WE MUST RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO CREATE SAINTS
This is why biographies such as Reynolds’ work are important, but they also impose a responsibility upon readers. We should read about Compton, Odlum, George Charles, and the men and women who built our institutions, organized workers, expanded education, negotiated constitutional advances, fought political battles, and imagined possibilities for this small island. But we should never surrender our independent judgment to biography, nostalgia or political loyalty. Every great leader had weaknesses. Every visionary made mistakes. Every government disappointed somebody, and every political giant possessed blind spots that became clearer with the benefit of time.
To acknowledge Compton’s extraordinary contribution does not require pretending that Compton was perfect. To recognize Odlum’s intellectual brilliance does not require agreeing with everything Odlum believed. To honor George Charles’ contribution to working people does not require rewriting the complexities of his political career. That is the difference between history and worship. Mature nations are capable of honoring their heroes without turning them into saints and examining their failures without transforming them into demons.
THE GENERATION THAT REMEMBERS IS DISAPPEARING
There is another reason this discussion has become urgent. The Saint Lucians who personally remember the formative political struggles of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s are growing older. Every year we lose voices, and every funeral can take with it memories that were never recorded. Stories, conversations, and firsthand accounts gradually disappear, and when memory is lost without being documented, mythology begins to take its place. Younger generations are then left with convenient slogans: “Compton built Saint Lucia,” “Odlum was a revolutionary,” or “George Charles fought for the workers.” But slogans are not history.
Our children deserve to know what actually happened. What circumstances confronted these leaders? What arguments divided them? What choices did they make? What opposition did they encounter? What did they accomplish, what did they misunderstand, and what price did ordinary Saint Lucians pay or benefit from as a consequence of their decisions? We need historians, biographers, journalists, and ordinary citizens who lived through those periods to record these experiences while that remains possible. Reynolds’ work therefore contributes to something larger than the reputation of any individual politician: it contributes to the preservation of national memory.
BUT HERE IS THE QUESTION THAT TROUBLES ME
Suppose, after all the books have been written and arguments concluded, we establish beyond reasonable dispute that John Compton was a great nation builder. Suppose we conclude that George Odlum possessed one of the most powerful political intellects Saint Lucia has produced, and that Sir George Charles made an extraordinary contribution to the advancement of working people. Then what? Surely their greatness cannot merely become material for nostalgic conversations among those old enough to remember them. Their lives must eventually confront ours; their Saint Lucia must confront ours.
They inherited colonialism; what are we doing with independence? They inherited widespread poverty and inadequate infrastructure; what are we doing with the institutions subsequently created? They fought to secure political representation for ordinary Saint Lucians; what are we doing with our democracy? They imagined regional integration; what are we doing with Caribbean unity? They struggled to create opportunities for generations they would never live to see; what opportunities are we creating for generations we will never live to see? This is where history ceases to be comfortable, because eventually we must stop asking only what Compton built, what Odlum said, or what George Charles fought for and turn the question upon ourselves: What are we building?
OUR CHILDREN WILL JUDGE US TOO
We sometimes discuss historical leaders as though history ended with them. It did not. History is being written today, and fifty years from now another generation of Saint Lucians may examine ours with the same curiosity with which we now examine Compton, Odlum and George Charles. They will look at the national debt we accumulated, the education system we maintained, the crime we confronted or failed to confront, the healthcare system we strengthened or neglected, the infrastructure we built, the environment we protected, the opportunities we created for young people, the dignity we afforded our elderly and the political culture we handed to them.
Perhaps most painfully, they may examine whether we learned to see one another as Saint Lucians before seeing one another as Labour or Workers. They will know what we inherited and what we left behind. No campaign slogan, manifesto promise or political rally will be available to alter that record. History will ask of our generation exactly what we are now asking of those who came before us: What did they do with their opportunity to lead, build and serve?
LET THE GREAT NATIONAL CONVERSATION BEGIN
So I welcome Reynolds’ examination of our political giants. I welcome Modeste Downes’ contribution to the discussion, and I welcome the disagreement generated by my own question about Saint Lucia’s best Prime Minister. Let UWP supporters make their case, and SLP supporters make theirs. Let independents challenge both. Let historians bring documents, economists bring numbers, ordinary citizens bring memories, and young Saint Lucians bring the uncomfortable questions that older generations sometimes prefer not to answer. But before that debate begins, perhaps we can agree upon one principle: Saint Lucia must always be bigger than all of them.
Saint Lucia is bigger than Compton and bigger than Odlum. It is bigger than George Charles, bigger than any Prime Minister, bigger than UWP and bigger than SLP. Governments come, and governments go; leaders rise and fall; parties win elections and eventually lose them. Yet there remains one inheritance that every generation receives temporarily and must eventually hand to another: Saint Lucia. Perhaps that is why looking backward at this moment is not backward-looking at all. Perhaps we are searching our history for qualities we desperately need for our future—courage, vision, discipline, ideas, sacrifice and a deeper sense of nationhood.
Somewhere between the builder John Compton, the firebrand George Odlum, the labor champion George Charles and all those who followed them, perhaps we can rediscover a truth our political tribalism too often causes us to forget: no single leader built Saint Lucia, no single party owns Saint Lucia, and no single generation has the right to diminish what previous generations sacrificed to build.
The giants have had their turn. History is recording ours.
And when another Anderson Reynolds or Modeste Downes sits down fifty years from now to examine the Saint Lucia of our time, there will be one question we will no longer be here to answer:
What did they do with the country we left them?
We are answering that question now—every single day.