Someone asked me via social media “If you were made Governor
of St Helena, what would you do?”
Interesting question!
There is, of course, rather less likelihood of this
happening than on my becoming the next President of the United States or the
first human to land on Mars, but it is entertaining to consider the answer.
Except that it took me fewer than ten seconds to come up
with my response:
“Abolish the role and replace it with a leader
democratically elected by the people of St Helena.”
In general, the post of Governor dates back to the 17th
Century. A colonial power invaded someone
else’s land and set up a Governor to rule over the newly-subjugated people. The latter had no say in the matter and if
they tried to express a contrary view they were treated as rebels and executed
by the military. There was no self-determination,
no democracy and no freedom of speech.
Taking a pertinent example, St Helena’s first Governor was
John Dutton who was sent out in 1659 with a bunch of colonists and a small
military contingent to “settle” the island.
There were no inhabitants to subdue, so the colonists – who presumably
volunteered – seem to have happily accepted Dutton’s near-feudal rule over
them. But this did not last. Only two Governors later, Richard Coney (March
1671 - August 1672) was “Seized by rebellious members of the island’s council
and shipped back to England”[1]. Sadly this minor revolution did not establish
a democracy and a new Governor arrived in the next ship from England.
In fact, St Helena did not get any form of democracy
whatsoever until ---- can you guess? The
1800s? Wrong! The 1920s?
Wrong! The late 1940s in the
social reforms after World War 2? Wrong
again. St Helenians were not allowed to
vote on anything at all until as late as 1963, and this was only to appoint
members of an “Advisory Council”, which could express an opinion to the
Governor but which he could choose to completely ignore.
It was not until the 2009 Constitution that the role of the
Governor was pared back so that he was obliged both to listen to and act in accordance
with the wishes of a democratically elected council, and even then there were
so many caveats and special circumstances, some quite loosely worded, that the
Governor can still, to this day, do more or less as s/he pleases. He also controls the Police.
This is a complete nonsense in the 20th year of
the 21st century. It ranks the
effectiveness of St Helenian democracy in line with how it is practiced in
China and North Korea, and somewhat behind Iran.
Now we are going to get a new Constitution and our current
Governor seems to think it is solely up to him to decide what’s in it. He has himself picked (with no published
criteria) a group of people to advise him, but there is no indication that the
people of St Helena as a whole will be involved in the process and it is not
even clear that the island will get to vote on whether the resulting
Constitution is implemented.
A Constitution should be “an agreement between a people and
their Government about how they want to be governed”, but apparently even in
2020 this does not apply to St Helena.
So, yes, in the
once-in-a-sky-blue-pink-with-purple-dots-moon chance that I am made Governor of
St Helena, I would almost immediately make myself redundant, to be replaced
with a democratically elected leader, supported by a democratically elected
council.
“Almost immediately”?
Well before I sacked myself I’d also bring in effective Freedom
of Information legislation and a workable Data Protection Ordinance to secure
the new democracy I was about to establish.
If anyone from the Foreign and Colonial (sorry, ‘Commonwealth’)
Office wants to interview me for the post they can find my contact detail on
this blog. I won’t hold my breath ....
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