Trinidad Express
Tobago News
Trinidad Guardian
Snatch the microphone
February 14, 2001
By Denis Solomon
NONE of the three protagonists in the Constitutional battle (four if you include the Chief Justice) has made any proposals for either a short or a long-term solution, constitutional or political. Panday makes the same noises about plots, sedition and anarchy he has been making since November 1995. The President crouches in his ivory tower of philosophical righteousness, sustained by the misplaced adulation of those who confuse stubbornness with enlightenment. Manning flogs the dead horse of electoral irregularities.
The only resolution that seemed on the cards at the beginning, a new election, is no longer an option because of the widespread dissatisfaction with the electoral list and the half-widespread mistrust of the Election and Boundaries Commission.
Besides, as far as election goes, the Ortoire-Mayaro and Pointe-a-Pierre seats are still in dispute, and to get round that Panday would have to put up new candidates in those constituencies. He would see this as a partial surrender.
Nevertheless, there is progress, though not the kind the protagonists want or are even conscious of. None of the three is wise enough to realise that the only salvation any of them has to hope for is the status quo, and the only way to maintain the status quo would be to compromise. An arithmetic solution in bodies or in time: appointment of any number of "losers" under seven, or all of them in exchange for new elections halfway through the term. This would have left the fundamental inadequacies of the system intact, and only the inadequacies of the system allow dinosaurs such as Panday, Manning and Robinson to survive. Anything more radical would sweep them away.
Yet, with the inexorability of Greek tragedy, it is precisely toward radical solutions that their intransigence is propelling the country. Because, since there can be no change in their positions, they are being forced in their increasing desperation to take them into wider and wider forums. And it is in the widening of the debate that their downfall lies.
The President has had ever greater recourse to media appearances and press communiqués. The UNC has shamelessly intensified the attempts to brainwash schoolchildren with lies, half-truths and innuendoes that it started during the election campaign. At that time, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education lost no opportunity to take the lowest form of party political propaganda into the schools. Kamla Persad-Bissessar, for example, regaled pupils of the new Debe High School with an account of the UNC's record in school-building, and criticised the PNM for its supposed failures in education policy. She even went so far as to suggest that a member of the Parliamentary opposition had compared the children of Blanchisseuse to douens and wild animals.
Now the President has been added to the PNM as the target of the UNC school diatribes, and the Attorney General has joined in.
The PNM has followed suit, and Mr. Manning has been conveying opposing, but equally distorted, versions of the truth to the nation's children.
The latest act of desperation, though, has been Mr. Panday's creation of a UNC "mobilisation task force" to "deal with the PNM plot to discredit the government and to incite anarchy in the society". In his customary fashion, Mr. Panday announced the initiative in terms that themselves were as close to incitement of anarchy as made no difference. He was going to defend the sanctity of the Constitution and promote respect for the rule of law, he said; but that defence, apparently, would involve "hundreds of thousands" of UNC supporters; the same people, presumably, whom he had already urged to "do them first".
The work of the task force will be to organise a series of assemblies across Trinidad (not, presumably, Tobago) to listen to harangues from such as Ramesh Maharaj, Mervyn Assam and Panday himself.
What kind of "mobilisation" Panday has in mind is obvious. Nothing will be said in the meetings that has not been said a thousand times already. A UNC spokesman says that "it is likely" that petitions with thousands of signatures will arise out of the assemblies and be sent to the President. They are therefore obviously intended for UNC supporters. The danger is, then, that the purpose of the assemblies is not enlightenment but frenzy. A series of planned "do them first" occasions. Indeed, a UNC spokesman described the effort as "putting the party on a war footing".
"Assemblies" is therefore somewhat of a misnomer. A better word might be "rallies". There is no question of the gatherings being organised either to attract the public at large or to find a solution to the crisis. Their purpose is to intimidate, first the President and secondly business interests, with the prospect of serious unrest. Any petitions that may come out of them will be merely the pretext.
This is a highly irresponsible thing for a government to do. Furthermore, Panday doesn't seem to realise that protest rallies are the purview of opposition (with a small O), not of government. By organising these rallies he is putting his government in the position of an opposition (again with a small O) and Robinson in the position of government.
How then does this represent a possible step forward? First, because all mobilisation raises consciousness, however false its motivation. Secondly, because once the battle enters the domain of formal public gatherings there is no reason why it must remain confined to one party. To the extent that pro-PNM, or pro-Robinson, or uncommitted members of the public are interested in finding solutions, they can attend the assemblies and turn them into genuine forums for debate. Even take them over, wrest them from the control of any party and continue them as foci of genuine popular mobilisation. In Lloyd Best's phrase, "snatch the microphone". The beginnings, in short, of a nationwide Constituent Assembly. In fact, this is what must happen. Neither Panday nor Manning must be allowed to claim to be the only one to have achieved popular mobilisation on the issue.
The same applies to the schools. I emphatically disagree with those who say that to prevent children being brainwashed, Ramesh, Manning and Panday should be kept out of the schools. On the contrary, they should be invited at every possible opportunity. Come one, come all. The real brainwashing, in schools and outside, has not come from politics, but from the lack of it. Children are not fools. If their background has made it difficult up to now for them to distinguish politics from politicking, now is their chance to learn. Teachers and students should clamour for Panday, Manning, Ramesh, Persad-Bissessar and even Robinson to come and talk to them, if possible all at the same time.
Copyright © 2004 Denis Solomon