I at­tend­ed a pan­el dis­cus­sion at the Bo­cas Lit Fest last Thurs­day on the top­ic “An Equal Place?” which had a di­verse pan­el that con­sist­ed of Sophia Chote, Mar­i­ano Browne, At­ti­lah Springer, Sheila Ram­per­sad, and the mod­er­a­tor Col­in Robin­son.

There were many in­ter­est­ing per­spec­tives that were raised, but the one top­ic that was not dis­cussed was the in­equal­i­ty of To­ba­go in the na­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Af­ter lis­ten­ing to the pan­el dis­cus­sion for an hour and 20 min­utes, I rose to ask the ques­tion about To­ba­go. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, there was no dis­cus­sion on it.

There can be all kinds of is­sues that will be dis­cussed un­der such a head­ing, how­ev­er, if there is one is­sue that needs a dis­cus­sion about in­equal­i­ty is the plight of To­ba­go.

Hav­ing been an­nexed to Trinidad be­tween 1887 and 1899 by the British Gov­ern­ment, To­ba­go was down­grad­ed to the sta­tus of a ward and the ex­ist­ing laws of Trinidad were made the ex­ist­ing laws of To­ba­go.

To­ba­go has suf­fered all of the in­equal­i­ties that a sec­ond small­er is­land could suf­fer in a myth­i­cal sta­tus of stand­ing side by side in a pre­sumed con­di­tion of equal­i­ty. There was no one from To­ba­go on the pan­el who could have ar­tic­u­lat­ed any­thing about To­ba­go and the is­land re­mains in a con­di­tion where­by the panacea for their in­equal­i­ty is sup­posed to come in the form of in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment.

Af­ter con­sid­er­ing this is­sue over the years through pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions and dis­cus­sion, it is now ap­par­ent that the way for­ward will not come if the uni­tary state mod­el is re­tained.

On­ly a fed­er­al struc­ture can de­liv­er that de­sired au­ton­o­my that will make equal­i­ty re­al and not imag­ined. Hav­ing in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment where the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment in Trinidad holds the fi­nal say in cer­tain pol­i­cy ar­eas is not a so­lu­tion. Un­less the Par­lia­ment is pre­pared to amend the To­ba­go In­ter­nal Self-Gov­ern­ment Bill that is cur­rent­ly be­fore it to re­shape the state of Trinidad and To­ba­go in­to a full fed­er­al state and abol­ish the uni­tary state, To­ba­go will con­tin­ue to get the wrong end of the stick and re­main in a per­ma­nent con­di­tion of in­equal­i­ty in re­la­tion to Trinidad.

The con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form that is re­quired to de­liv­er the equal­i­ty that the na­tion­al an­them as­pires to de­liv­er to both is­lands must now em­brace fed­er­al­ism. The re­forms of 1980 and 1996 and the work that was done af­ter 1996 must now be con­vert­ed in­to a full fed­er­al mod­el where­by Trinidad stands as a sin­gle en­ti­ty and To­ba­go stands as a sin­gle en­ti­ty and both are equal.

There must be a leg­is­la­ture for Trinidad and a leg­is­la­ture for To­ba­go. They will each see to their own af­fairs in the spir­it of true self-gov­ern­ment for each sep­a­rate­ly and there can be a fed­er­al struc­ture over both of them that will ad­dress the na­tion­al is­sues of the Fed­er­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The lo­cal gov­ern­ment mod­el in Trinidad can form the ba­sis for the self-gov­ern­ment for Trinidad, while the THA mod­el can form the ba­sis for To­ba­go. The na­tion­al Par­lia­ment can be re­cast to deal with the fed­er­al is­sues that will be set aside for the Fed­er­a­tion, there­by leav­ing an ex­clu­sive list of pow­ers for the leg­is­la­tures of each is­land. If that is not done, To­ba­go will nev­er get the true equal­i­ty that it de­serves.

It was pleas­ing to note that Col­in Robin­son high­light­ed the fact that our Na­tion­al An­them is an edit­ed ver­sion of “Song For Fed­er­a­tion” that had al­so been com­posed by Pat Castagne for the Fed­er­a­tion of the West In­dies. Af­ter the demise of that fed­er­a­tion in 1962, Castagne en­tered his re­vised song in the Na­tion­al An­them com­pe­ti­tion that was held in Au­gust 1962 for our new na­tion­al an­them and he won it.

Trinidad and To­ba­go moved from be­ing part of the Fed­er­a­tion of the West In­dies which might have con­tin­ued af­ter the se­ces­sion of Ja­maica, to seek­ing its own in­de­pen­dence by al­so se­ced­ing from the Fed­er­a­tion.

In es­tab­lish­ing the new­ly-in­de­pen­dent State of Trinidad and To­ba­go, we went from be­ing part of a na­tion-state called “The West In­dies” to hav­ing our own in­de­pen­dence as “Trinidad and To­ba­go” be­tween Sep­tem­ber 19, 1961 (the date of the Ja­maican ref­er­en­dum) to Jan­u­ary 14, 1962 (the date on which the PNM Gen­er­al Coun­cil passed a res­o­lu­tion call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to with­draw from the Fed­er­a­tion).

Na­tion­al­ism and pa­tri­o­tism had to be sud­den­ly formed in four months for a new na­tion-state.