Reasoning with our People

Nine weeks ago, in the first article of this column, we noted three interrelated strategies that are highly important to removing the current ruling regime from governance. Removing them would clearly present the best opportunity to restore the essence of the nation. These three strategies are: attempts to unite the electorate towards success at unseating the current corrupt ruling regime and subsequently building a thriving nation; efforts to break the economic stranglehold that the ruling regime has on the people of Dominica; and continued and enhanced efforts to share information with our people and to reach their hearts about doing the right thing to save our country.

We then embarked on expounding on these strategies and in the in the six articles that followed the first one, we explored the first two strategies. Let us now look at the third strategy – continued and enhanced efforts to share information with our people.

First, let us recognize that much effort has been made over the last fifteen years to share truth with the people of Dominica in order to encourage them to make better choices at the polls. I am highlighting the last 15 years, because over that period the threat posed by the ruling regime to the well-being of our country and to the freedoms enshrined in our constitution, became abundantly clear and the situation has gotten progressively worse!

But congratulations to all those involved in the education effort including the opposition political parties – the United Workers Party, the Dominica Freedom Party, and more recently the Alternative People's Party. Kudos are in order for the other civil groups that have raised their voices including the Concerned Citizens Movement. Thanks to the many individuals that have hosted talk shows and shared from their hearts, the likes of Matt Peltier, Arthie Martin, Sheridan Gregoire, Loftus Durand, Joshua Francis, and Thompson Fontaine, among others. You all have had an impact and the truth is that Dominica has heard you and this was manifested at the last general elections when the majority of those residing in Dominica rejected the ruling regime. But shamefully, the incumbent political party retained power because they engaged in election bribery and treating, they imported votes and engaged in other fraud! The elections monitors would not have been able to identify such fraud given the absence of a sanitized voters' list and no requirement to use appropriate voter identification; but we all are aware of what really happened.

Why is it important to share information and reason with our people? It is because that as people are enlightened, they are more likely act to right the wrongs in our country. There is continuing need to counter the many lies told to the people. These guys are good at telling lies to the people and it is easy for some to believe such lies if they are not sufficiently aware of the issues or if they are not adequately aware of the kinds of evil and deceit that the regime is capable of. We have seen it all – pretence, playing the victim, misuse of statistics and more! We must effectively counter these lies and we must become better at telling truth than they are at telling lies! The use of deceit by these guys goes beyond the shores of Dominica. They are deceiving some of our people who reside in the diaspora and they are also publishing falsehoods about the economy of Dominica in articles in foreign media including those in which the country's CBI programme is promoted.

The regime has used psychology to brainwash some of our people. I have actually heard some people remark that there is no poverty in Dominica and that Dominica is doing well! They are clearly brainwashed or are believing lies that are imbedded in the deceitful messaging of the ruling regime. We must therefore mount effective information and reasoning campaigns to reverse brainwashing. One area of brain washing is in the regime's effort to gain loyalty by the use of "don't bite the hand that feed you" messaging. This deceitful messaging must be countered through strong reasoning.

It takes effective reasoning with our people to overcome the politics of hate and to expose how the ruling regime is using hate to divide and rule our people. It takes good reasoning to reverse negative cultures that these guys are entrenching. For example, through their messaging, the regime perpetuates a culture of corruption. We need to reason with our people that it is not okay to be corrupt and that corruption hurts us all even those who are bribed.

More effective reasoning is needed to contribute to arriving at a greater majority of the electorate residing in Dominica voting to save Dominica. This is one way to help overcome fraud.

In the next article we will discuss the ways in which the ruling party has sought to prevent truth from being shared with the people. Surely, they know the power of honest reasoning. We will also discuss how we may become more effective with our communications.

Kent Vital Economist