Politics & Power Quote by Owen Arthur

Arthur’s line lands like a polite barb: the two professions that claim to serve the public are, in practice, forever auditioning for each other’s jobs. As a statesman, he isn’t doing stand-up; he’s diagnosing an ecosystem where power and publicity share the same bloodstream. The joke works because it flips the official story. Politicians insist they govern while journalists merely observe. Arthur suggests both are, at core, operators: persuaders competing to control the national narrative.

“Meant to be” is the key phrase. It frames this not as corruption but as destiny, a structural blur baked into modern democracy. Politicians need the journalist’s skills - framing, selective emphasis, the ruthless compression of complexity into quotable truth. Journalists, meanwhile, are pulled toward the politician’s incentives - influence, access, agenda-setting, the thrill of being inside the room where outcomes harden. Arthur’s subtext is less “they’re all the same” than “they’re built from the same materials”: ambition, performance, and a comfort with strategic messaging.

Context matters. Coming from a Caribbean leader navigating postcolonial governance, global media, and the constant court of public opinion, the remark reads as weary realism. Small states live under a magnifying glass: foreign press, domestic radio, rumor, and party politics collapse into one arena. The line also doubles as a warning. When journalists become quasi-politicians, scrutiny can soften into factional combat; when politicians become quasi-journalists, governance can degrade into commentary. Arthur’s wit is a pressure test for a democratic culture increasingly addicted to optics over outcomes.