END OF THE EXPERIMENT I knew it could not last … but I had to try, anyway. That’s just the way I am … cannot take things for granted, like so many do. To me it makes no sense to just say: Oh … it’s never going to work out … why bother … it’s all going to be just a waste of time … give it a rest … these people are just the way they are … make it easy on yourself … just leap to your preconceived conclusion and go zip-a-dee-doo-dah-ing along, doing what you know you are going to have to do in the end. In a past life I must have been an experimental scientist. I have to prove things. Then, having proven to my satisfaction that things are just the way they are, I can go about doing what I have to do with a clear conscience … because I know with absolute certainty that things are just the way they are. Why do I do that? Simple: because I know I’m not God the Omniscient … and you never know … I just might be seeing things all wrong … and wind up being unjust to people who deserve better from me. You see, there just might be a surprise waiting in the wings, just waiting to be revealed … and overturn all my preconceived notions. I also need to prove things because, just like so many others, I’ve been a victim of some other person’s preconceived idea of whom or what I was, am, or will be. What’s the percentage in stumbling into that same error about somebody else? The percentage is absolute zero. That’s why we need to prove things out before we act … It’s the only way of knowing that what we are about to do is absolutely what must be done – and then go about doing it with vigor and determination. So many of us say we trust God, when what we are really doing is using blind faith as a cover for pursuing our own preferences … sort of like those Islamic and Bible-based fundamentalists do! I’m very sorry, folks … but I’m not one of those fortunate people who are on such close, buddy-buddy terms with the Almighty that any stray thought wandering into my head simply must be the Will of God. And you know – having proven it – what sort of horrors that attitude can create in the life of innocent people! Throughout History, thousands … millions … of people have died for that kind of stupidity. Fortunately, the matter at hand will not threaten the life of any innocent person … thank God. It’s just that an experiment is ended … and the resulting proof has released Yours Truly to be what I truly am. My season of producing the daily “POLITICAL IMPACT” column for the Caribbean Times newspaper is over. Harsh reality has reared its ugly head, opened wide its toothy jaws, and bitten clean through an experimental relationship: I have proven to my satisfaction that in Antigua & Barbuda the self-serving, partisan nature of our politics will not accommodate independent thought in a party organ … even in an attempt to broaden the appeal of a publication that hopes to serve the needs of an emerging democracy. The anti-Democratic impulses that dominate our psyche – produced by centuries of brutal slavery, injustice and oppression – leave little room for plurality of thought, or for inclusiveness of ideology. POLITICAL IMPACT did not appear in Caribbean Times on Friday January 23. Nor will the column appear in that publication on Monday January 26, or at any time in the future. The brave experiment is over. On Sunday January 25 – God willing – look for my next post: and read my article “THE AGONY OF BARBUDA”: the personal statement that brought an abrupt end to what has been a highly uncomfortable relationship between Yours Truly and the Antigua & Barbuda Labour Party publication. I know for a fact that the editor is breathing a huge sigh of relief!
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 04:34:44 +0000
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