To­day is Labour Day, and the his­to­ri­an in me was pre­pared to write about the his­to­ry of labour strug­gles in T&T. But then I saw a video of you pas­sion­ate­ly ad­dress­ing a gath­er­ing in your con­stituen­cy and I knew I could not ig­nore it.

Please know that I have no prob­lem with strong po­lit­i­cal speech­es. Politi­cians will al­ways crit­i­cise each oth­er, and that is part of democ­ra­cy. But there is a big dif­fer­ence be­tween crit­i­cis­ing a gov­ern­ment and telling peo­ple that a gov­ern­ment “hates African peo­ple,” “hates black peo­ple,” and “hates” en­tire com­mu­ni­ties.

I be­lieve that this kind of state­ment is dan­ger­ous and ir­re­spon­si­ble. It does not help us un­der­stand the re­al is­sues af­fect­ing peo­ple in Laven­tille, Beetham, Sea Lots or any­where else in T&T. In­stead, it takes peo­ple’s pain and frus­tra­tion and turns it in­to race and po­lit­i­cal anger.

Race and pol­i­tics have al­ways been sen­si­tive in T&T and our lead­ers should know bet­ter than to speak in ways that make cit­i­zens feel an­oth­er group or par­ty hates them be­cause of who they are. State­ments like these do not solve prob­lems. All they do is cause deep­er di­vi­sions in our coun­try.

Ka­reem, as a young politi­cian and leader, your state­ment “we don’t like them and we will nev­er like them” is al­so trou­bling. That is not lead­er­ship. In a democ­ra­cy, peo­ple will have dif­fer­ent views and loy­al­ties but lead­er­ship is not about en­cour­ag­ing per­ma­nent hos­til­i­ty. It is about help­ing peo­ple rise above bit­ter­ness, es­pe­cial­ly when emo­tions are high.

A mem­ber of par­lia­ment does not on­ly rep­re­sent the peo­ple who vot­ed for him. He rep­re­sents a con­stituen­cy and, by ex­ten­sion, serves the coun­try. Even those who dis­agree with you or do not sup­port your par­ty are still cit­i­zens of T&T. They are not your en­e­mies.

I must ad­mit, it was deeply dis­turb­ing to hear these di­vi­sive re­marks from you, a young politi­cian. I had to re­mind my­self that not all young peo­ple think like this. I work with young peo­ple who do not see race first; they see hu­man­i­ty, and they give me hope. I wish you could be sur­round­ed by young peo­ple like them.

At one point, I ac­tu­al­ly felt sor­ry for you. Sor­ry that your el­ders and po­lit­i­cal men­tors are not cor­rect­ing you. Sor­ry that they are not teach­ing you that strong lead­er­ship means know­ing when words can hurt a coun­try and how to en­gage com­mu­ni­ties in a more pos­i­tive and up­lift­ing way.

Ka­reem, I wish you could see the T&T that I see. I wish you could see the T&T that I boast about when I rep­re­sent this coun­try abroad. I speak about a coun­try with a painful but pow­er­ful his­to­ry, a coun­try shaped by In­dige­nous, African, In­di­an, Eu­ro­pean, Chi­nese, Syr­i­an and Lebanese in­flu­ences.

I speak about a coun­try where peo­ple of dif­fer­ent races, re­li­gions and cul­tures have cre­at­ed some­thing spe­cial, some­thing the world should ad­mire. Of course we have prob­lems. But every day in T&T, or­di­nary cit­i­zens of dif­fer­ent races, re­li­gions and back­grounds work and study to­geth­er, wor­ship to­geth­er and do busi­ness to­geth­er. That is the T&T we should be pro­tect­ing. We should be find­ing strength in our dif­fer­ences, not stim­u­lat­ing racial dis­course and ha­tred.

At the same time, Ka­reem, I feel I must re­mind you that Laven­tille West has long sup­port­ed a po­lit­i­cal par­ty that has gov­erned this coun­try for many years. Yet the con­stituen­cy re­mains one of the most un­der­de­vel­oped ar­eas in T&T. So, this can­not on­ly be about blam­ing the UNC gov­ern­ment. It must al­so be about ask­ing hard ques­tions of the PNM, of past gov­ern­ments and lead­ers, and even of your­self. If peo­ple have been loy­al to a par­ty for gen­er­a­tions and still do not have the de­vel­op­ment they de­serve, then we have to ask why.

As the fa­mous say­ing goes: ask not what your coun­try can do for you, ask what you can do for your coun­try. In your case, the ques­tion is: what can you do for your con­stituen­cy?

Ka­reem, you are a young man with the pow­er to change the nar­ra­tive. You are ed­u­cat­ed, pas­sion­ate and you have a plat­form that many young peo­ple in this coun­try will nev­er have. Use it to cre­ate a bet­ter T&T, not to make the di­vi­sions worse. The same way you got a break, help oth­ers to get a break.

Bring young peo­ple to­geth­er. Help them see pos­si­bil­i­ties be­yond crime, pover­ty and po­lit­i­cal trib­al­ism. Use your po­si­tion to push ed­u­ca­tion, men­tor­ship, cul­ture, sport, busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and re­al com­mu­ni­ty build­ing. En­gage busi­ness­es and NGOs and cre­ate pro­grammes for your con­stituents. As their MP, you have a du­ty to cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties and tan­gi­ble changes in their every­day lives.

I al­so want to re­mind you that you are a young politi­cian with a fu­ture ahead of you. Old­er politi­cians may be set in their ways, and some may on­ly know the old pol­i­tics of race and di­vi­sion. But younger politi­cians are sup­posed to do bet­ter.

Each gen­er­a­tion should bring new ideas, per­spec­tives and bet­ter lead­er­ship. I am not say­ing you can­not crit­i­cise.

I am say­ing crit­i­cism must be re­spon­si­ble and based on ev­i­dence, pol­i­cy and per­for­mance. T&T be­longs to all of us. No po­lit­i­cal par­ty owns any race, com­mu­ni­ty or group of peo­ple.

Right now, T&T needs young lead­ers brave enough to build a coun­try where no cit­i­zen is taught to see an­oth­er as the en­e­my.