The origin of party politics

06 Nov, 2000
PART II

IF one wishes to advance a prognosis as to what the people want, one first has to examine what the people have created for themselves, particularly when faced with crises. We have highlighted the forms, the Cossabos and people's parliaments and assemblies, which they created over the years during revolutionary situations; when all the existing social relationships and institutions were called into question by the masses in their movement from below.

But it is not only a question of what they do in national revolutionary situations but also what they do at all times when there is tragedy affecting the immediate community. In both Afro- and Indo-Trinidadian cultural experience, there have been common strategies to deal with untoward developments.

The ancient concepts of gayap and panchayat wherein the entire community is assembled - on equal footing, regardless of social status - to discuss and decide the way forward out of specific predicaments, are concepts buried deeply in the psyche of our people. They suggest a most direct, democratic form of governance.

Our rendezvous with the European/Western world did in some ways blunt our native consciousness and thrust. Yet it sharpened and broadened the overall perspective. Consciousness of self will always be sharpened as contradictions in life become more antagonistic. Caribbean society was born out of the plantation system, in which production was never far removed from the politics of the day; and race and class constructs were totally inter-related.

Our view of the world began there. We are who we are today precisely because of the plantation and its inherent system of relationships. That is probably why we have never placed importance on what we create for ourselves as we struggle for transformation. We keep embracing answers and solutions learnt within the context of the plantation paradigms informed by Western/European tradition and culture.

One is left to wonder how differently Caribbean history might have evolved, had the white planters' assemblies of Jamaica and Barbados waged a war for independence from British colonialism (as did their American counterparts who began their campaign with the demand, "no taxation without representation"). With such an early political precedent for ex-slaves and indentures, and an early independent Caribbean having to depend on its own human and material resources, we would most certainly have been today a society with its own internal paradigms and reason for being.

The white planters and creoles chose not to go that route, chose not to betray their race and class Caribbean legacy. The numbers game was obviously one of their major considerations then, just as it assumes relevance today given the racial configuration. The end result is, in terms of our formalised political superstructure, we are dressed up in borrowed clothes while our natural democratic instincts are denied full expression.

But even the "borrowed clothes" of Parliament, parties, Cabinet, Judiciary etc, as presently constituted, did not always exist. They arose at precise moments in history. Therefore, there is no natural law that stipulates they must remain in existence forever. The system emerged in Europe within the limitation of national monarchies, the growth of cities and towns and the need for royalty to extend their rule through some form of consultation and consensus rather than through force alone.

Kings held "talks" or "parleys" (the Latin word for this "talking" was "parliamentum") with the "lords" or land-based gentry of their inner court and representatives of the clergy. Eventually, too, with delegates from the citizens of the towns, mainly the captains of the new forms of industry then mushrooming.

In Germany these assemblies of people meeting with the monarch were called "diets", "cortes" in Spain, "estates-general" in France, and "parliament" in Britain. The clergy were considered the "intelligentsia" of the times; the landed gentry, the aristocracy; and the industrialists, the leading lights of the burgesses of the towns. It was therefore construed that at these "talks", the collective interests of the nation were duly represented.

Nothing could be further from the truth, but that is the genesis of what we operate today. "Parties" emerged later when representatives of the second and third estates (landed gentry) and the burgesses of the towns led by capitalist entrepreneurs, sought to form tighter units with clear policies and programmes. These were geared to extend their social influence as a group, strengthen their power within Parliament, and limit or expunge altogether the rule of royal monarchs.

The development of modern society with its high degree of professional specialisation and automation led to further fragmentation of consciousness among the masses of the towns and cities. There was need for each level to seek its own organised expression or "party". It meant the factory worker could no longer be accommodated, as before, in the same party as the factory owner. Similarly, in rural areas, the peasantry came to be clearly demarcated from the landed gentry (and absentee proprietors), and could no longer be represented by the same body.

The point is, even when the masses developed a critical consciousness of and for themselves - separate from the factory bosses and landowners - they too adopted the party strategy. The problem is the party, though the epitome of the representative format, is merely a means towards an end, a strategy utilised to achieve a certain goal, and that goal is empowerment for the people in whose interest it is supposed to function.