MUCH ADO ABOUT RED HOUSE

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new....”: Lord Alfred Tennyson, The Passing of Arthur.

Should the People’s National Move-ment Government go ahead with its plans to shift Parliament from the Red House to a nearby complex it would be the fourth or fifth time in our history that the seat of Government, for that is what the Red House is, would have been moved.

The uproar caused by Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s recent announcement of Government’s intention to de-establish the Red House as the home of Parliament and the seat of Government, the reactions of horror triggered, are indicative of a colonial mindset, which proclaims that “What was good for Massa, must be good for us.”

Clearly, the argument should be not whether Parliament should be relocated, but whether the money that would be allocated, if substantial, would be better spent on improved education and health facilities, as well as on teacher training and medicines for the aged and lower income groups. It is a question of priorities, not whether British colonial Governors presided there, and that the Crown Colony Legislative Council sat at the Red House.

To say that the association of Parliament with the Red House is an untouchable part of our history is an absurdly cringing and grovelling posture. The British had no such qualms about continuity, when they not only abolished the Cabildo as the principal form of Government, but removed the colony’s seat of Government from the Cabildo building on Sackville Street, Port-of- Spain, after Trinidad was ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Amiens. They relegated the Cabildo to the power equivalent of a British Town Council and stripped it of its old authority, which had been peculiar to it.

The British set up a Council of Government, abolished it (the Cabildo) in 1840, and put in its place what would today be known as the Port-of-Spain City Corporation. Even the Spaniards, Trinidad’s first colonisers, had shifted the seat of Government from San Jose de Oruna (St Joseph) to Port-of-Spain. I add, without comment, that the Cabildo building in St Joseph had been rebuilt on several occasions. I wish to make this clear. The Cabildo, though in essence a Town Council, had, nonetheless, been the principal Government structure.

Britain neither wished to continue for long with the old Spanish Trinidad system of Government and would stamp its own on Trinidad. The Spaniards, when Trinidad and Tobago was a colony of theirs, had established San Jose de Oruna in 1593 as their capital, and the Cabildo building erected there was the seat of Government.

Admittedly, it was horribly modest by today’s standards, and certainly nowhere as imposing as the Red House. But one year after St Joseph had been founded, the Spanish Governor at the time, Antonio de Berrio, moved there and pompously declared it the (place of the) seat of Government. Several of the world’s nations have not only shifted their Parliament buildings and rebuilt them, but like Trinidad under the Spaniards, actually moved their Parliaments (seats of Government) to entirely new cities.

For example, the United States of America, which recently invaded Iraq without the sanction of the United Nations, had New York City as its first Federal capital. This was from 1785 to 1790. George Washington’s first inauguration as President of the United States was held at New York City’s Federal Hall on April 30, 1789, and would be the last Presidential inauguration there.

But the 13 States, then comprising the USA, which on July 4, 1776 had declared their Independence of the United Kingdom, were somewhat uncomfortable with New York State, whose capital was New York City, or indeed any other State, housing the capital. They would later reach a compromise. They carved out the District of Columbia, created the capital, Washington, there and so it has been to this day.

The recently independent Americans did not concern themselves with such ‘important’ reminders of their colonial past and the historical value of Parliamentary buildings constructed during British rule. Good Heavens, they not only refused to have any truck with them, but within five years had shifted their Parliament from New York City’s Federal Hall.

In turn, the Brazilians shifted their capital and Parliament from Rio de Janeiro, which had been the choice of and built by their former Portuguese colonisers, to the entirely new city of Brasilia. Those who had reservations with respect to the twin move were not the Brazilians, but rather foreign nations with diplomats accredited to Brazil, as this meant having to face the cost of relocating their Embassies and Missions to Brasilia. They grumbled, but they complied.

The ancient African nation of Kush, which demonstrated to the world that Empires can be humbled, when shortly after the Crucifixion of Jesus (known to his followers as the Christ), its troops had defeated the forces of Imperial Rome, changed its capital cities, and, ipso facto its Parliament buildings, several times.

Its capitals have included the legendary city of Meroe and Napata. It was to the north of Napata, in Philae and Elephantine, that Kushite soldiers had engaged and overcome troops of the arrogant Roman Empire. Today, a portion of Kush forms a not insignificant part of the Sudan, and the other, that of Egypt. But as I stated earlier the Government should first establish priorities, if the removal of Parliament to the planned location at its immediate North, indicates substantial expenditure.