state characterized by a significant loss of touch with reality, marked by distortions in perception, thought and behaviour. This can manifest as delusions (false beliefs) and disorganized thinking”.
Surely even a non-lettered person, lacking critical analytical skills, can easily determine that that article was born of disorganized thinking and a mind embroiled with “double, double toil and trouble” a brain simmering with “fire burn and cauldron bubble”. Oh, such vile musings are indeed a cocktail concocted and blended by the devil himself, lodged in the human ego of a man dangerous and delusional, of a devious mind, seeking to sow doubt and division among a disadvantaged people.
How could someone so educated engage in such despicable dribble and puerile trifle? The writer was making the most ill-conceived supposition that Travis Harry who, because he was “slinging margaritas” as a bartender on a cruise ship does not have the “insight” to call out the obvious mismanagement of a prime minister. When the truth is, that Travis Harry is a trained and experienced manager who worked in a 168-billion-dollar global industry (as of FY 2023) on one of its floating cities, a ship that cost anywhere from $500,000,000 (five hundred million) to $1.5 billion (One billion, five hundred million) to manufacture, a floating city that costs one million dollars a day to maintain. A floating city that is daily far better managed and maintained, to say the least, than the ship of state of SVG under the mismanagement of, not a “political heavyweight”, but a politically overweight prime minister, carrying around political pounds that are weighing us down, socio-economically, psychologically and spiritually.
Travis Harry was always disciplined as a person. Then with that innate gift he was honed into a professional manager and leader under the most stringent management training required by the cruise ship industry. The article writer / sycophant / personal-political propagandist would have us believe that all Travis Harry did was “sling margaritas and wipe down tables. The truth is – and this can be verified – Travis Harry was educated, trained and authorized to, among other responsibilities, manage seventeen (17) specialty restaurants and was required to report to the Executive Committee on progress, development and performance of middle managers and, in this process, he deployed KPI – Key Performance Indicators – in evaluating and guiding productivity. The government of SVG might do well to follow Travis Harry’s professional modus operandi in administering government business. I doubt Key Performance Indicators have ever been deployed in any Ralph Gonsalves-ruined economy. The evidence is palpable.
Travis Harry is as perceptive as a philosopher and as composed as a warrior, the modern-day Garifuna citizen-fighter he is. Travis Harry exemplifies the same brave fighting spirit, courage under fire and winning attitude exuded by His Excellency, Joseph Chatoyer, our only national hero. The arrow of Harry’s truth-seeking focus always finds its target. Armed with the rod of technology and the staff of a sharp mind, Harry, hunts down political predators with the spear of God-fearing truth, doing the right thing – simultaneously doing the thing right. A barista with the brains of a sharp barrister, Travis Harry serves a powerful cocktail of hard-hitting facts to counter the libation of lies of those cruising for a bruising at the polls on election day at the end of 2025. Harry and his crewmates, the electorate, the voters of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, will wipe the table clean of the political mess. Harry’s peaceful approach of serving seems to disturb only those who are perturbed by their ongoing peccadillos and the present political predicament in which they find themselves as Vincentians mark time, preparing to move forward as Christian soldiers marching onto war against corruption and no more of 24 years of political and economic mismanagement. Unlike those in their prime, the politically paranoid, Travis Harry is not gambling with people’s lives like dice, Harry is Vincentian-centered, purpose-driven and precise.
Who knew that Travis Harry would become a veritable and reputable news reporter, exceeding the achievements of some trained and paid journalists. Harry is an information detective with a forensic mind. He hunts down and researches the stories that matter, unearthing the covered-up, reporting the lies others have been dressed up. Who knew that so effective an outlier would Harry be that he would gain national attention because of his unstinting and voluntary service to the nation, to the citizens – the highest office in the land – of our country.
This is happening decades after one special day at the Methodist Church, when, with Travis Harry’s vision, he chose his mission, to climb aboard the cruise ship industry as a career. Who knew that that would eventually steer him, veer him on a course towards being the virtuous against the villainous, who now seek vengeance because this vigilant Vincentian is revealing the vapid, empty barrels of verbose political promises. Who knew that Travis Harry would in 2025 bring veracity and high value to Vincentians, who now lament their paraphrase, in spirit with Brother Bob, “We no longer want to wait in vain for the vilifying lie of “Labour love”.
As the captain of his own lifeboat, Travis Harry abandoned the city lights of cruise ship life to sail as a responsible citizen on the Ship of State, the Sovereign of the Seas, the good ship SVG. Captain Harry is traversing territory that the timid fear to tread. Why? Because he is called. And who God calls, God equips. God has equipped Travis Harry with courage and the mental weaponry, as he did David against Goliath, to insure victory for the people of SVG. The people, following God and Travis Harry’s discoveries, will divide the Red C and walk right through it to freedom. God did this with Moses. God chose Moses, a man with a speech impediment, to inform a powerful politician, Pharaoh, who considered himself a god, to set the enslaved people free. And today, in SVG, this unpaid, volunteer army of one, is well equipped. He speaks in the Vincentian vernacular, and every single Vincentian knows Travis Harry is speaking truth to power. We, the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, in the country and around the world, agree with this leader from North Leeward. Power is comprised of authority and influence. Some powerful persons block others and enter through back doors to gain authority to self-aggrandize, other powerful persons have influence. Authority comes from God who gives it to the people. Politicians trick populations into giving away their power to said snakes in suits. Most politicians simply steal power. Influence is often a direct, unrequested, giving of power from a people to an ordinary citizen. This is why Travis Harry is powerful and successful. He has influence, power that he did not ask for, but power which is being given to him by the people who seek a leader, a captain, who works assiduously for and tells the truth of the ship of state on which we are all aboard. We Vincentians recognize the truth and power of Harry’s words, because his words and actions align with ours, his fellow citizens of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. His peaceful and relentless approach seems to disturb only those who are perturbed by their ongoing political peccadillos and the present political predicament in which they find themselves as Vincentians, as one tribe, prepare to roll, to pitch forward as Christian soldiers marching onto war. They will march against corruption and 24 years of socio-economic mismanagement. Except those few getting a free ride on the train fueled by gravy, all Vincentians are now resolute in their determination, silently and resolutely marching with Travis Harry – as did the Indian population with Gandhi to the seawater, kicking out the then most powerful, most odious government of the UK from India. So too, Vincentians are trooping behind Travis, marching to the poles where they will vote for massive change to savour the sweet sensation of unshackled freedom and a brighter, new, cloudless, non-delusional day, safe from the expired and dangerous credentials of the politically obese, free from the clear and present danger that currently stalks SVG.
Here’s your daiquiri, sir. Enjoy.
