Den­zil Mo­hammed

I'd humbly sub­mit to mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment like Anil Roberts and Anand Ram­lo­gan that they hold their tongues be­fore they so ve­he­ment­ly crit­i­cise for­mer min­is­ter Ver­na St Rose-Greaves for lash­ing out with hers. Of the many de­plorable fea­tures of the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion, loose tongues have been among the worst. From Roberts' lack of vol­ume con­trol to Ram­lo­gan's los­ing con­trol with Do­minic Kaliper­sad, they would do well to ex­am­ine them­selves first.

Not too long ago there was Su­ruj Ram­bachan go­ing on air with Fazeer Mo­hammed be­fore Mo­hammed was un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly fired. For­mer ad­vis­er to the Prime Min­is­ter, Sasha Mo­hammed al­leged­ly could not hold her tongue or fin­gers in her e-mails to re­porters. Sim­i­lar­ly, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Ja­mal Mo­hammed wrote of be­ing an "in­signif­i­cant Mus­lim coolie." He had pre­vi­ous­ly, in his first big speech as a min­is­ter of "com­mu­ni­ca­tions," spoke of so­cial me­dia as a "prob­lem."

More re­cent­ly, Dr Roodal Mooni­lal ac­cused Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh of be­ing a "con­man," ac­cused Dr Kublals­ingh, his wife Dr Sylvia Mood­ie-Kublals­ingh and their fam­i­ly of be­ing a "cult." He sug­gest­ed Dr Kublals­ingh, who lay down for three weeks be­neath a pho­to of Gand­hi with on­ly the weapon of prayer, might in­cite vi­o­lence.

On the same plat­form, Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er, with his rep­re­hen­si­ble gram­mar, ac­cused Dr Kublals­ingh of "eat­ing more hearty" than the rest of us while on his hunger strike, of spend­ing nights in hous­es in Mar­aval and/or Mara­bel­la and "eat­ing dou­bles" in the back­seat of a car.

And yet St Rose-Greaves' com­ments as, now, a pri­vate cit­i­zen are be­ing called "vin­dic­tive, vi­cious and vile" and "spite­ful."

Far from re­spect­ing a dis­tin­guished and benev­o­lent man with a doc­tor­ate who has an im­pec­ca­ble teach­ing record at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, nei­ther min­is­ter could even ac­knowl­edge that Dr Kublals­ingh's hunger strike was an in­cred­i­ble feat of hu­man en­deav­our no one else could con­ceive of do­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly the in­creas­ing­ly cor­pu­lent mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment.

While they fat­ten them­selves, lit­er­al­ly, one man in per­haps our whole his­to­ry as a na­tion sought to do some­thing su­per­hu­man and po­ten­tial­ly give up his life for a cause he be­lieved in, a cause for peo­ple who are too few and too poor to have in­flu­ence.

Whether or not one agrees with the cause, re­spect is due to a man who has prin­ci­ples and stood up for them. Our his­to­ry isn't ex­act­ly re­plete with such ex­am­ples. Par­lia­ment priv­i­lege does not ex­tend be­yond the walls of the House. Yet there is a long­stand­ing tra­di­tion of mem­bers of gov­ern­ment mak­ing scan­dalous state­ments about oth­er politi­cians and pub­lic fig­ures with im­puni­ty.

Per­haps the peo­ple of T&T are still stu­pid. Per­haps we wake up at dawn and cut cane while our chil­dren play naked in the street and get hook­worm. Per­haps we do not go to school or uni­ver­si­ty but in­stead live, eat and breathe our trib­al po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions in­stead. Or per­haps we should let the Gov­ern­ment know that, in fact, we are smarter than that, that we don't fall for stu­pid talk.

Ref­er­ences to the Prime Min­is­ter as some kind of "Iron La­dy," as well, could not be more mis­placed. It is per­ti­nent to note that iron has depth and strength. Din­ing and work­ing and hand­ing out ham­pers for pho­to-ops while Dr Kublals­ingh was on his hunger strike does not equate to the la­bel Iron La­dy. That some­how she has shown a pre­vi­ous­ly un­known for­ti­tude in a leader of T&T by not "giv­ing in" to Dr Kublals­ingh and meet­ing with him is laugh­able.

In a re­pul­sive lin­guis­tic eva­sion, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­tin­u­al­ly cor­rect­ed her ac­cent­ed speech to say "Mr Wayne Kublals­ingh" every time she said "Dr Kublals­ingh." And yet she talked about her "com­pas­sion" and "em­pa­thy" for his cause.

At some point in the fu­ture, we will have a co­hort of politi­cians who know the peo­ple and re­spect them enough to say sen­si­ble things even on the heat­ed, sweaty po­lit­i­cal plat­forms. In that era, politi­cians will talk to us with facts, da­ta and truths in­stead of gos­sipy in­nu­en­does and sala­cious com­ments. In­stead of per­son­al at­tacks on peo­ple they don't like, they will present a case to the peo­ple to per­suade us.

In­stead of big, ro­tund men lash­ing out at lit­tle old ladies and skin­ny old men, they will pay them re­spect for their ser­vice and lay out their dis­agree­ment. When they say some­thing er­ro­neous­ly or act un­pro­fes­sion­al­ly, they will apol­o­gise to the peo­ple. In­stead of be­hav­ing like women gos­sip­ing as they hang out jock­ey shorts on a clothes line, they will speak and be­have like their ed­u­ca­tion, their sta­tus in so­ci­ety and their elect­ed po­si­tions dic­tate.

And above all, they will heed the say­ing: "It is bet­ter to re­main silent and be thought a fool than open your mouth and re­move all doubt." Be­cause as much as they con­sid­er them­selves far too im­por­tant to be re­proached for the stu­pid, sense­less, vile, un­couth, un­pro­fes­sion­al, in­cen­di­ary and un­be­com­ing things they say, their char­ac­ters and rep­u­ta­tions and lega­cies are un­doubt­ed­ly be­ing shaped by ex­act­ly those things, leav­ing lit­tle doubt as to who they re­al­ly are.