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| CRAZY LEADERS |
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Some people believe that the Prime Minister
of my country, Dr. Denzil Llewellyn Douglas is a sick
man. Not just physically but also mentally. There is
an old saying that whom the gods would destroy, they
first drive mad. Dr. Douglas displays all the signs
of a victim of the wrath of the gods who have set him
on the path of sell-destruction under the impetus of
madness.
People display their madness in a variety of ways. When
I was a boy a young man named Hickson suddenly became
religious and with his powerful voice and a very imposing
physique, he gathered a crowd around him at nights and
conducted a service. His theme song was:
Dare to be a Daniel,
Dare to stand alone;
Dare to have a purpose firm and
Dare to make it known.
He soon stopped with his nightly meetings and turned
to some other pursuits but not before he had earned
the name Daniel Band. Some people recognized his developing
madness when he began to stride half naked through Cayon
Street and all the way to Conaree Beach very early in
the morning.
In those far off days, Conaree Beach was pristine; coconut
tress dotted the background, grape trees covered the
seashore. The water which broke over the long reef formed
a natural swimming pool which the white people swam
in as regularly as they could. A white eye specialist,
Dr. Theodorini, owned the estate and allowed his white
friends to share his beach. Daniel Band somehow got
the notion that Conaree Beach was his, bequeathed to
him by his father and took positive steps to possess
it by driving the white people with a club.
The terrified white people appealed to the police whose
white superintendent naturally had Daniel Band arrested
and placed in the lunatic asylum which local people
called the crazy house. That was when most people were
convinced that Daniel Band/Hickson was a crazy man.
A few doubters insisted that he knew what he was doing
but most knew his head was bad and that the things he
did were out of his control. Different people act out
their craziness differently.
I used to know one young woman, who, whenever she had
her spells came up College Street and demanded attention
from a shopkeeper with whom she was in love. When he
paid her no notice, she paraded up and down in front
his shop displaying every conceivable lewd behaviour
until the police vehicle, CN5, came and took her away.
Opinions differ on the level of madness in some of our
strangely behaving citizens.
When Andre Mondesire reappeared in St. Kitts after many
years abroad, some people thought he was crazy; others
thought he was a prophet. He used to walk through the
town pointing ahead of him, announcing: “These
days are perilous days”. Some believed him, others
laughed at him.
In those days the science of psychiatry had not reached
St. Kitts and the Mental Health Association was not
yet active. So we did not know that craziness was a
sickness. We thought it was a curse which fell on the
victim for some bad deed his/her parents had done in
their lifetime. We did not even know that people had
split personalities and could claim that a certain violent
act was attributable to an alter ego. I think modern
science call it schizophrenics and some very bad people
charged with very bad crimes such as serial murders
have raised the theory in their defense.
As a medical doctor, our Prime Minister has probably
studied or at least come across this phenomenon; perhaps
he is capable of diagnosing the complaint and perhaps
he has some scientific basis for the boast/admission
that he is ten man in one. During the time Jesus spent
on Earth he had to deal with several people who were
demon possessed. Curiously, one of them actually admitted
that he was not a whole person. He described himself
as legion for he was many. When I heard the Prime Minister
declare that he is ten man in one, I remembered this
episode. Happily, according to the Scriptures, Jesus
cast out the devils and some time later saw the man
again, clothed and in his right mind. Some people claim
to be able to trace the origin of a crazy person's madness.
Some blame unrequited love, as in the case of Pinders
who hangs out in the Bakers Corner area. Reports are
that he lived somewhere in the northern Caribbean where
he was a prosperous tailor. The woman whom he loved
jilted him and he has never caught himself in the many
years since his return to St. Kitts. Constansia visits
me at least once a month to find out if I receive some
money which she expects someone to send her. My response,
of course, is always the same for nobody has even sent
me any money to give her. I thought at first that she
was trying to diplomatically beg me for money but when
I offered her some small change she refused and insisted
on waiting until her own money would come.
Constansia was a successful young woman with a good
job until a young policeman got her pregnant and disappeared.
We cannot say what may have caused the Prime Minister’s
aberrant behaviour and utterances. We can only hazard
a guess that he might have been very psychologically
affected by the Simmonds Government’s action while
he was in medical school. They actually tried to force
him to discontinue his studies by refusing to send funds
which were already agreed upon. The trauma which such
a thoughtless action can produce can be devastating
to one's ego and disastrous to his mental health. Many
years ago one of Edgar Challenger’s brothers was
sent to college to study dentistry. The money ran out
and he returned to St. Kitts sick, walking about Basseterre
with his head straight ahead like a jumbie. Fortunately
for the Prime Minister, the Simmonds action was not
allowed to achieve its aim, thanks to the kindly intervention
of Kitittian Cedric Harper who served as warden of one
of the halls and was able to enable his stay at the
University of the West Indies.
But there may have been some residue of resentment that
lay festering in his psychology which is responsible
for the erratic speech and actions which leave many
mouths open with surprise. The naked and undisguised
hatred of his fellow Kittitians, including Lindsay Grant,
is something of which a rational mind is incapable.
Is the Prime Minister crazy? Some people honestly think
that he is. There have been crazy leaders before. Nero
was definitely crazy when he reached for his fiddle
while Rome burned. Alexander the Great became light
headed at the height of his greatness and drank himself
to death. Hitler was so mad at the very slight of Jews
that he plunged the World into a historic blood bath
to vent Stalin was paranoid, another form of madness.
Henri Christophe was so crazed by power that he marched
a whole battalion over a cliff. Crazy leaders can be
a serious problem to their country and the rest of the
world especially if they are brazen enough to boast
about their demons. |
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