How Difficult it is to Run a Country Like This

Recently, Commonwealth of Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, fresh from hitting the twenty-year mark in office on January 8, 2024, waxed poetic, casting pearls of leadership wisdom before swine!

            “People don’t understand,” Skerrit said, “how difficult it is to run a country like this.”

            What did he mean? I dismissed attempted coups, catastrophic hurricanes, and pandemics and instead, settled on two questions.

            One, What makes Dominica difficult to lead?

            Answer: small size. It’s counterintuitive. You’d think small size makes leading easy. Until you realize catastrophes are worse on a small island because a hit on a small island is almost always a big hit—on the whole place! No part can rescue the other.

            Two, What does it take to lead such a small place successfully?

            Answer: a paradigm shift. Paradigm shifts are the hardest thing for a mind to do. Leading Dominica calls for Simone Biles-level mental gymnastics. For context, Biles is the GOAT (greatest of all time).

First flip, realizing no school teaches Dominica: you’re on your own learning a one-of-a-kind place.

Second flip, retraining your mind that small may be beautiful but small is hard as hell to lead.

Third flip, accepting that the black and Kalinago working-class, the underdogs in the economy, society, culture, and environment worldwide, in the Dominica polity, they are the top dogs. The elite. They’ve got the power. And you better recognize.

            Show me a politician, a scientist, an engineer, a doctor, a businessman who was trained and socialized to respect the power and emotions of a black person or Indigenous person especially if they are broke. Yes, I’m waiting. And I only have the fingers on one hand waiting for your answer. Yeah, I’m still waiting.

            A Dominican politician whose name is not Skerrit once told me why it was hard leading people in Dominica. “Bro,” that person said. “They insist on telling you their story!”

            That’s it. In Dominica and in the Eastern Caribbean, the meek have inherited the earth from the English who having looted and pillaged and raped the place, left those colored peoples their Westminster-style democracy, complete with Constitution, Parliament, Judiciary, the vote, and the biggest gem of all, freedom of speech!

            Colored peoples made a political system out of it all in which to lead them, you must talk to them—eyeball to eyeball! Don’t see color? You’d better learn to! It’s like the Iowa Caucuses everyday!

            Or you’re out!

            That’s why only two people ever got re-hired for the job: Mary Eugenia Charles and Roosevelt Skerrit!

            See? I still have three fingers and one hand to spare.