During my early days on the island, when contact with my landlady and fisherman was more frequent, I was the recipient of many pieces of unsolicited advice on Antiguan culture. For some reason, the providers of my fish and board saw the creature in me that badly needed advice on how to survive on this particular two by four of an island. No sooner had their lectures on “dangerous people” ended than they began talks on island politics.

Davey*, my fisherman, was the first to open the very necessary talks on island politics.  One late evening, while I was having a drink on the eastern patio, he brought me the handsomest batch of snapper and grouper.   I admired the fish and tried again to ask after his fishing spots.  I got the gap-toothed grin then his trademark reply: “one man keep secret.”  I invited him to join me for a drink a two.

A few sips into his drink and Davey was having the most animated conversation about the state of affairs in the nation. We were facing each other and he leaned in to confide that he didn’t much like the new political party which had taken office.  He didn’t like the old one either. He considered them both the same as far as policies and corruption were concerned. Indeed, as far as he was concerned, party politics was for the stupid and for those who had nothing better to do with their time.  Too many times, he assured me, he had seen the “foolishness” ordinary people “got up to”- all because they supported a particular party.

He told me the story of his two older siblings who haven’t spoken to each other in over a decade- all because of party politics.  These two sisters of his live in the same house and have been living together for around two decades. He sucked his teeth, in that way islanders do, as he described “campaign season” at his sisters’ house.

During the last season, his sisters communicated via election campaign songs- snippets of which each would sing within the other’s earshot.   Then, he told me, they took to decorating the three-bedroom house they shared using party colours. Thus, one half of the house was draped in blue paraphernalia while the other was overpowered by red.  The disgust was evident in his voice as he told me of them cooking separate meals and using separate gas tanks for the same stove. At church, they ensured they were pews apart.

“You think the politicians live like that?” Davey asked fiercely.  Before I could frame some reply, he answered his own question: “They don’t!  They have this island divided, man: red over here and blue over there. Ordinary man fighting his own brother. But them…the politicians? They eating and drinking with one another peacefully!”

Red, Davey taught me, was the colour of the Antigua Labour Party, which ruled the twin-island state for twenty-eight consecutive years before being ousted by the United Progressive Party, which was represented by blue or yellow.  Downing the last bit of his fourth drink, Davey implored me to stay far from island politics.  He understood that I might encounter it as a businessman, a foreign one at that, but assured me that politics made enemies of neighbours and friends and was the surest way for a person to fall in the company of “dangerous people”.

*Name has been changed.

(V).Damien