Democracy and the state are at risk, warns PM Mottley

Prime Minister Mia Mottley has warned that democracy and the state are under threat due to modern methods of disseminating information and easy access to automatic weapons.

The Barbadian leader was among a high-powered panel discussing the sovereignty of regional states under the theme The Idea of Caribbean Civilisation during the inaugural Big Talk: Big Conversations series at Freedom Park, Golden Square, The City, on Saturday. It was held on the second day of CARIFESTA XV.

“Democracy as we know it is also at risk, and the reality is that it is at risk because we have moved from broadcasting to narrowcasting. We have created powers and technologies that are available to people’s hands, whether it is a phone or a gun, [and] that immediately changes the balance of power in societies,” she said.

Other panellists included Prime Minister Ralph Gonzalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines; St Lucia’s Ambassador to Barbados, Dr June Soomer; and Vice-Chancellor of The University of the West Indies (UWI) Professor Sir Hilary Beckles.

Mottley pointed to the shifting landscape of influence in society, arguing that many traditional sources of collective engagement no longer held sway.

“The people who used to watch the common television station aren’t doing so anymore. The people who used to listen to the radio stations together [aren’t doing so anymore].”

Referring specifically to the United States, she noted that the major networks were the preferred choice of the wider public, but with narrowcasting, “the state can no longer influence people en masse, other than in the school system”.

She also suggested that the church was no longer a unifying influence due to religious diversity, and there were few other institutions with the power to shape shared values.

“Now what does that mean?” she asked. “There is a risk and a temptation that the state will want to strengthen itself, to control the society by power, rather than by influence. That is the balance, and that is the risk that we as Caribbean states have to watch.”

Prime Minister Mia Mottley shares a light moment with Vice Chancellor of The UWI Professor Sir Hilary Beckles following the panel discussion.

During the discussion, Mottley announced the government’s intention to collaborate with The UWI to establish a Caribbean Institute for Democracy and Political Governance at the institution’s Cave Hill campus.

“We believe that in the same way that our Caribbean civilisation has played a marked role in helping to identify the battles of the world that have been oppressive and tyrannical and trying to fight against it and, at the same time, giving the world an example of how people of different races and religions can live together, relatively speaking, in the same common space without massive bloodshed, we believe that we need to institutionalise that story and those teachings.”

It was against that backdrop that the prime minister said the government hopes the gathering of ships in the Southern Caribbean does not foreshadow conflict in the region. Mottley contended that all Caribbean countries were adamant that this area must remain a zone of peace, having been a theatre of conflict and inequity for far too long.

Expressing concern about the vulnerability of Caribbean nations and the need to focus on a common purpose and goal if this region is to chart its own destiny without outside involvement, Mottley told the hundreds gathered in Golden Square – seat of the 1930s social and political revolution – that this region has to face a few realities which it may not be handling as frontally and as comprehensively as it should.

Attendees at the inaugural Big Talk: Big Conversation at Golden Square.

“With the exception of Haiti, all are underpopulated, but the factors of economic growth and development relate to capital. What about labour? If you are underpopulated, how do you expect to be able to meet the ability to be able to have the growth that can transform the quality of life? We are years behind in establishing a Regional Population Commission that allows the Caribbean to be able to forge its destiny, not [by] accident or by serendipity or because somebody else wants to oppress us, but because we are shaping and forming our own destiny deliberately.”

Mottley added, “Without the education transformation that changes our educational system from simply providing knowledge, which can be researched, depending on which platform you now use and what algorithms are there, you can generally find knowledge. But where we are losing it is in the inculcation of values, attitudes and the provision of the requisite skills, and then, the insistence on the habit that leads to excellence and to compassion.”

“My fear is that the temptation of easy living…the temptation of comfort, the temptation of individualism, satisfying instantly even in the medium to long term, has dulled the senses of many of our people. And when that is combined with a lack of appropriate sensitisation, education and empowerment of people, we run the risk of being recolonised again,” the Barbadian leader argued.

She noted that this is why, at the recent CARICOM Heads of Government Conference, she called for this region to start to take control over how information is generated and disseminated. Mottley insisted that the day the Caribbean does not control the technology that allows that to happen is the day that the hemisphere becomes subject to the will of others. (EJ)