Health Longevity Secrets
A podcast to transform your health and longevity with evidence-based lifestyle modifications and other tools to prevent and even reverse the most disruptive diseases. We feature topics including longevity, fasting, ketosis, biohacking, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, stroke, cancer, consciousness, and much more so that you can find out the latest proven methods to optimize your life. It’s a mix of interviews, special co-hosts, and solo shows that you’re not going to want to miss. Hit subscribe and get ready to change your life. HLS is hosted by Robert Lufkin MD, a physician/medical school professor and New York Times Bestselling auhtor focusing on the applied science of health and longevity through lifestyle and other tools in order to cultivate consciousness, and live life to the fullest .
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Quantum Leadership with Dr Stephen Sideroff
This week we are co-broadcasting the premiere episode of a new podcast series entitled Quantum Leadership. It is helmed by Dr Stephen Sideroff, a dear friend and one of my first podcast guests as well as the cohost of several of our episodes. It is a true pleasure to share this episode of his new podcast in its entirely this week. Please let us know how you like it and if you would like to see more of these.
Steve interviews Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. This conversation unveils the profound dimensions of leadership that transcend conventional theories in this riveting conversation. With eloquence born from decades of service, he dismantles the myth that leaders must come from privilege, sharing his journey from a barefoot village boy to becoming his nation's longest-serving Prime Minister.
Gonsalves articulates a compelling leadership framework built on energy, will, vision, skill, and what he terms "the X factor" – the rare ability to draw out qualities from people they don't yet recognize in themselves. This capacity to uncover "hidden rationalities" and untapped potential within communities stands at the heart of transformative leadership.
The conversation extends to healing collective trauma through conscious leadership, highlighting efforts to reclaim Balliceaux Island—a site of indigenous genocide—and advance reparations for historical injustices. These initiatives reflect Gonsalves' understanding that leadership must address both material development and psychological healing, ultimately working toward creating "whole daughters and whole sons out of the compromise that history has made us all."
Listen now to experience leadership wisdom that challenges conventional thinking and offers a more holistic, love-centered approach to creating positive change.
https://drstephensideroff.com/
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Welcome to Quantum Leadership Podcast. I am very pleased and honored today to be able to have my first interview with the Honorable Mr Prime Minister, ralph Gonsalves. This is really designed to highlight what good leadership looks like. It's designed to highlight the qualities of good leadership, the vision of good leadership, and I can't think of a better person to begin these podcasts with than you, mr Prime Minister, as I've observed you over this trip this week, but also through the eyes of my wife, who's been here a few times and shares her experience with your delegation, with you and how you handle being ahead of the country. So, thank you so much for making yourself available for this podcast. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for making yourself available for this podcast. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much for having me. Yes, thank you again, prime Minister, for sitting with me for this interview. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much, Professor.
Speaker 1:Yes and let's continue. But some people say, to really be a great leader, that you have to come from privilege. You have to come from good background, and I know in our previous conversations you were talking about not having a pair of shoes to your name for the first nine years of your life. Can you say something about what I believe is even more important, which is having a growth mindset, meaning that you can grow into any position if you have certain other qualities and characteristics?
Speaker 2:I don't think that you have to come from a privileged background in order to lead. Indeed, from experiences with certain leaders, you can come from the most humble background and become a very distinguished leader, or you can come from aristocratic bearing and be a distinguished leader and you can have poor leaders. From whichever background you hail, it depends on all your experiences and how you internalize them and how you connect with the real world and your outlook and your connections with people, and whether you have love for people and whether you have evolved in a manner in which you have the energy and will, vision and skill plus an X-factor in drawing out goodness and nobility and high quality from people whom you are leading, and even to draw out goodness, high quality and nobility which often the people may not know that they possess as yet. And you can't do this thing of drawing out of people what is of high quality in them unless, basically, you love them and you respect them. And that comes from human beings of different groups and classes and it depends on all the objective circumstances you know. You look at Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln came from very humble beginnings and he transcended those beginnings and the strictures of his initial outlook. Then you had FDR, fd. Roosevelt, who came from a Brahmin family in American terms and was a distinguished leader. Churchill, who came from more or less aristocratic family. Mao Zedong came from poor family. You have different sets of origins and experiences Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, gandhi, and from one particular type of origin, and then Jawaharlal Nehru from another, and yet they were in India and they were colleagues, they were companions, they were in the anti-colonial trenches, with different perspectives and different roles.
Speaker 2:While I had an upbringing in the colonial times in the rural St Vincent and the Grenadines, where there wasn't material plenty, but I grew up as a happy boy, I grew up in the community. There were the seas in where we went swimming, and in the rivers where we went swimming and catch fish, and we went to the lands and we hunted and we played games of one kind or the other, traditional games and cricket and so on and so forth. You know as growing up we didn't have electricity in our village, at least 99 point something percent of us didn't have it. We didn't have pipe on water in your houses and so on. You know we went to school, primary school, between ages 5 and 12, barefooted and so on and so forth Just basic, elementary, elemental health facilities and the like. But those things were more than made up.
Speaker 2:With a community spirit and a sense, you grow a number of core values of decency and honesty and thrift and hard work. You grow a number of core values of decency and honesty and thrift and hard work, belief in family and the land and the seas and the rivers and how to live well with nature and to have a community spiritedness, taught elemental Christian values and virtues and handed down through the genius of the people, the tried and tested values of our Caribbean civilization and its Vincentian component. And all those things help to mold you and as you grow you begin to not just have information, more information and knowledge, but have an understanding, and then your wisdom will grow and then you apply your heart to wisdom and then you make judgments and have decisions. So it's a fascinating process, yes, which brings all of this? This, in the final analysis, your leadership. It brings it about.
Speaker 2:Naturally, you have to be trained in a minimum training in technical senses. I mean, in my own case, I went to some of the best universities in the world University of West Indies, university of Manchester in England, university of Macquarie in Africa, one of the oldest universities in Africa, the Inns of Court Law School in London. I did research work. I studied political economy and philosophy. I read widely and had a good grounding in the fundamentals in the primary school and in our secondary school system, even though it was only a small number of boys who got into secondary schools very small number certainly at that time when.
Speaker 1:I was a 12-year-old. You had talked about. One place where you went to school was Barbados, and there you were declared persona non grata, and in a previous conversation you indicated that experiences like that were designed to sort of stop you in your tracks, to crush you, oh yes, and that you handled it very differently. Can you say something about?
Speaker 2:Well, I didn't actually go to school in Barbados. I taught at the University of West Indies yes.
Speaker 2:I taught at the University of West Indies branch in Jamaica and then I was transferred to the one in Barbados. The year 1979, when I was 32 years old, the Grenada Revolution took place. It was a big revolution in a small country. The first time you had a revolution in the English-speaking Caribbean, the last occasion in the Caribbean as a whole. Before that was Fidel's overthrow of Batista in 1959. And before that was Toussaint Louverture leading the Black Jacobins in Haiti, the former slaves, former enslaved African bodies, and overthrew French colonialism and established the Haitian state system in 1804. So Grenada was quite impactful. It was a socialist-oriented, anti-imperialist revolution and governments in the region and the United States of America were very nervous. So you had I knew all the principles in the Grenada Revolution. We were friends, colleagues in political activism. I had been an activist since 1968, since I was a young man of 22 years old, and they at university and they were both imperialism and the local elites in the region didn't want to upset the apple cart too much. So you had in 19, that's March, march 13th 1979, in April, a band from entering Antigua to do a lecture at the local branch of the university there on imperialism in May and banned from going into St Lucia to do a lecture on fascism.
Speaker 2:I took a sabbatical, came home during the independence struggle here in St Vincent, the thrust towards independence struggle here in St Vincent, the thrust towards independence which occurred in 1959, 1979, october, and we had a small political party. We had the first outing. We got nearly 15% of the vote. We were defeated. And then, shortly after that, those elections in 1979, my work permit and my residency permit in Barbados were revoked. I couldn't go back to teach. I had a wife and child, young child. Tremendous surveillance on us at the time, those of us who were socialist-oriented, anti-imperialist, coordinated by the United States of America, britain, france and local elites, political and economic elites in concert with one another and things like that were really to break you. But you know you have setbacks. You turn the setbacks into advances.
Speaker 2:I organized, I went the US. At the time US authorities would allow me one entry into the United States, for whatever purpose, up to a limited period of time, I think, five months, six months at any one time. No multiple entry visa for me. And I was recruited for a six-month period five, six-month period by Queens College, city University of New York, to teach as a visiting professor. I did that and then I proceeded to London to do my professional bar exams I had done the academic part of law before, so that I set my bucket down as a lawyer, as you say, put up your shingle and offer your services, that you're not going to be able to have me in a situation where you can pressure me out of a livelihood, because the people who came to me were ordinary people who brought their cases for me to take to the lockwoods in one type of jurisdiction or the other, and I simply built my links organized with people and eventually ended up in Parliament, first in 1994 and then as Prime minister in 2001.
Speaker 1:When you had that roadblock, what was it about Ralph Gonsalves that was able to push past, that was able to not let that get in your way?
Speaker 2:We have a history of resilience in our country and a history of resistance. Of course, on the other side of it, there are persons who rule over and play dead, so to speak, or compromise themselves out of all principles. But I took none of those options. I decided to resist creatively and to work with the people. I didn't think that I was going to be prime minister.
Speaker 2:I was just doing work for justice, for democracy, for just rewards for labor, defending people's individual rights and freedoms and seeking to build social solidarity. At the same time and circumstances arose and I was catapulted into positions, the position of leading the party and leading the country. I am from the time I was a young boy, even from my own village. Other boys looked to me for leadership to do this or that, to organize, whether it's a cricket team, whether it's to go hunting, whether it's to go into the sea, you know, ralph, or what are we going to do, sort of thing. So I believe that I was possessed of some innate abilities which became manifest in particular circumstances.
Speaker 1:You mentioned that there are five keys to good leadership, one being the X factor. We'll get to the X factor, but can you identify those for us?
Speaker 2:Energy and will, vision and skill, plus the X factor. And I put it in this way rather than in the mechanistic formulation of transactional versus transformation leadership. You know the famous thesis of James McGregor Burns and we know all the writings, from Thucydides, plato, aristotle, all the way through Machiavelli, down to the current period, down to the current period, newt Statt, who wrote for President Kennedy on the question of presidential power, and the like. But my experiences have taught me that you can't be an effective leader unless you have energy. You have to be able to be doing things. Lazy people can't be leaders. You must have will, you must have a commitment, you must have a determination.
Speaker 2:A lot of people talk about passion, but WB Yeats, writing in the second coming during the nationalist struggles in the early 20th century in Ireland, the Irish struggling against the British, the famous poem about the centre cannot hold. You know, the ceremony of innocence is drunk. The best of all lack conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity. So you must have commitment and conviction. That's preferable to a kind of a fake passion, um, and then you must have. You must then have a vision, people-centered vision in in my own case, and there's a particular philosophy which follows the vision of social democracy and an embrace of something homegrown, coming out of our Caribbean civilization.
Speaker 2:So you must have that and you must have skill, all the skills which are required in a modern, competitive political system.
Speaker 2:You have to connect with people, you have to be I mean, governance is about politics and government so you have to have the political skills and you have to have governmental skills. It's like a bird with two wings If one of those wings is limited, the bird is not gonna fly, and I'm using this metaphor. And then to have something, that x factor which I talk about. Lots of leaders emphasize inspiring people, and that is important. You have to inspire people. But when you inspire people, so putting in in the sense of inspiring is, is difficult but relatively easy compared with what I call the X factor in a leader, which is to draw out of people what is good in them, what is noble in them, what is of high quality in them, and often to draw out of them that goodness, that high quality, that nobility, and often to draw out of them that goodness, that high quality, that nobility which they themselves do not as yet know that they possess.
Speaker 2:Because, you see, in every society they're what I call well, that's on the individual basis, but collectively they're what I call hidden rationalities, but collectively they're what I call hidden rationalities. These are resources and abilities which are submerged. You don't see them. They're hidden, they're not utilized or ill-utilized. If what is submerged, what is hidden, hidden, you can bring to the fore. What is not utilized, you can utilize them properly.
Speaker 2:What is ill utilized, you can do things, mighty things, with quote-unquote limited resources of the more formalistic kind. Of course those things are needed too. You need state investments, you need private investment, including foreign direct investment. But you need to pull out of people and pull out of the society. What is good, noble, of high quality, these hidden resources, these hidden rationalities which are not utilized at all or badly utilized or so submerged that people don't even know that they exist. And it's a process.
Speaker 2:But you can't do that unless you have the Pauline virtue of love. The Pauline virtue of love, which is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken. But once you have love, you need to have the two other companion virtues Pauline virtues, you need to have faith and you need to have faith and you need to have hope. And we take the definition of paul, of faith. That is the evidence, the, the, the substance of the, the, the evidence of what we have not seen Wrong, the corner Right and something which is nevertheless substantial things which you hope for, and these things become conjoined and that is what helps you to establish an efficacious communion with people. That is what helps you to establish an efficacious communion with people and it's the love which helps in generating the trust.
Speaker 2:There are a lot of leaders who are quite mistaken in thinking that trust arises from transactions. They don't arise from transactions. They don't arise from transactions. I will tell my cabinet colleagues, I will tell the members who want to be candidates for parliament in my party while you have to do things, because faith without works is dead, you have to do things because faith without works is dead. You have to do things, but if you're just transactional, that people respond to you only if you do something.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you don't even do it. But because the city loves, they say, well, he hasn't gotten to do that yet, but I know he even do it. But because the city love, they say, well, he hasn't gotten to do that yet, but I know he will do it, because he's doing many other things and there are limitations. People, ordinary people, understand what, what karl marx wrote about in the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, just after the middle of the 19th century. Men and women make history, but only to the extent that the circumstances of history permit them so to make. They do not make history in circumstances of their own choosing, but they make it in circumstances inherited. Their own choosing, but they make it in circumstances inherited from the past. And what? The condition that has arisen in the contemporary situation. And part of those circumstances are ideas which men and women have in their heads. Some of those ideas are progressive, some are not so progressive and some are particularly backward.
Speaker 2:And in ordinary human beings you find that multiple set of ideas and that is why it's so important to tap into and draw out that which is good, noble, of high quality, to help to propel us forward. And sometimes you have a difficulty because some of the things which are backward or ignoble the way like a nightmare on the brains of the living, inherited from the past. So you have to involve yourself in consciousness raising, education, and it happens sometimes you'll be talking about something and you think you're not getting anywhere with it. And you wake up one morning and you feel that so many persons are thinking the way you've been talking about. It's like somehow the light bulb goes on in some collective way. It's, it's, it's in some ineffable way. It's, it's, it's it. It appears as though it happens spontaneously, but it is something which is growing and evolving.
Speaker 1:Cultivated.
Speaker 2:Cultivated.
Speaker 1:Yes, and part of that is you creating the circumstances, as I'm hearing you say, and what it says to me is that part of this X factor is how you empower others, so that it's not always having to come from you, but by empowering others. Now you got the support and the, the collaboration you.
Speaker 2:you know you're quite correct. Sometimes I will go to people. I'll say I want to tell you something. I know I sense that you're not going to agree with me at first, but I want to persuade you that what I'm saying is correct. And I want you to listen to me and tell me what you think. And oh, there are some people who will say, comrade Ralph, I support you on this or that, but that thing you talk about I support you with it. I say, well, think about it a little bit more. I will think about what you're saying too, and maybe we might arrive at a consensus somewhere along the line. We might figure this thing out together. Figure this thing out together because it's an ongoing conversation between leaders and people whom they are leading.
Speaker 2:One of the problems in modern leadership is that the leader stays cocooned behind some authority, set structures and get the modern means of communication to work for them and connect with people. They hire press officers and they hire a whole army of communications experts In the modern world. They're important because nowadays, as I said metaphorically, by the time truth can put on the shoes, the lies have gone around the world. So you need that. But the leader in relation to his people, must have a connection with the people, must link with them.
Speaker 2:I know it's more difficult in larger societies than in smaller ones, because I can get around more easily to my constituents than somebody in a much larger country. But Bill Clinton, for instance, is a man who, for all his weaknesses and limitations, he had immense strengths and possibilities and he had a certain empathy which was communicated with people, to people that they felt that he cared, and even though he had a population of 300 and something million, he somehow was able to make some connection to people in some personal way, while others can't really do it Right For the American audience. You compare him, for instance, with his vice president, al.
Speaker 2:Gore audience, you compare him, for instance with his vice president, I'll go whatever goes strengths and possibilities. He certainly didn't have that ability to link with people. He appeared distant and aloof. And much of the literature, in my view, on leadership is written by theoreticians who have not themselves practiced leadership at a particular level, and thus you get mechanistic perspectives. It happens with. I give the example of Burns Machiavelli, in advising the prince, he said to the prince listen, there are two things with you, two qualities you have to consider as a leader, as the prince, one you must have the people love you or fear you. So love is a problem, you know, because they are entirely fickle, you know anxious for advancement, permanently dissatisfied, greedy, so don't think you're going to have them love you all the time. So what you do otherwise you have them, fear you. You rule by fear. Of course the prince didn't have elections to win, but yet Machiavelli's contrasts are not dialectical.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:They're very mechanistic and either-or. The real world is not so replicated because it connects to with one of the weaknesses of traditional Western philosophy, which comes on two, on two tracks either materialism or ideational thought, whether the materialism is mechanistic or whether it's of a dialectical materialism or one which is as ideas determine people's behavior, and both. The question of the impact of ideational thought and materialism. No one can deny any of the impacts and the causation generally through history and, of course course, in individual circumstances. But because we are human beings, there's an essence in us which responds to certain things. That's where the existentialists have a point.
Speaker 2:Of course, the existentialists are all over the place, so it's not so much a philosophy as a revolt against traditional philosophy, but we have to factor in this essence of human beings. How do we get that essence in them which is good and noble and of high quality? How do we pull that out? Which it's done with material incentives, is done with thought and ideas. But there are certain things where you have to connect with this essence, which is human beings as a the head of the chain of primates. We possess it. I'm told that other animals may well possess it too, but I'm talking about human beings and you have to get that. It's not easy and it's complicated. Right Leadership is not easy. Yeah, but is this where you're?
Speaker 1:referring to empathy and love? Absolutely Okay, right, well, leadership is not easy, yeah, but is this where you're referring to empathy and love?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, okay, absolutely. And you know, of course, paul, servant of the Lord, called to be an apostle. While he spoke about these Pauline virtues, when you read his instructions to Christians, he was emphasizing, of course, unity of message, of doctrine, of ideas, organization, practical things, how the organization is to be funded. He has to be walking from place to place, so you, you have to help him with his sandals. Yes, he needs food to eat, so so, again, you, you have to connect with certain practical exigencies. But this agencies.
Speaker 2:But this issue of love and as an important source for leaders to possess and engender, to my mind is critical in drawing out nobility and goodness and high quality from persons, even where they themselves do not as yet know that they possess those qualities.
Speaker 1:Leadership also implies leading the way outside of existing boundaries. Yes, outside of existing boundaries, yes, and we find, for example, in corporations. Corporations have a mindset, they have how things should be done, and anytime someone wants to step out of those boundaries, the organization has this sort of immune system that sees danger in new perspectives, new ideas and wants to pull them back in. I've noticed with you many areas in which you've taken the lead to move outside of existing boundaries. You talked the other day about the Secretary of State talking about how you shouldn't support physicians here in your country, and if you can talk a little bit about that because what I heard was you took a stand there as a leader and you created a model for other leaders to follow your lead, and that was a brave thing that you did. If you can maybe speak a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:You made two points, one for general consideration and a specific one in relation to the employment of Cuban professionals, doctors in particular. We have to get persons whom you're leading to appreciate something, and you have to appreciate it yourself that while the shortest distance between two points geometrically is a straight line, you cannot climb a mountain by a straight line. You have to take zigs and you have to take zags. And it is particularly difficult in competitive democracies. If you take a zig and you take a zag from a defined path, you're going to the mountaintop, but you can't go to the mountaintop by way of a straight line. So you may take a zig, you may take a zag might be a pragmatic compromise which you're making tactically, not strategically, because you don't want to end up in a cul-de-sac, in a dead end, when when you make your zig or your zag. So that's the first thing which you have to appreciate as a leader and people have to appreciate people whom you're leading. Otherwise there could be great impatience and a lot of times it happens here in St Vincent, grenadines, where we have an active press and we have an active opposition, if I take a zig or a zag and I explain it, but I'm going to the mountaintop. Still, oh, inconsistency. You're departing from this. I take that as background noise. I'm not interested in background noise. I'm interested in the main song, the main tune, the lyrics melody. I'm not interested in the sideshow. I'm interested in the main song, the main tune, the lyrics melody. I'm not interested in the sideshow, I'm interested in the main event. So I keep my mind and I ask persons, let's keep our eyes going to the prize at the mountaintop, the vision, the vision getting there, the specific thing which you raise Now.
Speaker 2:Joe Biden's presidency had raised this question first. In fact I think it's under Biden that there was a legislative provision on it that recruiting the Cubans professionals, that it's trafficking in persons. It's absolutely not the case. Trafficking in persons, it's absolutely not the case. But and on this occasion the current government in the United States says that this is a problem and if you don't correct it, you and your families, your leaders, can lose your visa going to the United States. Well, our position is very simple. I don't have to pick a fight with the United States of America on a matter like this. I happen to know factually that their assertion is wrong. It may well be informed by ideological or political considerations unconnected to the truth, and I believe that the persons in the state administration in the US are reasonable persons and I will show them that what they're saying is not true and I will show them that what they're saying is not true.
Speaker 2:But if, after showing them that they put ideological or political considerations above the truth and decide that they will carry out what they threatened to do to take away my visa or that of my wife, to take away my visa or that of my wife, I say that I will. I have you presented me with a choice now, where the Cuban professionals were here, who are well paid. It's a voluntary program. They have their individual contracts. They can exit the program anytime they want. What they're saying in their brief, in the US brief, is just not true. They're wrong, they're misinformed. But if you want to persist with your misinformation for ideological or political reasons in your domestic situation, and then you confront me with the reality, I have to let the Cuban professionals go and keep my visa, or you can take the visa and the visa for my wife and I keep the Cuban professionals and the visa for my wife and I keep the Cuban professionals. And I keep them in truth and honesty. Because I give one example At the Modern Medical and Diagnostic Center in a rural community 20 miles from here from the city, I have, for instance, at that center, that health facility, a dialysis, a hemodialysis facility unit which is staffed largely by the Cuban professionals.
Speaker 2:They set it up. I have 60 individuals there who go three times per week. We provide that service free for them. The government of St Vincent provides that service free for these 60 persons Poor and working people. If they don't have that service, they're dead. Would I leave 60 persons to die Because I don't have any replacement?
Speaker 2:In any case. There's no forced labor, there's no trafficking in persons. None of these allegations can ever pass the truth test. Pass the truth test. I say with all honesty that you can then keep the visa, you can take it away if you wish. But I have the expectation that when the US authorities know the truth they will say well, we have been, we're mistaken on this one and make the right decision. But if they make the wrong decision, I have no control over that. I then decide myself as a human being and as a leader. Where do I put the preference in the decision-making right? I have the understanding, I have the information, I have the knowledge. I have the understanding. Right, the wisdom is there. I apply my heart to the wisdom and I make a judgment, just as the Hebrew people taught us to do in the book of Ecclesiastes, in Psalms, in Proverbs and, of course, in the way the modern social scientists tell us that we must reason things out. But it has clearly to a moral basis grounded in love. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I'm glad you used the word grounded in love, because you're saying where you stand and how that determines to a great degree your decisions. But I wanted to also emphasize the fact that you taking that stand allowed other leaders in the Caribbean to follow your lead but it was your lead.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was my yes. Well, somebody at some time has to take the lead on something. And then all the leaders, I'm sure in the Caribbean, share my perspective and I know well some have spoken out already. I've been advised that in a leadership WhatsApp chat, one leader said, referring to me thank God for the ancient warrior, let's follow him. My point yes, thank god for the ancient warrior, um, let's follow him. You know, um, my point yes, but, but, but, somebody else could have done it too. It's just that in this circumstance, I, I, I, I did it because I'm the, I have a, I'm the longest Prime Minister. This issue has arisen. It's a regional question. We have to solve it regionally. We have to have a meeting with the US government. It's not just an individual St Vincent and New Guernsey issue, but I think that the regional population would have expected me to come forth and make a statement.
Speaker 2:I have great love for Cuba and I have great love for the United States of America. The fact that a government in the United States of America may be an quote-unquote, may see itself, may see Cuba as its enemy, and vice versa. I'm not getting involved in that. Cuba is part of our Caribbean civilization, the United States of America. We are bonded with them. We have a history of good relations. That doesn't mean that the relations have not been from time to time troubled or that we have dissonances, but there is a genuine love by our country and our people for America and for Cuba. The people value the Cubans who are here, but they also value the opportunities available in the united states. They, they, they see the united states as a as a country of great innovation not just your wealth, but great innovation, great, great opportunities. It's a lead in culture and we have a battle with that because there are some globalized forces who would like the culture to be so universal through the prism Homogeneous, Homogeneous through the prism of their own eyes.
Speaker 2:But we have our own eyes, right, you know, and you can't isolate yourself from a cultural wellspring elsewhere, but you have your own, on which you must be grounded and you have a foundation, and that itself is a complicated process. How do you resist cultural imperialism yet at the same time embrace such fascinating aspects of the United States culture? Let's take including science and technology. Let's take even at its most basic level. Young people can love the music of Taylor Swift and Beyonce and dance to it and sing all of those songs, but still, at the same time, be very grounded with our traditional music, with our calypsos, with reggae, with soca. And as global citizens we must be able to move to hither and thither, but always, importantly, grounded in the tried and tested values of our civilization and that genius of our people people.
Speaker 2:I mean, I will tell you we don't have a history like the unite of arm on the evening of a funeral, having a repass. We tend to do that on the third night or the nine nights, on the 40 night. Well, there's this American phenomenon that you must have a feast on the night after you come for the, and that is growing in our country. But there are people who still I don't particularly like that. I prefer the third night, the nine night, the 40 night. So I draw one or two disparate examples to illustrate the point that I'm making.
Speaker 1:Yes, I appreciate that and I so appreciate the time.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:I have one or two other last questions. As part of the empowering of the individual and drawing out, as you say is so important, part of that has to do with wounding of individuals as well as the collective wounding that you've taken particular interest and concern for the Garifuna people of your culture of the Caribbean and in fact have made a declaration about the island of Ballysoe, which holds a particular significance in the collective trauma of the Garifuna people, and you recognize that and address that, yes, and recognize the importance of reparations and the healing process that really helps people empower themselves.
Speaker 2:Well, you raised three issues. One is the general one, about the individual and the collective, the second one baliso, and the third one reparations, and they're connected. Really, if I begin by saying this, a democracy must have within it certain freedoms which have a center on individual rights and freedoms, but those rights and freedoms can only be properly protected within an organized society. Otherwise, the stronger will simply decimate your individual right. It means, therefore, that we must have an emphasis on both an individual and a society. A society, but we have to eschew an automized individualism that is individual as individual in some pure, pristine sense. The apotheosis of such a person is Howard Hughes in his most degenerative form or stage, in its most degenerative form or stage. Therefore, we have to go for a social individual, not an atomized individual, who connects with the collective, the society, where social solidarity is vital, and I think that's very important and that is part also of our own leadership thrust. Now, nearly 5,000 persons at the end of the resistance, a long resistance between the indigenous Kalinago and Garifuna against British colonialism in the late 18th century, the longest guerrilla war against colonialism ever in the hemisphere 30 odd years interspersed by peace treaties which the British broke. The British wanted to get rid of the Kalinago and the Garifuna and the indigenous peoples and wanted to take the land. That's plain and straight.
Speaker 2:And after the defeat of the resistance and the killing of their leader, joseph Chateau, our national hero, the British carried out large-scale genocide and those whom they couldn't kill or decided kill or decided well, okay, we kill a few thousand, let's gather up nearly another five thousand and let's put them on this island, this barren island of bali, soldiers off the shore of saint vincent, part of the jurisdiction of saint vincent, and within a few months, within six, half of them were dead and people in the British Parliament, some decent people, saying what sort of thing is happening here. But they didn't decide to bring those back from Baliso to St Vincent. They decided to carry them further, to Rotan Island in the Bay of Honduras, so that Balisu represents a physical manifestation of a terrible locale of native genocide, terrible locale of native genocide.
Speaker 2:And we had to take that island in our national patrimony Can't belong to individuals or groups of individuals, must belong to us and we have to have a historical monument. We have to have a memory manifested in real things taking place and programs, and and we will have a commissioner task force so that we can see how we build baliso in in in um, with with this particular purpose in mind and and that is part of repairing, because reparations, which which we have pushed for and my government is the one which put the issue on the agenda at the heads of government of the Caribbean community in 2013. And we have a Caribbean reparations commission and we have a 10-point plan for reparations.
Speaker 2:The critics of reparations would say well, how are you going to identify people today to give them money? That's not what reparations are about. Reparations are about repairing the legacies of underdevelopment that have been caused, that have been linked directly to native genocide and the enslavement of African bodies, and including in that is not only the material deprivation and the evidence is clear and things with education and technology and all the rest of it is not only the material deprivation and the evidence is clear and things with education and technology and all the rest of it, but memory and the trauma psychologically, Absolutely the scars and the overhang from the past.
Speaker 2:That's why I talk about the legacies of these things which require repairing, and the reclamation of Mali-Souk to bring it to the national patrimony. That's part of the repairing process.
Speaker 1:And I appreciate so much that, that vision and that motivation and goal and the recognition that it's part of making individuals whole and is part of making communities, cultures whole.
Speaker 2:And when you have whole communities, individuals, everybody works better whole social individuals not perfect social individuals, right, but those which are whole, because the purpose of it, out of the fever of our history, is to make whole daughters and whole sons out of the compromise that history has made all of us. And in making the whole son and the whole daughter, meaning not broken ones, not perfect ones, but whole, because perfection is usually presented in theological terms. That's why I'm saying about whole, not broken, but not perfect. And this, in getting there, we have to have a conversation with our parents, with each other and with our daughters and our sons, in order to make the whole daughter and the whole son out of the compromise which the fever of history has made us all.
Speaker 1:Beautifully said.
Speaker 2:Thank you again so much.
Speaker 1:This has been so wonderful. You've highlighted so important characteristics of what I refer to as quantum leadership, thank you, and you demonstrated so tremendously. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, quantum leadership, thank you and you demonstrated so tremendously.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Professor. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you everybody for joining me on this Quantum Leadership Podcast. I hope today's conversation has inspired you to think bigger, lead more authentically and take steps toward meaningful change. If you've enjoyed this episode, please share it with others and make sure you subscribe and go to my website, drstephensitteroffcom. Thank you again.