By Peter Polack

Peter Polack

An American niece recently discovered from a DNA enquiry that my immediate family is 20% West African, specifically Ghanaian. No great revelation in the Caribbean except there are several members of my family in the United States, Jamaica, Belize and the Cayman Islands who are in denial about their African heritage, and not the river in Egypt. Their loss. Perhaps that hidden pearl drew me to write a book on Angola.

DNA tests have made for many a scandal in the Caribbean, particularly where paternity is concerned. Some have not had to wait for test results. One in law was written out of the family tree before he woke up to his predicament. Again, these are not uncommon situations.

What is common is that people believe they are part of a family, part of a political party or part of the status quo before some DNA test, historical fact, news item, selfishness, injustice or gross incompetence resulting in great human tragedy, should change their mind. It could be a physical, financial, relationship or meteorological disaster but it is common enough that people will often wake up and make a life changing about turn.

The difficulty lies in the few who ignore these harbingers of reality that command a change in relationship, lifestyle, association, beliefs and election messages. 

The party or group affiliation of elected officials is not frozen in cement when exposed to the reality of conflict with the truth or with those who could become former colleagues. Be upright and cross the floor when in doubt.

This is the great burden of the Caribbean where we are blind to non performing governments or private institutions, churches that have lost their relevance with the youth, and civic groups attempting to change our thoughts to their agenda. There are politicians of suspect integrity who have continued in the political sphere instead of going home. Then there are the worst politicians who attempt to keep their feet in both the public and private pools or those that should have resigned from Caribbean institutions upon election.

They are many in self subterfuge.

For them it is not what is proper or right, it is the desire for useful or profitable connections, the electorate be damned. Younger, more recent, parliamentarians should throw off the wicked yoke of yesterday for a new future for the Caribbean.

We are at the gravest of crossroads and the last thing we need is self interest over national interest, in any country, in any position, at any time.

All for one and one for all, except Trinidad.

Peter Polack is a former criminal lawyer from the Cayman Islands for several decades. His books are The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013), Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017) and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2019). He was a contributor to Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013). His latest book is a compendium of Russian espionage activities with almost five hundred Soviet spies expelled from nearly 100 countries worldwide 1940-88. 

His views are his own.