They've gone too far
November 26, 2000
By Selwyn R. Cudjoe
MY mother is 91 years of age. Her mind is as clear as a bell although her hearing is as dull as a rusty razor blade. She is still articulate and her spiritual vision remains intact, pristine and clear. Sometimes, she even assumes the posture of clairvoyant. As I observe the debacle of the uncivilised national crooks, I recognise the appropriateness of two of her maxims: “You will do and do until you can do no more” and “God doh like ugly”. In this last rounds, the disintegrating impulse and self-inflicted wounds of the UNC make one conclude that UNC has become “the ugly” personified. They have outdone themselves, gone too far. We must turn them back now.
Think how badly UNC wants to win this election. They want to vindicate themselves, bury Mr Manning and the PNM (I think they wanted to push them into the Gulf of Paria) and claim that UNC is no longer an Indian party. Kamal Persad and his Hindu nationalists could not wait to exhale, so fired up are they about their boast that the UNC is now a broad-based, multi-ethnic party. Even as Panday and his colleagues hold their collective breath at the influx of “niggers in the party”, (Panday's words to Raffique Shah), he does not mind such an indignity if, at the end of the day, he could have boasted: “I came, I saw and I conquered. Finally, the people of T&T have accepted me.”
Think of what a coup it would have been if Panday had capped his political career by winning one election. What a blessing it might have been if these uncivilised national crooks could say with some conviction: “De people put we dey.” Instead, on a daily basis they show up their amateur, not-ready-for prime time behaviour, expose the limitations of one-manism, and demonstrate the inherent shortcomings of a money-only philosophy.
The UNC really believes everything has a price and money can buy anything. Money remains their God; and corruption the central tenet of their theology. They believe that if they spend frequently and in large quantities, they could steal the elections. They thought that if they spend a few millions on “Keith and Daphne”; buy the services of a hundred black petit-bourgeois individuals—mostly males —and squander several millions to pave the roads, they could induce political amnesia among the people.
History, however, suggests that sometimes money can be the root of many evils and the spending of millions of dollars do not necessarily ensure victory. Although money may attract people, it cannot buy their enthusiasm and create an insatiable desire to win. People will take the money but it would not translate into votes. Jack Warner's nonsense notwithstanding, UNC will learn that fools and their money soon part although, via nefarious schemes, one will always have access to new sources of tainted monies.
Fired by this belief in money and the absolute certainty that it could buy anything, Messrs Panday and Warner feel that once they give their commands, the world would stand still, people would genuflect in submission, and the gods themselves would fall on their knees and worship them.
However, fate is fickle and sometimes unkind. While they plotted and schemed, fate just smiled. As they barked their commands, the heavenly spirit demurred at their vanity; and while they roamed the national stage puffed up and seemingly invincible, fate began to do her thing.
First came the court decisions, and the justices were supposed to be biased but they simply confirmed people's gut feelings that all was not right in King Arthur's (Napoleon Robinson's) court. Then there were allegations of voter padding and even the EBC could not avoid the suspicion that a great deception was on. When Morgan Job insulted the police, he drove a nail into UNC's coffin. Even if they died in the process, the police were going to show the UNC they could not urinate on them as they pleased. Their pride and professionalism were at stake.
Then, the final humiliation: Winston “Gypsy” Peters and Bill Chaitan perjured themselves. It is almost as though it confirmed the truism: they did and they did until they could not do any more. They felt they were invincible. They felt they knew every trick in the book and could rewrite the rules without any compunction. They ignored their own and ran to those whose only qualification was the possession of plenty money. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, they were caught with their pants down and their nakedness was exposed. Ramesh laughed and cried at the same time. He was happy that Panday was getting his behind kicked in and sad that his party was humiliated so publicly. He, too, had to say: God doh like ugly.
Then the begging began. Give we another five years nah. We cannot take the 47-dollars man again. Assured in the belief that words can do anything, they began to spin the news to hoodwink the people. Convinced that braggadocio could achieve any objective, they tried to outwit the fates. Unknown to them, fate was just looking on, waiting to strike. In one fell swoop, in the most innocuous of ways, it said to these jokers: You have done; you have been doing; you have even overdone; now you will do no more. You have gone too far; we have to turn you back now.
Today, our CPPO countdown stands at minus 2, the exact position in which the UNC finds itself in the political arithmetic. Had I told them how my obeah worked, that two Sundays before Panday's political oblivion, PNM would have had two seats in the bag, no one would have believed me.
Yet, the obeah of my calculus assures me that on December 12, UNC's annihilation will be complete. The nation's people will tell the uncivilised national crooks that they went too far. “You must turn back now!”
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