On the night of May 28, Julian Fraser (R-D3) became the leader of the Virgin Islands Party. Mr. Fraser is a man with an astonishing grasp of detail, and he possesses the steady ability to assess policy matters with careful deliberation and thoughtfulness. He is also a very intelligent man and a politician capable of placing the myriad issues of the day into a framework for effective governance. He is a leader with strategic vision, and he has an economic and social philosophy.
His predecessor, Ralph O’Neal (R-D9), was a formidable politician and historian. The Old King of VI politics possessed the memory of an elephant. Mr. Fraser brings different, but equally essential, qualities to the Grand Ole Party and the VI.
Mr. Fraser is a fighter. He is a tough guy. He is not a man to suffer fools. He is impatient about getting this territory to the right place. He reminds this commentator of another tough guy politician in Great Britain: Norman Tebbit was Margaret Thatcher’s attack dog. Mr. Tebbit was not loved by the Left, but he got things done and was instrumental to Ms. Thatcher’s social and economic revolution of the 1980s. Mr. Fraser is that type of can-do politician.
‘Idiosyncrasies’
Still, he does have his idiosyncrasies. He has been described as pompous and arrogant. Those that know him, though, will state that this is a gross oversimplification of a very complex man. Mr. Fraser is a very private man. He will now have to become a very public man.
He has his party core fired up. The skeleton of the party throughout the territory has been resurrected. It will begin to take on new flesh. That is crucial for general election success.
The task Mr. Fraser now faces is reaching out to a new demographic. These are the under-50s who are mostly the product of migration. Mr. Fraser will have to show them that he is inclusive and tolerant. He will also have to reach out to the expatriate population. These are men and women who have been told wrongly that Mr. Fraser is insular and prejudiced against outsiders.
The following speculations were penned days before Mr. Fraser’s internal party election victory. This commentator will return to the political significance of the VIP’s new leadership at a later date.
Transparency
Now, obsessive secrecy is only required in time of war, or when a state has powerful enemies at home and abroad. However, in peaceful times, unnecessary secrecy is simply a ruse to hide unethical behaviour.
Transparency in this day and age is a synonym for effective and good governance. On the other hand, a lack of transparency is synonymous with corruption and deception. Digital technology is making secrecy a much more difficult proposition for governments these days, and for everyone else for that matter. VI politicians are only just beginning to grasp that fact.
A simple Google search will severely embarrass a politician with too many skeletons in his cupboard. In recent years, the integrity of the US government has been seriously compromised by high-tech whistleblowers.
The British establishment, too, loves secrecy. However, check the history. Some of the most compromising security incidents took place when it became too secret. It just took a couple of well-placed spies from a foreign power to bring the security order crashing to pieces. Had there been more transparency, those spies may well have been detected before the damage was done: “Two heads are better than one” is the old adage. With the digital environment, one gifted hacker can deliver an encyclopaedia of secrets to the enemy at the click of a mouse.
Good for business
Today, a non-profit organisation or charity that lacks transparency is avoided and shunned by donors, sponsors and volunteers. In private enterprise, a new culture of transparency has become the order of the day. Read any management journal: Today’s management culture stresses transparency as good for business.
This is a new digital epoch, where the advent of social media and various types of intrusive software swiftly expose the dirty laundry of the obsessively secret. Privacy is a good thing. However, to be totally private these days means going to live in a remote jungle or on a remote island.
This would have to be a place with no modern technology whatsoever. And even then a powerful satellite hundreds of miles above the earth’s surface can take a photo of the veritable Robinson Crusoe bathing in a freshwater pond.
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