Power, Politics And People — It Is Clear That There Is A Need To Teach The Mechanics Of Power To Caribbean-American Leaders

Part I of III Part Series

Eric Gairy	Forbes Burnham	Dr. Eric Williams

It always amuses me to no end to see presumed Caribbean-American political and other leaders entering a room with their little suits on and smug features exuding pseudo-power to the uninformed and largely clueless masses. They wax grandiloquent, effusive and gushing so many verbal "absolutely" and "no problems" that the script has become redundant and trite. It is clear that many need a crash course in the art and science of power and power-relations.

But let me clear up some basic misunderstandings. Being elected to political office is a not an automatic assumption of power. Nor is posturing, bombast and slick talk for the TV cameras and newspaper reporters. That is empty, hollow rhetoric that makes some people feel good but in the end achieves – nothing. The thing is that, by its very nature, politics breeds prima donnas, egotists, bigots and political harpies who rapidly forget what they told people to get elected and why they were elected in the first place. The glitz and glamour replaces what little common sense resided between their ears.

A few others have understood that power, politics and people are the necessary ingredients that build strong communities and when all three are combined the political leader becomes truly, and genuinely powerful. But built into this mix are issues of loyalty, common sense, thoughtfulness and relationship building. In fact, relationship building is one of the foundations of real power, political or otherwise.

No businessman does business with his enemy. Likewise no political leadership of any country builds relations with its enemies. You do business with those you consider friends and who share some commonality with you. Nations establish diplomatic ties with those who share their values, whatever they may be. These nations exert enormous amounts of time, energy and resources to keep those relations intact.

This then, is the first law of power – relations and relationship-building are keys to realizing individual power. But to exert control, and thus power over others, one must keep the initiative, to get others to react to your actions. So that any momentarily triumph that you believe you may have gained through treachery, false arguments, and little acts of betrayal is really nothing more than a Pyrrhic victory: the resentment and ill will that you would stir up is far stronger and lasts longer than any momentary change of opinion. And politics is about opinions – people’s opinions.

So that lesson number one of the art of using power is that genuine power comes from the ability to get others to agree with you through your actions without saying a word. In short: demonstrate, do not explicate. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by insulting a person unnecessarily. To guard against this, an individual must learn to see through appearances and their contradictions. Never trust the version that a person, especially a politician, gives of him or herself – it is utterly unreliable.

In politics, alliances and relationships are notoriously temporary, fickle and untrustworthy. The thing is that those who understand how genuine power – not simply the perception of power- works, understand this, and can separate out political relationships that are at best fleeting and based on reciprocity in action, and personal, people-to-people relationships that are based on honesty and shared values. In this regard, there is a school of thought that it is only a fool in politics who always rushes to take sides. True power does not allow becoming a lackey to any cause.

But the sad thing in politics is that done right, a combination of vapid and vague promises to a malleable populace, cloudy but alluring concepts, that is, spin doctoring, and fiery enthusiasm always stir up people’s souls and that causes near-fanatical groups to gravitate to-wards this neophyte of power. Indeed, politics is, in its rawest sense, nothing but a cult, and the politician, the leader. In the developing countries of the world, electoral and other violence carried out in the name of this or that party by hordes of die-hard party hacks explains why, for example, Caribbean political leaders wield such awesome power, relatively speaking.

Indeed, perhaps the best examples of the use and development of genuine power are the elected dictatorships that abound in that region. Caribbean Prime Ministers control absolute political and thus, genuine power in their countries. They understand how to build strong relationships and to reward them for their support. For example, in Jamaica, politics is a two-party affair that alternates between the Peoples National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

Once in power, these Prime Ministers hire, fire, shuffle their cabinets at will, and demand total loyalty to both party and Prime Minister. The constituents come in third. In between elections, except for acts of treason, it is near impossible to unseat or recall a Prime Minister. Once in power they lie, cheat, punish opponents, manipulate and reward jobs and other favors based on party loyalty and support. By building these relationships, these politicians control every facet of life in these countries. That, my friend, is genuine power.

Former and now deceased Caribbean Prime Ministers understood power, people and politics in a way that none of the present crop of leaders does today. Eric Gairy of Grenada, Vere Bird of Antigua and Barbuda, Bradshaw of St. Kitts and Nevis, Linden Forbes Burnham of Guyana, and Eric Williams of Trinidad and Tobago were masters of political power and people politics. Hear how calypsonian the Mighty Sparrow, sang about politics and power in a social commentary on Eric Williams:

"I say that Solomon will be Minister of External Affairs / and who don’t like it, get to hell out of here / who is not with me is my enemy/and thus will be their destiny."

And Eric Williams was an educated, unflappable leader whose dictatorial powers were always hidden under a veneer of simple, almost absent-minded mannerisms. What the Mighty Sparrow was singing about was the fact that Eric Williams was making one of his staunchest allies Minister of External Affairs over mounting public and political objections.

Finally, there is this little matter of truth in politics and how that translates into power. Politicians have mastered the art of spin. This is the modern communications technique that uses half-truths, outright lies, doctored truth, semantics and verbal evasions to confuse and befuddle its consumers. It is nothing more than lying in a nice way. Most politicians avoid truth because it is sometimes ugly and unpleasant. Moreover, they fear the anger that some hard truths bring and the resentment that follows. So, to put it bluntly: they lie.

Indeed, political fantasy, the deliberate tinkering with truth, is a strange tiger to bell. Fantasy does not operate alone. In its intrinsic form it takes on the shape of oppression, hopelessness and longing among the powerless, so that reality is shoved aside and fantasy – political and otherwise – takes root and blossoms. For politicians to exert power over the people the methodology that exploits this oppression and hopelessness and thus creates a political fantasy is the deliberate preying on the insecurities and weaknesses of the masses.

There is a way to turn the tables on those political leaders given to devilish shenanigans. Since power is an acquired skill requiring long and serious devotion and practice, those who are inept are easy to spot. Bragging, loud, attention-grabbing behavior oftentimes conceals an insecure opposite. Chest-thumping, verbose and vitriolic spewing and bringing down vengeance from Heaven often conceals a sniveling coward, while the politically uptight hides an addictive yearning for adventure.

The shy are dying for attention and those who are constantly wooing the public with intellectual behavior are usually very limited indeed. By looking beyond appearances, it is easy to find the "true person" under the concealed surface. Therefore, the political hypocrite did not become this overnight but has long been a very limited, insecure little man or woman. Political treachery and betrayal are not the things that are based simply on expediency or raw political opportunism and ambition: they are based on an individual character flaw that has loyalty to no principle and honesty in no dealings. Trust for such a person is an alien concept.

Such persons have not the faintest clue about power, people or politics. Indeed, the politically insecure are suckers for any form of validation by their peers or their sycophants. And it is this need for validation, to belong and to feel some false sense of power that the true guru of power will be able to exploit, because this egotism and emotion is a weakness that lays the foundation for self-defeating anger.

Angry people usually end up looking very foolish. Genuine use of power banishes egotistical anger and helps limit the angry response that looks out of proportion to the issue that caused it in the first place. Politicians need to understand this power tool, because their egos usually get in the way and cloud their judgments and reasoning powers. They thus exaggerate their real or perceived hurts and insults and become over-sensitive to the slightest thing and engage in childish and comical displays of powerlessness dressed up as real power.

More hilarious in their infantile reasoning is their belief that their angry outbursts, the kind of childish embarrassing temper-tantrums regularly thrown by people like State Senator Kevin Parker, signify real power. The truth is the opposite. Petulance is not power, but a sign of helplessness and immaturity. Yes, people may be temporarily cowed by these displays but in the end, such politicians lose the respect of the people. For those who understand how to play with power, such a person is easily undermined because he or she has so little self-control.

In politics, politicians usually say that theirs was and is a calling to serve the people. One wonders exactly what went wrong, since the people are ill-served and have only the arrogance and incompetence of the clique to show for their efforts. There is very little consultation with the people who voted them into office and so they gradually become alienated from society. This dynamic leads ultimately to a low-level conflict between elected and elector. Now open, now closed, this conflict rages between those who were betrayed and those who betrayed them. It is a conflict between the duped and hoodwinked powerless and those who equate show-boating and posturing with power.

Machiavelli was right: necessity is what impels men [and women] to take action, and once the necessity is gone, only rot and decay are left.

Next issue: Politics, Power and Leadership: The Art Of Succeeding