Deb­bie Ja­cob

It is a strange, dis­con­cert­ing feel­ing when a hap­py mem­o­ry sud­den­ly pops in­to your head dur­ing a mo­ment of grave sad­ness. That's how I felt last week when I learned that for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Arthur NR Robin­son had died.Some of the fond­est mem­o­ries I have of the 30 years I have spent in T&T come from the time Mr Robin­son held of­fice. Both my chil­dren were born af­ter Robin­son be­came Prime Min­is­ter.

My daugh­ter, Ijanaya, was born in 1987. Just a year be­fore, on the day be­fore Robin­son's 60th birth­day, the Na­tion­al Al­liance of Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) had de­feat­ed the PNM and in­cum­bent PNM Prime Min­is­ter George Cham­bers by a re­sound­ing vote: 33-3.

That time, de­fined by great hope and a feel­ing of co-op­er­a­tion that tran­scend­ed race, eth­nic­i­ty and even po­lit­i­cal par­ties, seemed like a mir­a­cle. A sweep­ing vic­to­ry sug­gest­ed we were all on the same page. Every­one seemed to re­alise that we had to work to­geth­er to change this coun­try for the bet­ter. T&T be­came a na­tion bub­bling with hap­pi­ness and op­ti­mism–and I don't use the term "na­tion" loose­ly.

Un­til that mo­ment in time, I had thought of T&T as a bad mar­riage. Here, now, with a son of To­ba­go soil as Prime Min­is­ter, was proof that the two is­lands re­al­ly did ex­ist as one na­tion. I al­ways felt that Prime Min­is­ter Robin­son in­stilled a sense of grace and dig­ni­ty in­to the po­si­tion of Prime Min­is­ter. He nev­er ap­peared to be haughty or pompous. This, I al­ways thought, had to be an amaz­ing feat for some­one who had the mid­dle name of Napoleon.

http://www.guardian.co.tt/dig­i­tal/new-mem­bers