Patriotism

Patriotism is the Last Refuge of a Scoundrel. So pronounced Samuel Johnson, the British lexicographer. I read a story on the Barbados Free Press today [link here]. It was about how Ministers of Government in Bridgetown use “patriotism” to silence their critics. It rang a bell with me. I never thought it was possible in Barbados. Not only is it possible. We learn that recently Barbados Government Ministers have taken steps to suppress free speech and opposition. Government Ministers now openly threaten citizens who ask reasonable questions about the lack of accountability and transparency and the conflicts of interest that make overnight millionaires of elected representatives. On the Barbados Labour Party Blog [link here], and in the Nation News [link here], citizens are being told that they should remain quiet about corruption in the Barbados government. The explanation given in the two links above? To publicly speak about government corruption is “unpatriotic”!

Thank heavens nothing like that can happen in Anguilla! We don’t have corruption at Ministerial level.

Compare that with the story from the Cayman Islands about the Ombudsman investigating a complaint against a Minister [link here]. Cayman Net News has filed a complaint with the Ombudsman against Minister Charles Clifford for cancelling freight arrangements for the paper’s newsprint from Miami. The reason? The paper has been printing articles critical of the Minister [link here]. The Minister has retaliated against the paper by making it difficult for them to get newsprint. Nothing like that could happen here in Anguilla. Our papers don’t print articles critical of any Minister! It also helps that we do not have an Ombudsman. So, we cannot complain even if we wanted to!