“De Doc­tor say to pay as you earn, but Spar­row say yuh pay­ing to learn …”

CLR in Par­ty Pol­i­tics in the West In­dies ad­vised his stu­dent, re­searcher and po­lit­i­cal col­league, pre­mier/prime min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams to utilise the com­mu­ni­ca­tions skills and pop­u­lar­i­ty of the Mighty Spar­row to con­nect with the so­ci­ety in which the ca­lyp­so and the ca­lyp­son­ian are root­ed.

His­tor­i­cal­ly de­pen­dent on the British tax­pay­er to take up the bill, Spar­row ad­vised “doc­tor or no doc­tor, yuh cyah get away from the tax … even if yuh in Africa …”

It was an un­der­stand­ing by the board of what was re­quired of po­lit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence. So too he was cer­tain the tax would be pro­gres­sive and not im­pact most on the small man. “This tax ent both­er­ing me … be­cause I am not work­ing any­where so I have no in­come to share … but mis­ter this and mis­ter that who ac­cus­tom with their pay­roll fat, is them shed­ding tears men like De Fre­itas and Fer­nan­des.”

Du­ly in­formed and ed­u­cat­ed on mod­ern ad­min­is­tra­tive sys­tems, and to what pur­pose the rev­enue is to be put, Spar­row not­ed that “de mon­ey ent go­ing in De Doc­tor pock­et … we want bet­ter schools … and work for you and me that is what plen­ty ah dem cyah see ...” So in­formed, Spar­row’s fa­ther agrees that tax­a­tion is ac­cept­able: “even meh fa­ther say he sell­ing de axe for when de col­lec­tor come to pay-off the in­come tax.”

The fight be­tween “big brain and big bel­ly … Fight fin­ish no bruise no cuts … but ah man fall down on he guts,” Spar­row de­clared in a bru­tal man­ner as he per­ceived what the Williams agen­da to be in re­la­tion to his pre­de­ces­sor, Al­bert Gomes.

The Bird sought to de­clare his po­lit­i­cal po­si­tion and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with the “PNM, it ent have no­body like them … I aint no politi­cian but if it weren’t for bro Willy and his abil­i­ty, Trinidad wouldn’t go or come … we used to vote for roti and rum nowa­days we eat­ing all de In­di­ans and them and in de next round vot­ing for PNM.”

Se­ri­ous stuff, he had grav­i­tat­ed to the Williams who had “let down his buck­et” in Wood­ford Square with those who had paid for his Ox­ford ed­u­ca­tion. Was Spar­row speak­ing for the mass­es seek­ing to emerge from colo­nial dom­i­na­tion, util­is­ing the medi­um of ca­lyp­so to do so?

Spar­row al­so went re­gion­al with his sup­port for the pre­mier when the West In­di­an Fed­er­a­tion fell apart af­ter Ja­maica’s ref­er­en­dum, which was in­sti­gat­ed and won by Alexan­der Bus­ta­mante’s Ja­maica Labour Par­ty to drop out of the at­tempt to bring po­lit­i­cal and ad­min­is­tra­tive uni­ty to the British West In­di­an states.

“Ja­maica have a right to speak she mind ... In­de­pen­dence was at the door why didn’t you speak be­fore … this is no time to say yuh ent fed­er­at­ed no more,” record­ing as he did, the slide in­to the well-known in­su­lar­i­ty: “We ent want no Ba­jan pre­mier Trinidad cyah be cap­i­tal for here … If yuh know yuh didn’t want to unite as one, tell de doc­tor yuh not in favour don’t be­have like ah blast­ed trai­tor, how de dev­il yuh mean yuh ent fed­er­at­ed no more …” sweet melody.

As is well-known, Dr Williams’ new math fore­told the end of the four-year-old ex­per­i­ment in po­lit­i­cal in­te­gra­tion: “One from 10 leaves nought.”

Spar­row had “crossed the floor” po­lit­i­cal­ly from where he painful­ly ob­served the PNM’s ar­ro­gant dis­missal of the chal­lenge of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Na­tion­al Con­struc­tion un­der the suc­ces­sor of Williams, George Cham­bers.

Suit­ably chas­tised by the with­er­ing blows of the Brigade, Spar­row opt­ed for mock­ery and de­ri­sion: “In­stead of dis­play­ing im­pa­tience, cool yuh­self and give de fel­la ah chance … How de hell you could say the ONR go do bet­ter…bet we send you back Grena­da in ah drum (no box marked han­dle with care this time) we and Georgie go­ing to put it right to­geth­er ...”

To every cyn­i­cal ob­ser­va­tion Spar­row made, the Brigade had an imp­ish and sar­cas­tic re­sponse: “We like it so, we free.” He had crossed class lines and the Brigade did not let him for­get it: “Spar­row boy yuh need psy­chi­atric aid to be in dem bour­geois peo­ple pa­rade … me ent fraid to tell you straight to your face … yuh back­ing ah jack... in ah horse race … Georgie say al­lyuh ent get­ting one damn seat …ONR come out to ma­m­aguy and Bokas­sa say al­lyuh go­ing to feel de heat … Spar­row I is ah PNM till ah dead … Birdie boy yuh go be shock when ah tell yuh dis, Hud­son Phillips is an Yan­kee CIA.”

It was one of the most un­car­ing cas­es of self-fla­gel­la­tion in ca­lyp­so; he was the imp taunt­ing the PNM: “bribery and cor­rup­tion con­trol every de­ci­sion … We have no house so we squat­ting, liv­ing with cock­roach and rat … cesspit over­flow­ing … sol­dier in bull­doz­er break down meh shack in Mor­vant … is plen­ty sex­u­al favours to be ah ten days work­er … Spar­row it ent have ah sin­gle thing you could say to make me aban­don de bal­isi­er … Spar­row ah is ah PNM till ah dead.”

To be con­tin­ued.

Tony Rakhal-Fras­er is a free­lance jour­nal­ist, for­mer re­porter/cur­rent af­fairs pro­gramme host and News Di­rec­tor at TTT, pro­gramme pro­duc­er/cur­rent af­fairs di­rec­tor at Ra­dio Trinidad, cor­re­spon­dent for the BBC Caribbean Ser­vice and the As­so­ci­at­ed Press, grad­u­ate of UWI, CARI­MAC, Mona and St Au­gus­tine–In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions.