The right to recall

December 07, 2002
By Bukka Rennie

My fellow columnist, Anand Ramlogan, recently raised the matter of "the right" of constituents to "recall" sitting representatives as part of his contribution to the bigger issue of constitution reform and the necessity to give "power to the people".

Since then the idea has been criticised by one commentator, Michael Williams, who felt that the right of recall in this particular political culture will only serve to strengthen the hand of the political leaders since the "reality is that the MPs belong more to the political leader than to the people".

The point is well taken. The right of recall will only be allowed and can only be operable in context of a different political culture and a completely different system of human relationships. That's exactly why Mr Ramlogan ended his treatise with the implicit suggestion of structural transformation to concretise the concept of "power to the people".

It was the main point of my piece titled "CLR James' Theory of Organisation" that was presented to the conference on "CLR James at 100 - Global Capitalism, Culture and the Politics of World Revolution", which was held at UWI from September 20 to 23, 2001. In part, I said the following:

"My first encounter with CLR was an encounter with the germ of an idea.

That idea was the right to recall. I can remember as a youth of 18, then typically adventurous, exuberant and instinctively democratic, being very much turned on by the 1965 manifesto of the Workers and Farmers Party (WFP) and moreso particularly excited about their demand for the 'right to recall'.

"My friends and I, then members of the Mount Hope PNM Youth Group, had gone to this WFP public meeting, kept under the Chex Cafe in Mount Lambert, out of curiosity and probably with the intention to heckle. And there at the head table was this frail old man, his hair totally grey and hands shook, shook so badly that he had to hold a glass of water with both hands in order to drink.

"He was flanked by people who like himself are now all deceased: Dube, Anamanthudo, with his gigantic beard, and one Roderick Turton whom we knew then as "Mook-Sam". They surely cut a weird picture and the would-be hecklers sensed an open season until the old man began to talk.

"And even though the manifesto dealt with the right to recall in about six lines, basically saying that they would amend the Constitution and the electoral law to allow this right and that crossing the floor should lead to automatic "forfeiture" of the said seat, that particular night CLR alluded to much much more...

"...One began to sense that there was something very challenging and morally correct about people being able to recall representatives at any moment and effecting by-elections. One sensed certain possibilities arising from this 'right to recall'.

"Firstly, a deeper questioning of the quality of representation, the need to ensure that "principle" be given priority over "personality", which in essence would militate against such negatives as the act of crossing the floor without sanction from the electorate.

"Secondly, the mere beginning of a transfer of authority and power from the leaders and representatives back to the people themselves in their communities where it really matters.

"And thirdly, the eventual teasing towards an overall opening up of the political structures and system in order to empower all.

"The fact that since then, after some 35 years, no other party has seen it essential to even consider re-positing the 'right to recall' is a clear indication that our leaders still do not see ordinary people as being fit to manage society; still see their political involvement as being limited to staining their index fingers once every five years; still do not see that 'every cook can govern', particularly so given what CLR described as the present 'universality of knowledge'; are unable to envisage anything beyond what was inherited from their colonial masters; and are yet to comprehend what CLR meant when he said in the WFP manifesto that 'the distinctive quality of this civilisation of the Caribbean is an unparallelled mastery of the techniques and arts of modern life'...

"...CLR saw politics as the process of self-discovery, the growth of human-beings through their self-organisations and self-activity, and the representative political party he saw as the key strategy to bring forth and guarantee such self-activity and self-discovery for the masses of people organised in their communities.

Once the people are not directly involved through their self-activity and self-organisations in their communities, the political process is dead.

"When therefore Lloyd Best says today that there is 'no politics' since 'politics is about people acting in their own interests for the public good', he is quite correct even in his limited paraphrasing and reading of what CLR projected by the life he lived and the theory of organisation he advanced..."

For me it all began with an encounter with what appeared to be the simplest germ of an idea: the right to recall.