Adolph Hitler was a persuasive and fiery orator and populist politician.He grew an oddly and uniquely shaped moustache which became part of his branding.
He was a power hungry, arrogant, dictatorial, imperialistic, genocidal war monger who ruthlessly relished abusing, intimidating, punishing and even liquidating those who opposed him and those whom he saw as a threat to his supremacy and dominance. He was a tyrant.
He became the leader of Germany in 1933 when people were looking for relief from the Great Depression and for something different from the norm.
He set out to dominate Europe and the world. And in pursuance of his mission of conquest to turn Germany into the global, White supremacist super power, he started World War 2 which, by time it ended in 1945 after six years of hostilities, left an estimated 70-80 million people dead, whether from actual war violence, or from starvation, illness, etc.
That’s the legacy of Adolph Hitler in a nutshell. A tyrant.
Then there’s Donald Trump. Everybody knows him. He too is a tyrant.
Our Caribbean has more than its fair share of tyrants. And like other tyrants, they’re self absorbed and they’re ruthlessly and vindictively intolerant of, and want to neutralize, all opposition, totally dominate their own parties, their governments, their little 2 by 4 countries and, if only in terms of image and ego, the region.
They’re bullies, and they wilfully oversee a formal and informal education model which doesn’t encourage independent thought, objectivity and analysis; doesn’t nurture civic consciousness and enlightenment; and turns people into spineless, dependent jellyfish.
They’re the architects of a social construct which dumbs down and intimidates, and which ideally would have us either silent in fear, or obligingly and slavishly shouting the glory of leaders who seek to perpetuate their own ascendancy by maintaining our degradation.
We still seem to love kings, and so we are quick to anoint and accept these tyrants as our kings.
It’s a damned shame to see how our post Independence leaders in the Caribbean, our mini Hitlers and mini Trumps have taken the British colonial manipulation tactic under which we saw them, the British, as our opponents, and turned it into today’s model in which we see each other as opponents. The home-grown version of divide and rule.
This is what the mini Hitlers and mini Trumps of the Caribbean are doing.
Yet, in spite of all of this, there are some of us who, at least when the pain is to hard to bear, scream out, we stand up and we say what we have to say.
Case in point, Antigua’s pensioners.
A group of them confronted our mini Hitler/Trump (“MHT”) recently and let him know in no uncertain terms that he had to go. Here they are, in the twilight of their lives, barely getting by on a pittance for a pension, and even that they cannot get on time, while MHT and his colleagues are getting their full salaries, buying their high-priced cars and living high off the hog.
Whereas a real leader takes the lead in empathizing with the suffering of his people, indeed whereas a real leader suffers first, and whereas a real leader shows compassion and respect for our elders, MHT engaged the frustrated and anxious pensioners with a confrontational and even dismissive attitude, basically telling them to go to Social Security and protest, because he doesn’t run Social Security and he and his Administration are doing their part.
Everybody in this country knows that MHT controls Social Security. So he’s also taking them for fools.
He even told them that he wasn’t afraid of them, something you usually hear from someone who is actually afraid but says he isn’t, in an effort to ‘throw them off’.
I have to say that between those pensioners and George Wehner, MHT’s weakness, arrogance, and unsuitability to lead Antigua & Barbuda were embarrassingly exposed for all to see. Wehner had the tyrant rattled.
Rather than empathize with and embrace the protesters as their Prime Minister, no matter the politics of the people in the crowd, MHT chose to be confrontational, arrogant, and tyrannical. Or maybe he didn’t choose. Maybe he just couldn’t help himself.
Either way, as he squandered a glorious opportunity to try to heal divisiveness and to act as if he is the leader of all of us, MHT displayed his small-minded, tyrannical unsuitability.
An Administration which takes such good care of its leaders and other high ups but can’t take care of its country’s elderly is a failed Administration and its leader is a failed leader. When you cannot solve the energy and water problems, with all of the chat about this or that big project and tens and hundreds of millions of dollars, you are a B….S… Administration and your leader is an MHT with plenty bark and no bite.(Hitler would be ashamed of you growing a moustache like his).
MHT, you want to be King of Antigua & Barbuda, but you won’t be. We will stop you. Pensioners vote, their children and grand children vote,other relatives vote, and their friends vote.
The people in the Post office, which is loaded with mould and unfit for work, also vote. The Police, Customs, Fire, Prison, nurses, teachers and the rest, they vote too. And they have friends and family.
Antigua & Barbuda needs wise, visionary, healing, empathetic leadership, not thuggish tyrants.
MHT, that means you gotta go!
