The mischief maker's double speak
February 16, 2003
by Dr Winford James
Not Many people, including people who support him electorally, take opposition leader Bas Panday seriously these days. Since he has lost government, has backbacked on his promise to demit the leadership of the UNC, and exists with cloud of something like corruption over his head, this is hardly surprising.
But he must be taken seriously at all times, even when he is obviously talking nonsense and especially when he is making mischief – if only because he occupies one of the most important political offices in the country and, by virtue of that office, could become prime minister a second time.
He was both talking nonsense and making mischief at the national congress of the UNC at Rienzi Complex the other day. As I understand him, one of his messages to the faithful (and, by extension, to us all) is that there will be "violence and bloodshed" to change the government unless there is "constitutional reform".
Such violence and bloodshed will be wrought by young people who will not abide the "crap" that older generations took. The crap is being spewed out by "the manner in which the PNM is running the country.
The PNM is bent on running the country under the existing constitution, a state of affairs where the opposition is powerless and ignorable since all it can do is talk. The UNC and its supporters must therefore not cooperate with the PNM government and, as a political course of action, must engage in a campaign of civil disobedience and a fighting for "what we want" "without violence". Nonsense and mischief!
It is nonsense to talk, in one breath or from one corner of the mouth, about the option of violence and bloodshed if the government does not institute constitutional reform and, in another breath or from another corner of the mouth, about fighting non-violently for "what we want", that is, in context, constitutional reform. Unless the message is: "we will fight non-violently to get constitutional reform, but if we find that non-violence is not working fast enough, we must resort to violence and bloodshed."
It is also mischievous, for when Panday was prime minister and government, he squandered and disdained the opportunity to institute the reform he wants the successor PNM government to initiate now that he is in opposition after a gluttonous taste of the fruits of government. Furthermore, when he started his second abortive term of government and Manning was acting up about taking certain issues (like UNC voter padding and theft of the government) to the public around the country, he reminded him that his government had been legitimately elected, and he issued sinister sounding cautions to him to "cool it" and not invite an unprecedented (ethnic) trouble in the land.
But Manning's government is as legitimate now as his was then, and if Panday failed to reform the constitution in his tenure without having to put up with (threats of) violence and bloodshed, he shouldn't be too upset if Manning followed in his footsteps. Do so ent like so!
Not that the call for constitutional reform is a nonsensical or mischievous one.
The need for reform has been getting clearer and clearer with every change of government. From Panday's unsubtly blood thirsty tone in this latest change of government, it is painfully clear.
He and his ethnic constituency are out of government and cannot share in the spoils of executive decision-making.
They cannot run the state agencies. They cannot award tenders. They cannot have a development agenda. They cannot lead in the creation of new laws or in the amendment of existing ones.
They cannot have the high ethnic visibility here and abroad as they had before. The leaders cannot image or model for the constituency as they have come to love.
They need to share power constitutionally with the other dominant constituency from now on. They need to do more that talk. I agree. But through violence and bloodshed now that they are out of government? Has Panday calculated the consequences of his desperate and reckless incitement and orchestration?
In the building of societies, political change often has to be forced, and through a variety of means. But history and contemporary politics have given us far better options than violence and bloodshed. Let's take Panday seriously, and so let's not let him trifle with the bloody means.
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