Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany

The 50th an­niver­sary of be­com­ing a re­pub­lic passed on Au­gust 1st this year. How­ev­er, as we pre­pare to cel­e­brate the 50th an­niver­sary of the cel­e­bra­tion of the pub­lic hol­i­day on which the First Par­lia­ment of the Re­pub­lic held its first sit­ting on Sep­tem­ber 24th, 1976, there were con­tro­ver­sies as­so­ci­at­ed with the wear­ing of African at­tire in the Sen­ate back then.

The front page of the Trinidad Guardian for Wednes­day, March 10th, 1976 had a sto­ry un­der the head­ing “Broomes’ dashi­ki holds up Sen­ate”.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port :

“Yes­ter­day’s sit­ting of the Sen­ate was de­layed for an hour and 20 min­utes on a prob­lem of dress. One of the four new Sen­a­tors who were sworn in, Mr John Broomes, leader of the African Na­tion­al Con­gress (ANC), turned up in a very bright yel­low dashi­ki. Pri­or to the sit­ting, he was in­formed by the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate, Dr Wahid Ali, that his dress did not con­form to the rules and reg­u­la­tions of the Sen­ate. Mr Broomes in­di­cat­ed that he was not aware of the type of dress re­quired. Fur­ther dis­cus­sions fol­lowed be­tween the Pres­i­dent, the Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the Sen­ate – Sen­a­tor Fran­cis Pre­vatt – and oth­er se­nior Sen­a­tors. On the oth­er hand, Mr Broomes con­sult­ed with his par­ty mem­bers in the Pub­lic Gallery. At 2.50 pm, the sit­ting be­gan. The Pres­i­dent, af­ter the open­ing prayer, in­formed the House of com­mu­ni­ca­tions he had re­ceived from the Gov­er­nor-Gen­er­al with re­spect to the re­vok­ing of ap­point­ments of pre­vi­ous Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tors, and the ap­point­ment of new mem­bers…”

Broomes was rec­om­mend­ed by then Op­po­si­tion Leader, Roy Richard­son, to­geth­er with Al­loy Lequay, Simb­hoonath Capildeo and Charles Clarke. They re­placed Lloyd Best, De­nis Solomon, Ham­let Joseph and Ivan Laugh­lin, whose ap­point­ments as Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tors had been re­voked on Feb­ru­ary 25th. Broomes was grant­ed an ex­cep­tion for March 9th on­ly to take his oath.

In the Trinidad Guardian for Sat­ur­day, March 20th, 1976, un­der a pho­to on the front page ti­tled “Sen­a­tor Barred”, there was a pic­ture of Sen­a­tor Broomes and the cap­tion read :

“Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor John Broomes (above) garbed in white ‘Je­sus’ gown and slip­pers turned up for yes­ter­day’s sit­ting of the Sen­ate, but un­like the last sit­ting, he was not per­mit­ted to take his seat due to his at­tire.”

Broomes con­ced­ed on March 23rd. On the front page of the Trinidad Guardian for Wednes­day, March 24th, 1976, the pho­to cap­tion read “Sen­a­tor Bows To Con­ven­tion” and the com­men­tary said :

“Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor John Broomes (right) turns up in con­ven­tion­al suit and tie for the sit­ting of the Sen­ate. Just be­fore tak­ing his seat yes­ter­day, he is seen chat­ting with Op­po­si­tion col­league, Sen­a­tor Charles Clarke and In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Thomas Gat­cliffe (cen­tre).”

Broomes was forced to sur­ren­der; oth­er­wise he was go­ing to be si­lenced. Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the Re­pub­lic Bill, he said :

“…I had to con­form in or­der to be able to speak and to con­tribute in what­ev­er man­ner I can in this House. I had to con­form to cer­tain things which I did not want to do and I feel that is my hu­man right in­volved. I was de­nied of that and I had a lot of trou­ble in con­vinc­ing my fol­low­ers that I should come, put on and con­form, dis­guised as it were as a Eu­ro­pean…” (Hansard, Sen­ate, March 23rd, 1976, p. 582).

The saga of Broomes and the de­mands of colo­nial at­tire in the Sen­ate six years af­ter the Black Pow­er up­ris­ing and dur­ing the Sen­ate de­bate on the Re­pub­lic Bill con­firmed the blus­ter of re­pub­li­can­ism.

He stood up on a fun­da­men­tal mat­ter that dealt with the so­ci­ety and its colo­nial per­sis­tence. His episode demon­strat­ed that we be­came a re­pub­lic in law in 1976, but the back­ward­ness of in­tol­er­ance of di­ver­si­ty re­mained.

The mes­sage from the Sen­ate was that African at­tire was not wel­come. The PNM con­trolled the Par­lia­ment, and this could have been han­dled dif­fer­ent­ly. But it was not.

Af­ter be­com­ing a re­pub­lic, the is­sue of Sen­ate at­tire was raised again by Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Dr Ali as fol­lows:

“…By con­ven­tion of this Sen­ate, male mem­bers have worn jack­ets and ties and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of re­li­gion have worn cler­i­cal garb. There is prece­dent re­gard­ing ac­cept­able al­ter­na­tives to the jack­ets and ties and with the ap­proval of the Pres­i­dent, Mem­bers have worn shirt-jac suits of sober colour and long sleeves in the Sec­ond and Third Par­lia­ment of In­de­pen­dent Trinidad and To­ba­go. The de­vi­a­tions from these stan­dards that have tak­en place in this Par­lia­ment, have been with­out the con­sent of the Pres­i­dent and in spite of his ef­forts to up­hold the stan­dards set…” (Hansard, Sen­ate, Oc­to­ber 5th, 1976, p. 15).

Broomes ex­posed the hyp­o­crit­i­cal un­der­bel­ly of lin­ger­ing colo­nial­ism along­side an­ti-colo­nial re­pub­li­can rhetoric. Why was African at­tire in Par­lia­ment deemed in­ap­pro­pri­ate when we be­came a re­pub­lic in 1976?

Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany is a Pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). He was al­so ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of The UWI up­on his re­tire­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. He con­tin­ues his re­search and pub­li­ca­tions and al­so does some teach­ing at The UWI. He was se­lect­ed by the THA to guide the dis­cus­sions on To­ba­go au­ton­o­my.