CUTHBERT DIDIER IS A DICK

PATRIOTISM, NATIONALISM AND OTHER WORDS FOR CORRUPTION

Today in St Lucia, patriotism and nationalism are being transformed into code words for corruption.

The root cause is that a Trini won a case against SLASPA. Basically, SLASPA decided to fight a case it could not and should not ever win and used everything from McNamara and Company to Foster and Company to do it.

When SLASPA lost, the backlash was inevitable.

In the culture of corruption and cowardice that has come to define the non-artistic St Lucian professional and intellectual circle, breaking ranks under pressure is treacherous.  It is seen as a sign of weakness. When the opponent is a foreigner, breaking ranks is not just weakness, it is treacherous. It is an act of betrayal against the patriots and thieves of your nation.

Take for example the Donovan Lorde case at St Lucia Tourist Board: So far, it seems everyone would like us to believe that Lorde was a ‘lone gun man on the grassy knoll’. The reason why the media and the government have not tuned in to the bigger picture, the real iceberg of corruption at the St Lucia Tourist Board is that at Tourist Board, there are no weak links.

Well, apart from Donovan Lorde, who, so far, doesn’t seem inclined to rat anyone else out.

Now, that’s patriotism. That’s nationalism. That’s playing for your team, even when it means making a sacrifice.

But in the SLASPA vs Leotaud case, the traitors came out to play. In spite of their story that they were merely acting according to the law and in the best interest of the country, what these players actual did was break ranks with the patriots who were trying to defend St Lucia from a foreign invader and his fishing boat and his hordes of dirty little California millionaires drinking spiced rum in run down cabarets in the backside of some God-forsaken village.

This invader, Robert Leotaud, tried to pass off his viral adventure as some kind of benefit to tourism. But everyone knows that anything that’s good for tourism has to pay commissions to Chastanet and or Leo Clarke and or Louis Lewis and or…you get the picture.

Anyone could see that if Leotaud’s Reel Irie company was serious about tourism, it would benefit the true patriots of this country (the perennially rich, the politically well-placed, the professional players, the lawyers, etc) rather than a bunch of Negmarron sailors, fish friers, rum shops, guest houses, restaurants, bakeries and coconut vendors.

But somehow, the invader managed to convince Lucians to join in his nefarious cause. And chief among them was that dick Cuthbert Didier.

CUTHBERT DIDIER IS A DICK

Cuthbert Didier is a dick.

He has that supreme confidence that just makes people want to see him fall. Not to mention that he has achieved enviable levels of material success while giving the finger to every stereotype that ever typified successful business executives. It’s not just that he pisses people off.

It’s like he’s trying to piss people off.

He enjoys provoking people, but not just pointing out their stupidity, but by actually knowing a better way. And to make it worse, unlike most losers of his ilk, Didier just keeps winning. He wins in a way that makes patriotic corruption look like child’s play. That’s what’s most annoying.

Last Tuesday, Didier gave testimony in court that helped Leotaud win against SLASPA. To make things worse, he spoke boldfaced to the media, before the case was even over. And then, on Sunday, it seems that many of his opinions found their way into a salacious blog entry by an unsavory former journalist who Richard Frederick says smokes crack. And if anyone knows who smokes what, it’s Richard Frederick.

The inevitable conclusion of any good Stalinist, of course, is that Didier is not a patriot. He’s not just a dick. He’s a traitor. He needs a good old fashion purge.

Well, yesterday, Cuthbert Didier was finally getting what was coming to him for betraying the patriots of the St Lucia Air and Sea Port Authority, not to mention his repeated frustration of the heroes and geniuses at the St Lucia Tourist Board, in their ongoing effort to pay too much for Jazz Festival artists, travel to trade shows when they already have staff overseas and then blame external factors for their failures.

(Not to mention that they how they magically pay lip service to and completely ignore the high value niche markets that are saving this island’s stupid ass from obscurity on a daily basis. Am I getting off track here? I’m sorry, I’m somewhat enamored of Tourist Board’s corruptions. Let’s focus. We were talking about that the traitor, Didier.)

By midday Monday, Didier had been upbraided by half a dozen high level government officials, including ministers and permanent secretaries.

As we write this article, he was in a meeting being upbraided.

What the ministers, permanent secretaries and other patriots hope to achieve by upbraiding the traitor is uncertain, however. Didier was already put on the chopping block by the patriots ahead of this year’s budget, even though he was not told. (I mean, how do you tell a friend you’re going to shoot him? You don’t. You just get him to kneel and bow his head in prayer.)

The budget actually gave some indication that Didier was headed for the guillotine. Budget cuts quietly insisted that while he may have existed in 2013,  he certainly did not exist from April 2014, in spite of the fact that the personnel department still had records of his alleged existence. His existential dilemma was only made worse by his treachery.

It almost seemed redundant to put Didier through the water torture treatment on Monday, given that they had already put him in the torturous position of not knowing if he was still real to them or not. Torture is a funny thing. If you overdo it, you make the victim delirious and he’s stops feeling pain and starts having visions of angels smoking hymns to the theme song for Sesame Street. By torturing him too much, they might have eased his pain.

Then again, maybe they were ready for his execution anyway and this just provided them an opportunity, an opening…

If they needed an excuse to send Didier to the firing squad (wait, I thought we had a chopping block…) this recent betrayal by Didier was just what the doctor ordered, I guess.

It is proof that in spite of Leotaud’s win, both God and Kenny still love the patriots and will let them get away with their bad governance, their dirty deeds and their underhanded profiteering for some time longer.