It amazes me that there are so many people who still think that Nizam Mohammed was right in his attempted exposé of an ethnic balance in the upper ranks of the police force. So let me patiently explain why Nizam was injudicious and was rightly condemned by government, Opposition and the majority of the population and dismissed by President (in a manner that more than makes up for his Integrity Commission missteps). Let's look firstly at the term 'ethnic imbalance.' This doesn't simply mean more Africans than Indians or vice versa. You don't go into Parliament as head of a service commission to call national attention to the ethnic composition of the national football team or some liming group.
By making statements about 'ethnic imbalance' in our Police Service, you imply that there is some bias by those administering the system of promotions. You also imply that those who have been promoted are somehow undeserving of their position-a very serious aspersion indeed! Now, before you cast aspersions on the integrity of those promoting the officers and the competence of those promoted, you would think that the head of a service commission would have done some sort of investigation to go with those statistics he gave the parliament. Unfortunately this was not to be and we were left with incendiary, half-baked conclusions. As if this wasn't bad enough, there was one other thing Nizam said that I took personal offence to. This was his assertion that an Indo-Trini public would find it hard to trust Afro-Trini police officers. As a Trinbagonian I have to say 'speak for yourself Nizam.'
Haven't we all benefited from the service of teachers, doctors, mechanics, lawyers, tradesmen, taxi drivers, to name a few, of different ethnicity to ourselves? Isn't it true that race is hardly ever an issue? I didn't say never, I said hardly ever! But then for that matter, haven't we been burnt by members of our own race just as many times as we have been by those of other races, because we tend to be too trusting to our co-ethnics? I won't deny that there are racial injustices in this country and it will serve us well to weed them out. However, if in the process of looking for weed, we begin uprooting any strange-looking plant, take what yuh get when Mistah Adulfus drop some planass on yuh fuh mashin up he cassava beds!
Kurt Seucharan-Fuentes
via e-mail