WHAT THE REEL IRIE CASE SAYS ABOUT ALLEN CHASTANET
This is not
an article. It’s a movie.
Mid-2014: The
tall, dirty white rich boy was on his way to becoming prime minister. It would
be like being a Third World dictator with all the perks of being white thrown
in. None of the little Negroes in his party would be able to stop him. He
already had the coolie moving his baggage.
The
government of the day was doing everything in its power to fuck everything up
in a procedural correct fashion.
The world
economy was doing its part, what with Putin and the Tea Party and whatever. It
was all going according to plan.
Of all the
tribal chiefs in the world, he would be the whitest.
The sun was
setting on the Golf Course. As the white prince rode into the lounge, the news
was on. And the nightmare began.
THE REEL
IRIE VIBE
The Reel
Irie case was coming back to haunt him, even as it haunted the former Port
Authority general manager and sitting Speaker of the House. That bastard Bob
Leotaud was a pain in the ass that wouldn’t go away. Three years he fought for
a goddam fishing license. Some people just don’t know when they are beaten.
Leotaud didn’t.
That’s
probably why he won.
Flashback to
the good old days.
2009: Some
nobody, dirty white little Trini (Leotaud) with some money wanted a fishing
license and some dirty white, nothing little Lucians (names withheld) didn’t
want him to have it. Dirty white tribal war. Over a fishing license. He tried
to avoid it. But of course, being the dirty white minister of dirty white
affairs, Allen Chastanet knew it would eventually fall on his plate.
Once it did,
he deftly scooped it off and put it in someone else’s plate. And that was the
end of that.
Until today.
Fast forward back to 2014.
The news of
the Trini’s victory in the Reel Irie case topped the news that night. The next
day and night, in fact, for the next week, in fact, the social media and talk
shows were burning with rage, not just against Port Authority, but against the
Speaker of the House.
The white
prince couldn’t look himself in the mirror for a moment.
If this kept
going much longer, it would turn against him, the former tourism minister (for
not putting a stop to it) and to a lesser extent against the present tourism
minister (who also didn’t put a stop to it).
History
showed that it was insignificant nonsense like this that always triggered
things off.
Fortunately
for the Chas-ter, he didn’t know history or care very much for it.
WHY WON’T
SOME PEOPLE GO AWAY?
The prime
time talk shows that Wednesday kept the fire burning. Chastanet knew that if
this went on much longer, he was going to get burned for his part in this.
“The Reel
Irie case has pulled the cobwebs from Lucian eyes on many issues,” said one
political commentator. “From the statutory corporations to the politicians to
the lawyers and judges, these people don’t have our interests at heart. And they
have no respect for rule of law.
“Our two
major parties are not regionalist. They’re lip service-ist.
“Our
statutory corporations are rife with personal agendas, bad governance and just
plain selfish, self-absorbed fools (No, Sean Matthews, I am not just talking
about you. Other people are selfish and self-obsessed, too.) Our Speaker of the
House has his name in the mud and he is walking everywhere proud as though he
doesn’t care.
“Our prime
minister is apparently a coward and all kinds of nonsense can take place with
his tacit permission. He ain’t no Richard Frederick, but still, one expected
better.
But what
about our erstwhile political leader of the opposition? He was tourism minister
at the time Bob Leotaud started getting the shaft from SLASPA. What does Leotaud
reveal about the United Workers Party’s Great White Dope?”
Great White
Dope. The white prince shuddered to think what would happen if that name stuck.
But even
worse, he realized that here he was promoting himself as Mr Economics and Good
Sense, while the Reel Irie case kind of exposed his twisted version of free
market economics as bullshit.
I’M A
GENIUS, I’M A JACKASS
Reel Irie
was inspired, ironically enough, by him. He inspired Leotaud to want to invest
in St Lucia.
“He was
making this speech about village tourism and I thought, yeah, this guy really
has the right idea. He really gets it,” Leotaud was telling reporters on the
television news repeat the next morning. The white prince looked himself in the
mirror and realized two things.
First, he
realized that he was a genius for inspiring an eminently capable and persisted
man like Leotaud to found a company, based on a speech he made. Secondly, he
realized that he was a total sub-literate asshole for betraying his own vision
when it came to him, begging to be rescued from the Philistines.
He snapped
back to reality and tried to think of golf courses, but could only see his own
stupid face staring back at him, even with his eyes closed.
“Mirror,mirror,
on the wall,” he began and gave up the effort. Then, he answered the unfinished
question.
“You really
are a Great White Dope,” his reflection told him.
His mind
drifted back to when he made the big mistake.
THE BIG
MISTAKE
Back in
2009, Robert Leotaud was excited to meet Chastanet. The Trini thought he was
going to meet some kind of rock star visionary, the rebirth of Compton or
something. If Chastanet had simply done what his own experts had advised him to
do, Bob Leotaud might be one of his biggest supporters today. Ching-ching!$!$!
The first
indication that Leotaud got that he was wrong was that his meeting with the
minister was at the Golf and Country Club. You know that place near Cas en Bas
that tried to move the world famous Majorie’s Beach Shack off the beach so they
could hit little white balls with skinny metal clubs in the hopes of dropping a
ball in a black hole surrounded by low cut bush?
The same
place where ministers of the former government would go to drink other people’s
win and scare off investors by asking for million dollar ‘campaign
contributions’ before anyone was even properly introduced?
Yeah, that
place.
Leotaud
pleaded his case. There wasn’t much to plead. They were denying him something
that is every CARICOM citizen’s right for no good reason. Leotaud would never
have imagined that Chastanet would betray his own village tourism concept.
Majorie from the beach shack would. But she knew more than Leotaud, who still
thought Chas was a hero.
But the
Great White Dope’s final answer to Leotaud, who was implementing Chastanet’s
own village tourism line, was, “You’re on your own buddy. Fight your own
battles.”
Leotaud was
like, “Wait…this was your idea, dude. This is your vision. Your baby…”
Chastanet
looked back as though he couldn’t even see him. So much for vision.
Faced with a
legitimate and unique opportunity for St Lucia, Chastanet did not do the right
thing. He did not stand up against SLASPA’s unprovoked injustice. He let it
slide because the injustice would benefit people who look just like him, smell
just like him and carry Lucian passport without having real love for this
country’s people…just like him.
ME AGAINST
THE WORLD
Allen
Chastanet’s own ministry was all on board with obeying the law and using this
Trini’s idea to grow opportunity in St Lucia.
His
Watercraft Advisory Committee was never, at any point, against Reel Irie
getting the license. His permanent secretary alerted him that denying the
license was illegal. At the last hearing, where SLASPA conceded defeat, that
permanent secretary practically sold out Chastanet and the then management of
SLASPA, sealing their fate. (With both Chastanet and Matthews gone, that PS was
no longer bound by the culture of cowardice that besets the professional and
intellectual classes in St Lucia.)
Why would
Chastanet, a man who promotes himself as the facilitator of all economic
opportunities, even including Keith Mondesir’s attempts to buy home furnishings
with tourism concessions while he was a cabinet minister, not have stood up for
opportunity?
The answer
is simple.
Allen
Chastanet does not represent an ethos of opportunity for all. His ethos is opportunity for himself. He was
the first person in this entire chain of events who had an opportunity to stand
for what was right and he didn’t.
EPILOGUE:
For the Unforgotten and the Unforgiven
And he was only
one Flambeau minister to help screw this up. Another one who put his mouth in
this mess has stayed remarkably quiet. Perhaps he’s hoping this will blow over
before anyone points a finger at him.
So much for
that.
You will get
yours, Guy Joseph. You will get yours.
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