• raceandhistory.com • hotep.bigstep.com • amonhotep.com • pantrinbago.com • World History • trinicenter.com •

Wrong and strong

December 3, 2000
By DONNA YAWCHING

WRONG and strong. Might is right. The law is what we say it is. These are the mottos of the UNC government. In this pre-election season (and well before it), all ethical values have become a quagmire of shifting sand—to the point, it seems, where there’s no longer any such thing as right and wrong, legal or illegal, acceptable behaviour or unacceptable.

The Gypsy/Chaitan debacle has thrown this reality into clear focus. I’ve followed the debate with an amazement akin to awe. I can’t imagine anywhere else in the world — at least, any democratic country — where it would be taking place at all. Consider the components: two presumably intelligent men (a big presumption, perhaps, but let us be charitable) decide (or are persuaded, by whatever inducements) to run for office.

Both, as far as we know, are literate. Both are cogs in a party apparatus that includes countless legal luminaries. Both are found to be acceptable by a screening committee whose job it is to weed out the unacceptables. Both presumably read the nomination form closely, as would anyone with intelligence who is signing a legal document. The form is neither long, complicated, confusing, nor couched in obfuscating legal language.

Both pick up a pen and sign the form, which specifies at the end: “I make this declaration conscientiously believing the same to be true — and I am aware that if there is any statement in this declaration which is false in fact — I am liable to fine and imprisonment.” Pretty straightforward, if you ask me; apart perhaps from the difficult (in more ways than one) word “conscientiously”, it is nothing that should give a grown man any trouble.

Yet two grown men, hands on hearts, “conscientiously” signed this form knowing full well that their legal status stood in contradiction to condition number 3: “I am not, by virtue of my own act, under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience or adherence to a foreign power or state.” Not only is this false, it is false under a very specific law, to the point where it can be punishable with prison. It is perjury. If you did the same on your income tax form, you’d be offered no mercy.

So: those are the facts. Forget all the emotionalism about “serving my country” and “Uncle Sam, take back your citizenship”. Forget about stirring claims of the moral right to be a candidate in your own country, whether or not your candidacy contravenes the law of the land, and even the very Constitution. Forget the politics, on both sides. Let’s look at the facts: a law was broken. Through this act, a solemn contract was rendered null and void. Prison? A bit more extreme than necessary, perhaps: after all, these are not dangerous criminals, just a couple of low-grade scamps. But surely there should be no question whatsoever about their disqualification.

And this is the point where my jaw drops open in disbelief. Because indeed, there is debate about it. What’s more, instead of cringing with shame and embarrassment, and immediately withdrawing their candidacies, both men (one, perhaps, more blusteringly than the other) are declaring that they’ve done nothing wrong; that they didn’t know; didn’t read; weren’t told; didn’t think.

And their party, instead of groveling in sackcloth and ashes, as it bloody well should, is nonchalantly wondering: “What’s the big deal?”, or words to that effect; and hauling out its lawyers to assure us that nothing’s really wrong. The Prime Minister of our nation, whom one would expect to be our grand moral arbiter, has this to say about the two men’s transgressions: “They did not think they were doing anything wrong when they signed the nomination form.” I wonder why Dole Chadee didn’t try that argument.

The Opposition, understandably outraged (though probably more for political reasons than ethical ones), is accused of attempting to subvert “democracy” when they protest the nominations. The UNC’s interpretation of democracy appears to be that they’re in charge, and if people want to vote for Gypsy or Chaitan, they should have the right to do so, no matter what.

And Gypsy’s version of democracy is that Patrick Manning is schizophrenic and an enemy of the law, while these same laws validate his presence on the election platform. If Gypsy’s legal adviser were an accountant, no one would ever pay taxes.

This whole incident disturbs me not because I care who the UNC runs as candidates, but because it sounds the very depths of our national amorality. Not only can two candidates break a law and get away with it, but half the country shrugs and says, “So what?” And the EBC, the institution that is supposed to monitor these things, shrugs just as indifferently and says, “There’s nothing we can do”— causing one to wonder what, besides the pestle, might be hiding in the mortar. And the PNM is actually being accused of immorality and bad faith when it challenges this illegal action. Why do I feel like Alice in Wonderland?

We have reached the point in this country where we take it for granted that our elected representatives will be dishonest and corrupt: we expect nothing less. Right and wrong depend solely on who’s saying it. This is why we don’t even blink when two candidates are caught out in political flagrante delicto. This is why, also, Gypsy could nonchalantly say of the voter-padding scandal (another assault on the basic tenets of our democracy): “This whole thing has been blown out of proportion. I find 252 (fraudulent voters) is a negligible amount.” Whoever stole the soul of the nation evidently started with Gypsy’s.

Bill Chaitan, the other (mercifully quieter) illegal candidate, made an interesting (if not quite fathomable) statement; he said: “The legality of any law depends on the morality of the people.” I’m not too sure what he meant by this, but it may be truer than he imagines. In a nation whose ethics exist on a conveniently sliding scale, can any law, in fact, be considered binding?

Judging from the current situation, apparently not.