Can the re­stored, ren­o­vat­ed Red House be host to the kind of trans­for­ma­tion­al pol­i­tics that large seg­ments of the pop­u­la­tion are yearn­ing for, and which many are say­ing is re­quired if the coun­try is to ad­vance?

At the turn in­to the 20th Cen­tu­ry, the peo­ple of Port-of-Spain burnt the pre­de­ces­sor build­ing out of ex­is­tence to ex­press their dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic and ar­ro­gant po­lit­i­cal ad­min­is­tra­tion of the colo­nial gov­ern­ment. To com­pound the re­moval of their in­sti­tu­tion­al means (the Port-of-Spain Bor­ough Coun­cil) of par­tic­i­pat­ing in their gov­er­nance—as min­i­mal as it was then, the im­posed and un­car­ing colo­nial gov­ern­ment-en­forced high wa­ter rates on the peo­ple of the city, those least able to pay them.

One hun­dred-plus years lat­er, the is­sue of a com­plete­ly in­ad­e­quate gov­er­nance sys­tem con­tribut­ing to con­flict, un­able to cre­ate the foun­da­tion for par­tic­i­pa­tion by cit­i­zens in their gov­er­nance, and one which al­lows dys­func­tion­al par­ty pol­i­tics to pre­vail, is hav­ing as re­tard­ing an ef­fect on po­lit­i­cal ad­vance as the colo­nial sys­tem did in 1903.

Can knowl­edge of the lega­cy of strug­gle for hu­man rights of our an­ces­tors as­so­ci­at­ed with the Red House, and the bones and spir­it of our First Peo­ples buried un­der the build­ing gen­er­ate con­scious­ness in the so­ci­ety for the trans­for­ma­tion­al con­sti­tu­tion­al change need­ed?

Her Ex­cel­len­cy, Pres­i­dent Paula-May Weekes, went as far as she could have, to note the in­ef­fec­tu­al­ness of 46 acts of Par­lia­ment passed dur­ing the 22 months she has spent in of­fice to meet the re­al needs of the pop­u­la­tion: "the man in the street, the ex­ec­u­tive in the of­fice and the pub­lic ser­vant in the min­istry would be hard-pressed to find, far less mea­sure, any im­prove­ment in their day-to-day cir­cum­stances." Fur­ther, the Pres­i­dent made the in­sight­ful ob­ser­va­tion that "there needs be leg­is­la­tion that ad­dress­es and ame­lio­rates prompt­ly crit­i­cal and press­ing is­sues con­fronting our pop­u­la­tion."

Un­der­stand­ably, Her Ex­cel­len­cy will adopt the con­sti­tu­tion­al role as­cribed to her, and the one she ac­cept­ed as "long-time Cre­ole aun­tie-tantie," who by na­ture will re­main with­in the ex­ist­ing and ac­cept­able bounds of pro­pri­etary. In such a role Pres­i­dent Weekes will not be­come a Wood­ford Square con­sti­tu­tion­al re­former.

As colum­nist-provo­ca­teur, not re­quired to stay with­in im­posed lim­its, I per­ceive the un­der­ly­ing rea­son for the in­ef­fec­tive­ness of the laws de­bat­ed and passed is the fun­da­men­tal in­ad­e­qua­cy of the con­sti­tu­tion­al frame un­der which the laws are be­ing con­ceived of and framed for the so­ci­ety.

The bills lack the in­put of the peo­ple for whom the laws are di­rect­ed at. In­deed, the en­tire sys­tem of par­lia­men­tary gov­er­nance is one de­ter­mined by our colo­nial mas­ters, adapt­ed to meet the re­quire­ments of the British gov­ern­ment to hand po­lit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence to its for­mer colo­nial peo­ples and ad­just­ed for the pur­pos­es of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams and his PNM gov­ern­ment.

Along the way, piece­meal changes have been made for the ben­e­fit of the gov­ern­ing par­ty to meet emer­gency needs. Out­stand­ing is the "root and branch" trans­for­ma­tion re­quired be­cause of our pas­sage through slav­ery, in­den­ture­ship, colo­nial­ism, and neo-colo­nial­ism.

What is need­ed is for the peo­ple of the Re­pub­lic (if we are to de­serve the des­ig­na­tion of a peo­ple who have moved out of the or­bit of im­pe­r­i­al rule) to ini­ti­ate the process to have the Red House be host to a "trans­for­ma­tion­al" ex­pe­ri­ence.

Not sur­pris­ing­ly, the cyn­i­cal crit­i­cism of the restora­tion/ren­o­va­tion has come. It’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the short-sight­ed, par­ti­san pol­i­tics that shad­ows dis­cus­sion, de­bate and the pas­sage of laws in­side the Par­lia­ment.

Con­stant­ly, I con­tem­plate how nar­row sec­tar­i­an pol­i­tics has trapped us in a colo­nial frame­work; the way in which our for­mer mas­ters would pre­fer to have us dwell. When I do, the nar­row­ness of our pol­i­tics prac­tised in­side our Par­lia­ment demon­strates the re­tar­da­tion of our progress as a na­tion.

How, for in­stance, can we ac­cept that a po­lit­i­cal par­ty and gov­ern­ment that in­sti­tut­ed progress to­wards a Caribbean Court of Jus­tice to re­place the British Privy Coun­cil can frus­trate the move to ju­di­cial in­de­pen­dence and the de­vel­op­ment of an in­dige­nous ju­rispru­dence through the mis­use of par­lia­men­tary pow­er scat­tered on the floor of the Red House?

The build­ing has been re­stored/ren­o­vat­ed, our pol­i­tics needs trans­for­ma­tion. Where is the rev­o­lu­tion­ary im­pe­tus go­ing to come from to in­duce the change to in­de­pen­dent and pro­gres­sive pol­i­tics?

At­tempts have been made through the decades and at crit­i­cal junc­tures in our his­to­ry to as­pire to change; rev­o­lu­tion­ary and trans­for­ma­tion­al thought and ac­tion are need­ed.