JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, July 12, 2025

Righteous indignation will not fix racism

by

20130115

The con­cen­tra­tion has been on the in­ap­pro­pri­ate­ness of Hilton Sandy's warn­ing against the ship wait­ing to sail from the port of Cal­cut­ta in Trinidad to To­ba­go if the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP) were to win the THA elec­tions. He has been deemed racist and his PNM par­ty urged to re­move him from the list of can­di­dates.

As in­di­cat­ed at the start of this se­ries of ar­ti­cles on the ab­solute need for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form and my in­ten­tion to use ex­am­ples from day-to-day life to high­light the ar­eas in need of trans­for­ma­tion, the chal­lenge is for the poli­ty to find con­sti­tu­tion­al and oth­er forms of so­lu­tions to the prob­lems of race and space as raised in To­ba­go.

Ex­cept for a few com­men­ta­tors, most peo­ple have act­ed as if the Belle Gar­den/ Rox­bor­ough/De­laford PNM can­di­date and his com­ments are alien to the pol­i­tics, ge­og­ra­phy and so­cio-eco­nom­ic re­al­i­ty of T&T. Among those who have gone be­yond right­ful­ly say­ing that Sandy can­not play that crude racist game are Regi­nald Du­mas and Ho­choy Charles.

While be­ing crit­i­cal of Sandy's com­ments, Du­mas in­formed that the sen­ti­ment and fears ex­pressed by Sandy are shared by many To­bag­o­ni­ans. Hav­ing done the ap­pro­pri­ate thing by recog­nis­ing on­ly the hu­man race, Ho­choy Charles ad­vo­cat­ed that some hon­esty be in­sert­ed in­to the dis­cus­sion on the race is­sue: "It is not on­ly in To­ba­go that this is be­ing prac­tised by and preached by one side or the oth­er. In Trinidad, this very Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship, if you ob­serve, they prac­tise it bla­tant­ly."

On­ly re­cent­ly when Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Afro-To­bag­on­ian with a rep­u­ta­tion for be­ing Afro­cen­tric in his po­lit­i­cal ori­en­ta­tion, ven­tured in­to In­do-Trinidad po­lit­i­cal ter­ri­to­ry tour­ing the NAMDE­V­CO mar­ket in Debe, he was made frontal­ly aware that he was in for­eign po­lit­i­cal ter­ri­to­ry.

At least a cou­ple UNC MPs joined the cho­rus of those who told him he was out of place to be in UNC ter­ri­to­ry. When Row­ley re­spond­ed pos­i­tive­ly to an in­vi­ta­tion to Di­vali Na­gar in 2012, no doubt at­tempt­ing to re-bur­nish his im­age, Warn­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar and oth­ers could not hide their dis­gust with Row­ley for this at­tempt to en­ter in­to In­do-Tri­ni po­lit­i­cal ter­ri­to­ry.

What they were re­al­ly do­ing was guard­ing po­lit­i­cal ter­ri­to­ry, liken­ing Row­ley to a ma­raud­ing in­trud­er. When Warn­er saw the Sec­tion 34 march he saw on­ly one race in the march, and this is notwith­stand­ing the fact that the TV6 video played over his com­ments clear­ly showed In­dos and oth­er eth­nic­i­ties in the march.

It was Warn­er's at­tempt to say to UNC sup­port­ers and the coun­try that the op­po­si­tion to the Sec­tion 34 fi­as­co was a "black peo­ple thing," which the rest of the so­ci­ety does not care about.

It was yet an­oth­er at­tempt to mark-off geo-po­lit­i­cal and eth­nic ter­ri­to­ry. In 1970, when the black ur­ban youth sought to strike up al­liances with In­di­ans in the plan­ta­tion vil­lages, Bhadase Maraj stood at the cross­ings, pis­tol in hand and shot­gun at his feet to in­tim­i­date the demon­stra­tors against go­ing in­to Cen­tral. When In­di­ans planned to come to Wood­ford Square, Williams called a state of emer­gency.

Pained by the loss of the fed­er­al elec­tions, Williams re­ferred to the In­di­an pop­u­la­tion as a "hos­tile and re­cal­ci­trant mi­nor­i­ty." Re­cent­ly, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in the process of plant­i­ng a UWI law fac­ul­ty in Pe­nal, crit­i­cised the his­tor­i­cal PNM for de­lib­er­ate­ly ig­nor­ing de­vel­op­ment in rur­al agri­cul­tur­al ar­eas in which In­do-Tri­nis pre­dom­i­nate.

Pan­day and Man­ning over a cou­ple decades played the game: hav­ing won the elec­tions in 1995, Man­ning could not find In­di­ans to put in his Cab­i­net; Leroy Clarke, when he saw the first Pan­day Gov­ern­ment, thought he was "in Bangladesh."

Af­ter elec­tions, there are the con­tentions: "an­oth­er black man bites the dust"; or shouts of "eth­nic cleans­ing."

In the main, da­ta on elec­tion re­sults since 1961 demon­strate quite clear­ly the eth­nic di­vide. It is cer­tain that many of those who have been moral­ly of­fend­ed by the com­ments of Sandy have con­sis­tent­ly vot­ed race or for trib­al pre­dom­i­nance. That at­ti­tude sug­gests that it is okay to be a pri­vate po­lit­i­cal racist but peo­ple should nev­er get caught ad­ver­tis­ing it in pub­lic. These are the re­al­i­ties of the eth­no-po­lit­i­cal cul­ture and they will not dis­si­pate just by right­eous in­dig­na­tion.

For in­stance, have Sandy and the PNM As­sem­bly sought ways and means to em­pow­er To­bag­o­ni­ans to com­pete against cit­i­zens of T&T in busi­ness, acad­e­mia and to fos­ter hu­man de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives to com­mand their his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al space?

On the oth­er side, Ash­worth Jack should be telling the To­ba­go elec­torate of con­sti­tu­tion­al ways and means to pro­tect the cul­ture and peo­ple of To­ba­go and how the par­ty will work with Trinidad to en­sure that To­bag­o­ni­ans face up to the chal­lenge of glob­al­i­sa­tion in­side and out­side of the uni­tary State.

"We need to look at it, treat with it and get rid of it or else it can swal­low up this coun­try like in Fi­ji or in Guyana," is the com­mon-sense ad­vice giv­en by Ho­choy Charles in the tele­vi­sion lead­er­ship de­bate.

�2 To be con­tin­ued.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored