Den­zil Mo­hammed

One of the fun­da­men­tal tenets of jour­nal­ism is "the per­cep­tion of fair­ness." In con­tent and pre­sen­ta­tion, even if both are in fact de­lib­er­ate­ly and crafti­ly prej­u­di­cial, al­ways strive to ap­pear fair, im­par­tial and bal­anced. When it comes to pol­i­tics and gov­er­nance, the per­cep­tion of fair­ness is achieved through pre­sen­ta­tion-ar­gu­ing a point at press con­fer­ences, bul­ly­ing the me­dia and the pub­lic and jus­ti­fy­ing mis­deeds through warped ra­tio­nal­i­sa­tion-not through con­tent.

Two years ago, the coun­try vot­ed for change. The op­tion seemed more than at­trac­tive: not one but sev­er­al groups in a kind of coali­tion the likes of which my gen­er­a­tion had nev­er seen: grass­roots plus unions plus elite in or­ange and red and rain­bow. It was an easy win. Few were hap­py. The in­cum­bent was on the verge of a dis­grace­ful fall as a re­sult of his hubris. We want­ed change but found dif­fi­cul­ty in choos­ing just one. So they gave us all. It was an easy win. Too easy.

She was at­trac­tive

She was a woman, first of all. She was (su­per) in­tel­li­gent, (too) well-spo­ken and (very) well coiffed, and peo­ple, women es­pe­cial­ly, could re­late to her bet­ter than they could to one of the old, male stal­warts whose pride, prej­u­dice and pos­si­ble prison sen­tences made them un­at­trac­tive. She was at­trac­tive.

She led what ap­peared to be the en­tire spec­trum of in­ter­ests, eth­nic­i­ties and per­son­al­i­ties: the go-get­ter Jack Warn­er, the hu­man­i­tar­i­an Ver­na St Rose-Greaves, the ex­tem­po­ra­ne­ous Win­ston Pe­ters, the gen­tle­man­ly Win­ston Dook­er­an, the work­ers' cham­pi­on Er­rol McLeod, the cut­throat Anand Ram­lo­gan...

It was, for most, the most hope­ful mo­ment in more than 20 years of the na­tion's pa­thet­ic po­lit­i­cal saga. It was a hope­ful mo­ment that maybe, fi­nal­ly, a younger, new­er, more in­tel­li­gent and more di­verse gov­ern­ment would re­al­ly, ac­tu­al­ly, for once bring change. Be­cause what the ma­jor­i­ty, those who vot­ed them in, want­ed and ex­pect­ed more than jobs, more than schools and more than hand­outs was a new kind of gov­er­nance: one that was trans­par­ent, ac­count­able and fair and all those oth­er favourites of po­lit­i­cal rhetoric. For once there was the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the rhetoric would be re­al.

And then it was the same thing all over again: mis­deeds, mis­steps, mis­s­peak­ing by Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the rest of her gov­ern­ment and its arms. From Fazeer Mo­hammed's sus­pi­cious de­par­ture from the gov­ern­ment-owned broad­cast chan­nel to Sasha Mo­hammed and her al­leged In­ter­net habits; from anoint­ing her­self and seem­ing­ly every­one else with a law de­gree with Se­nior Coun­sel sta­tus to threats and thun­der over a teenag­er's YouTube video; from not know­ing what the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice is do­ing or where he is to not know­ing ba­sic pro­to­col of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with every­one from col­leagues to Cas­tro; from the ap­point­ment of un­der­qual­i­fied (for­mal­ly known as) Resh­mi Ram­nar­ine and now to an­oth­er ap­point­ment: of a nurse with elite trav­el sta­tus whose job, ap­par­ent­ly, is to pre­pare med­ica­tion and meals.

No one in T&T yet knows ex­act­ly how to gov­ern or what should be ex­pect­ed of a good gov­ern­ment. We've ar­guably nev­er re­al­ly had a "good" gov­ern­ment, hence the re­peat­ed changes over the past 30 years. There has al­ways been greed, slack­ness, cov­er-ups, racism, bac­cha­nal and bobol. And we al­so didn't ex­pect the then-new gov­ern­ment to rein­vent the wheel of gov­er­nance in T&T. Old habits die hard, and en­vi­ron­ment de­ter­mines cul­ture.

Age of the in­formed

But in this age of YouTube, iPhone, cit­i­zen jour­nal­ists, and BBM, where the slight­est in­frac­tion can go vi­ral be­fore you can write a press re­lease, should not the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment have been more cir­cum­spect? In this age of more glob­al scruti­ny, where with­out wish­ing it T&T makes the pa­pers in far flung yet in­flu­en­tial places, should not the cur­rent gov­ern­ment have been more mind­ful?

In this age of a more in­formed and in­tel­li­gent pop­u­la­tion, where ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion is fast and de­lib­er­ate­ly be­com­ing the norm, where we can ac­cess in­for­ma­tion wher­ev­er and when­ev­er, should not the cur­rent gov­ern­ment con­fess more read­i­ly when mis­takes and bad de­ci­sions are made and not try to fool and con­fuse and ra­tio­nalise at every chance?

In this age of Face­book and Twit­ter, where peo­ple can in­form each oth­er, gal­vanise and unite, where cell­phone apps can mo­bilise a peo­ple in­to over­throw­ing ad­min­is­tra­tions, should not the cur­rent gov­ern­ment be more tact­ful and re­spect­ful? The Gov­ern­ment has done a poor job at giv­ing cit­i­zens the per­cep­tion of fair­ness. It seems be­yond all doubt, most re­cent­ly con­sid­er­ing the Prime Min­is­ter's jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of hav­ing her sis­ter as her trav­el com­pan­ion, that the ra­tio­nale for sev­er­al in­frac­tions or per­ceived in­frac­tions has im­plic­it­ly been well, all ah we thief. It has hap­pened be­fore. The prece­dent has long been set. Why com­plain now?

And that is pre­cise­ly the rea­son this gov­ern­ment was elect­ed in the first place: not to con­tin­ue our old, bad, de­struc­tive habits. Per­haps a trav­el as­sis­tant is im­per­a­tive for any head of gov­ern­ment and per­haps the PM's sis­ter is, in­deed, the best per­son for the job. But it doesn't ap­pear that way and, in this day and age, that re­al­ly is what mat­ters most.