Long be­fore glob­al­i­sa­tion be­came a buzz­word, Trinidad and To­ba­go was seen as a place where peo­ple from dif­fer­ent con­ti­nents got along fa­mous­ly. Un­like na­tions in Africa, Asia, and Eu­rope, where eth­nic and sec­tar­i­an strife re­sult­ed in end­less blood­shed, T&T was held up as a mod­el of racial tol­er­ance. Hin­dus and Mus­lims of In­di­an de­scent cel­e­brat­ed Christ­mas with the same en­thu­si­asm as their Chris­t­ian broth­ers and sis­ters, peo­ple of African de­scent joined in an­cient cel­e­bra­tions from the sub-con­ti­nent, and Trin­bag­o­ni­ans of every creed and race em­braced the idea of mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism. The idea of the two ma­jor races—Africans and In­di­ans—shap­ing our land with “a sculp­tor’s hands” was im­mor­talised by David Rud­der in his clas­sic song, The Ganges and the Nile.

Events of the last week show that we al­ways have to fight to pre­serve racial har­mo­ny, par­tic­u­lar­ly when politi­cians use race for their own self­ish pur­pos­es. We’re talk­ing about the dis­clo­sure by Carl­ton Den­nie, for­mer di­rec­tor of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency. He mount­ed a plat­form with UNC Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to de­clare that when Dr Kei­th Row­ley came to pow­er in 2014, he (Den­nie) was or­dered to “fire all the East In­di­ans in the SSA.”

“I told them no, I am not do­ing that,” Den­nie told the Debe crowd.

It is a very low bar to make such an al­le­ga­tion from a po­lit­i­cal plat­form. But that seems be­sides the point. The match was al­ready lit. Row­ley was forced to call an im­promp­tu news con­fer­ence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre to de­ny Den­nie’s al­le­ga­tions, say­ing he had nev­er met the man. By Thurs­day, Den­nie re­cant­ed his sto­ry, say­ing he was nev­er asked by Row­ley or then na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon to fire In­di­ans but by an­oth­er high­er-up.

The Guardian’s dizzy­ing head­lines last week tell the sto­ry. Wednes­day: ROW­LEY: “I DID NOT SAY FIRE IN­DI­ANS.” DEN­NIE: “I HAVE MY EV­I­DENCE.” Tues­day: “DEN­NIE DIGS IN.” Wednes­day: “DEN­NIE LIED.”

No one likes to be false­ly ac­cused. But be­ing ac­cused of racism is a po­ten­tial death war­rant in a po­lit­i­cal sea­son when two elec­tions are ex­pect­ed to be called at any minute. Row­ley was clear­ly hot and both­ered by the al­le­ga­tions and spent the next few days try­ing to clear his name.

Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar, on the oth­er hand, was prob­a­bly rev­el­ling in her ri­val’s dis­com­fort. For a few days, she had changed the con­ver­sa­tion and put Dr Row­ley on the de­fen­sive.

Is this what we’ve come to: a po­lit­i­cal leader land­ing quick and easy blows, then re­treat­ing to her cor­ner?

We’ve had no prob­lems point­ing out the Prime Min­is­ter’s short­com­ings, es­pe­cial­ly when the is­sues in­volve our flag­ging econ­o­my and the dire crime sit­u­a­tion. The out-of-con­trol mur­der toll now tops 360. But Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who has the ben­e­fit of be­ing a for­mer prime min­is­ter, should know bet­ter. If she’s go­ing to in­ject race in­to our na­tion­al dis­course, she should be armed with facts, not mere ac­cu­sa­tions.

When asked how many In­di­ans were fired, Den­nie could not pro­vide spe­cif­ic an­swers, say­ing he would do so in the fu­ture. Oh, and he let slip that he had his own po­lit­i­cal am­bi­tions. He wants to be a par­lia­men­tar­i­an. Den­nie did say that he was will­ing to take a lie de­tec­tor test so the truth will come out. Guardian Me­dia wants to take him up on that. We will pick a neu­tral agency to con­duct the test—and promise to pick up the tab.

That sideshow, though, should not let Per­sad-Bisses­sar off the hook. She has to be held—and to hold her­self—to a high­er stan­dard. She should know that stok­ing racial ten­sions is moral­ly rep­re­hen­si­ble. The Op­po­si­tion Leader has not con­demned Den­nie’s ini­tial state­ment or his backpedalling a few days lat­er. Si­lence is en­dorse­ment.

The Sil­ly Sea­son Has Be­gun

Not too long ago, Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ferred to Dr Row­ley as an “Oreo”, a racist taunt to sug­gest some­one is black out­side but white in­side. Her sup­port­ers would re­spond that the PNM has played the race card nu­mer­ous times. They cite the com­ments by a PNM can­di­date in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions who likened an in­flux of In­di­an sup­ports as a “Cal­cut­ta ship com­ing down” to To­ba­go. An­oth­er PNM MP Fitzger­ald Hinds de­scribed mem­bers of the UNC as “al­li­ga­tor in a murky la­goon,” a state­ment which has not re­sult­ed in con­dem­na­tion from Dr Row­ley.

But the Den­nie Dis­trac­tion, as we’ll call it, is more ev­i­dence that 57 years in­to in­de­pen­dence, race re­mains a card in the politi­cian’s deck. Our forth­com­ing elec­tions could be nasty and tak­en over by ap­peals to trib­al­ism in­stead of pol­i­cy po­si­tions. Politi­cians seem ea­ger to en­er­gise their own base rather than elab­o­rate how they would work for a unit­ed and pros­per­ous na­tion.

We’ve seen time and again how po­lit­i­cal lead­ers pan­der to their core sup­port­ers, on­ly to dis­cov­er that when they win the elec­tions, their task for lead­ing the en­tire na­tion be­comes al­most im­pos­si­ble.

If we leave race to sim­mer among the mi­lieu of crime, so­cial is­sues, and eco­nom­ic stag­na­tion, the pot will boil over in the com­ing months. It would be vi­cious. In­flam­ma­to­ry re­marks are no longer con­fined to the par­ty plat­form but spread on tele­vi­sion and the new wild­fire: so­cial me­dia.

With­out A Vi­sion, Our Peo­ple Will Per­ish

We can think of many oth­er is­sues our lead­ers should fo­cus on: the soar­ing crime rate, ram­pant cor­rup­tion, and the need to stim­u­late our stag­nat­ing econ­o­my. We’ve hit some dry wells in more ways than one, which begs the ques­tion: If the days of bot­tom­less oil and gas are over, how will we keep pay­ing for the tens of thou­sands of pub­lic ser­vants, po­lice, fire and prison of­fi­cers and thou­sands more who de­pend on gov­ern­ment hand­outs for tem­po­rary work?

The Prime Min­is­ter re­cent­ly hint­ed that our pub­lic ser­vice is bloat­ed and that some civ­il ser­vants are not putting in the re­quired hours at work. That led Ms Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to de­clare that the Gov­ern­ment was get­ting ready to fire pub­lic ser­vants. This ex­change is em­blem­at­ic of the state of our pol­i­tics: it’s more im­por­tant to score points with the elec­torate in­stead of ar­tic­u­lat­ing a clear vi­sion for the na­tion. Any gov­ern­ment would have to present a re­spon­si­ble plan to re­form the pub­lic ser­vice.

Vot­ers must in­sist that lead­ers of both par­ties pro­vide clear an­swers to these ques­tions, among oth­ers:

(1) How are you go­ing to pro­tect cit­i­zens from the dai­ly on­slaught of crime?

(2) What would you do about this lost gen­er­a­tion—thou­sands of youths—who see crime as a way of life?

(3) What is your plan for stim­u­lat­ing the econ­o­my and get­ting peo­ple back to work?

(4) How are you go­ing to ral­ly the en­tire na­tion be­hind a plan for more trans­paren­cy and good gov­er­nance?

The na­tion is yearn­ing to ral­ly be­hind the right leader to fill the void and ar­tic­u­late this vi­sion. Who will step up?

‘How We Vote Is Not How We Par­ty’

In the song, Tri­ni To De Bone, one that every proud Trin­bag­on­ian sings along to, Rud­der croons a line that cap­tures the re­al­i­ty of our pol­i­tics: “How we vote is not how we par­ty.”

The last line is a ref­er­ence to the fact that our abil­i­ty to get along must nev­er be tak­en for grant­ed.

We’ve had to work for it. From our na­tion’s birth, lead­ers of the two ma­jor eth­nic groups have been sus­pi­cious of each oth­er and have had to com­pro­mise—for the good of the na­tion.

In his book, In­ward Hunger, Dr Er­ic Williams re­count­ed how he and then Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Rudranath Capildeo vig­or­ous­ly dis­agreed on the date for in­de­pen­dence when they met at the Marl­bor­ough House Con­fer­ence in May 1962.

“I de­cid­ed to set­tle the mat­ter face to face with Dr Capildeo,” Dr Williams wrote. “I drew him aside dur­ing the tea in­ter­val, told him my orig­i­nal in­ten­tion, in­di­cat­ed that I had aban­doned it and ex­plained that I would make a state­ment to the con­fer­ence on the re­sump­tion.”

Af­ter the re­sump­tion, Dr Williams promised to work with the Op­po­si­tion on an elec­tion code, on pro­mot­ing na­tion­al uni­ty, and fair em­ploy­ment prac­tices with­out dis­crim­i­na­tion on race and po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions.

“Capildeo thanked me and with­drew all op­po­si­tion to the date of in­de­pen­dence,” paving the way for a cel­e­bra­tion on Au­gust 31, 1962, Dr Williams said.

On Au­gust 30, 1962, a day be­fore our first In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tion, Dr Williams told a chil­dren’s ral­ly how “each and every one of you...car­ry the fu­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go in your school bags.” The line is still cit­ed by par­ents and teach­ers to young chil­dren to­day.

Be­fore Dr Williams got to the part about the school bags, he im­plored: “You, the chil­dren, yours is the great re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to ed­u­cate your par­ents. Teach them to live to­geth­er in har­mo­ny, the dif­fer­ence be­ing not race or colour of skin but mer­it on­ly, dif­fer­ences of wealth and fam­i­ly sta­tus be­ing re­ject­ed in favour of equal­i­ty of op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

The peo­ple of T&T have al­ways been ahead of their lead­ers. On this In­de­pen­dence week­end, we know that Dr Williams would for­give us if we tweak those words to tell Trin­bag­o­ni­ans: “Teach our lead­ers to live to­geth­er in har­mo­ny, the dif­fer­ence be­ing not race or colour of skin but mer­it on­ly.”