Making suckers out of the people

I believe that it was American President Abe Lincoln who said that, “You can fool some of the people some of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

Poor Abe could hardly have been expected to have the current political situation in mind when he surmised this political maxim. Our politicians seem to act on the belief that they can fool all the people all the time — and they at least succeed in fooling most of the people, most of the time. I am, accordingly, reminded of American showman PT Barnum attributing his success to “the fact” that, “...there’s a sucker born every minute.” In our neck of the woods, remember Valmond Fatman Jones? Well Fatman Jones is hardly remembered for his portrayal of Caesar (or was it Nero?) in an historical carnival band, but he’s hardly forgotten for his Sam Cooke’s scam when he sold tickets for a Sam Cooke show that never came off for the very simple reason that Sam Cooke never heard of it and the ticket holders’ money disappeared together with Fatman into thin air. At the time, we wanted to skin Fatman alive, if we could put our hand on him. But the worst thing that happened to Fatman Jones was that the scamp was the subject of some calypsonian’s ditty, “Bring back de Fatman/Fatman, Fatman, Fatman....” which we sang to our heart’s content.

A few years later, guess who was “liming” on Frederick street like nobody’s business? — cool, cool, cool like if he’d never left his “liming” spot. The fellow probably had acquired local mini-celebrity status by then. That may have something to do with the “Anancy syndrome” of our national psyche which can’t distinguish between genuine intelligence and low cunning and leads us to promote the proverbial “smartman” to hero status. Remember the Three Canal’s Osama bin Laden promotion to bin Lion. I reckon that should a penitent, reformed and retired bin Laden ever end up as “a limer” on one of our main streets, it would simply be dismissed as the old bin Laden trying to ketch up with local cousins — “bin lying and bin tiefing.” Talking about lying and tiefing, it could be quite embarrassing (not to the politicians, of course) if someone from some extra-terrestrial planet landed here unannounced. He/she/it/ or whatever might well come to the conclusion that there was no more to our politics than lying and tiefing — sleeping with the devil or being in bed with the mafia.

Now, for good or ill, I’ve never been very good at “intellectuallising complex issues out of existence” or, as Bertie Gomes might put it, “burying my understanding of apparently complex issues in an exegesis of obfuscation,” so you might have, gentle reader, to bear with me while I connect the dots and reduce issues to such simple terms so that even I and similarly placed unsophisticated minds and simple souls can begin to understand the issues of the day. Having said this, let me reiterate my own considered view that the NAR (National Alliance for Reconstruction) was one of the biggest political hoaxes perpetrated on an unsuspecting populace.

I make absolutely no apology for so saying. Perhaps I’m too dumb and all that, but I don’t get bowled over by mossy political slogans and empty platitudes. That’s not to say that there was not a general yearning among a substantial portion of the population for genuine unity of the different strands of humanity deposited here by slavery, indenture or otherwise. But politicians are motivated more by personal and their support base interests than by noble sentiments or ideals. So the so-called “party of parties” was driven by a cabal of leaders who saw the so-called “national unity” clarion call as the means of creating the political vehicle that would drive a badly discredited (by plausible allegations of massive corruption) PNM out of town and possibly into oblivion.

The three political leaders who agreed to bring their electoral resources together under the umbrella of the NAR were Basdeo Panday, ANR Robinson and Karl Hudson-Phillips. Karl had substantial electoral support but it was too widely dispersed to win individual seats, Bas could deliver the traditional DLP seats. ANR had two Tobago seats in the palm of his hand and besides that there was a general feeling that Robinson (his aloofness and perceived autocratic demeanour notwithstanding) was, unlike Panday of Prime Ministerial timbre. Subsequently stung by the gibe that he was angling for some future Presidential appointment, Hudson-Phillips said that when the NAR came to office, the Presidency of the Republic was his for the taking.

Ken Gordon claimed that Lloyd Best had approached him to arrange a rapprochement of sorts between Robinson and Panday at some stage. I mention this as having no more significance than another instance of Panday approaching Robinson in what he might call his quest for political collaboration or “national unity” ? la Panday. Ken Gordon subsequently served as a NAR minister together with Panday and claimed that they had a problem with Panday’s penchant of seeing almost any issue through an ethnic prism (my words). As Prime Minister, a seemingly paranoic Panday had “a hate list” that included the President, the Chief Justice, the three musketeers, Selwyn Ryan, Raffique Shah, the media, Lloyd Best, Ken Gordon and others too numerous to mention. “Hell hath no fury like a paranoid politician,” completely out of his depth. Then PM Patrick Manning claimed that when he decided on the date of the snap general election, only the PNM party leadership was informed. However, what’s-his-name leaked it to one of his UNC friends.

Panday had a secret (call it private) meeting with Robinson. Panday was accompanied by Brian Kuei Tung (who did the talking) and Robert Mayers accompanied Robinson. According to Mayers’ public account, Kuei Tung told them that they knew the date of the snap general election and, whatever the package contemplated, President ANR Robinson could emerge as a “distinct Presidential possibility.” In fairness, I might add that Robinson’s reported response was a disdainful, “I didn’t know that his (Panday’s) was the presidency to offer!” Play wid Bas, Nuh!