Heaven can't wait

Life is frequently, very odd. I had started working Saturday morning on a piece about the Prime Minister’s plan to occupy the Red House, with the intention that it be published on Sunday July 18, 2004. I thought it was time to revisit the contentious issue because of a startling announcement by the PNM a few weeks ago that restoration work on the nation’s Parliament had been suspended since the Red House would be the Prime Minister’s office. This declaration meant one thing and one thing alone. Patrick Manning’s desire for the Red House had not waned a bit. I couldn’t deal with Government’s ill-conceived plans for TT’s legislature at the time though, because the police bill debate pushed the matter of the Red House onto the back burner.

Then I woke up yesterday morning to a Sunday Newsday report which had the Speaker apparently caving in to the Prime Minister’s demand to have the Red House for his office at any cost. It was a case of our PM rushing in where constitutional angels fear to tread. He was going to oust the parliamentary staff from the Red House, forthwith. That’s when I observed how ironic life was. I also decided that this column’s publication could not wait until next weekend. Not with a PM as determined and in such a hurry to get his way as Patrick Manning.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

My column, which usually appears on a Sunday, was renamed “No Red House for Manning” on April 13, 2003, a few months after the Prime Minister announced his imminent hostile takeover of Trinidad and Tobago’s Parliament building. On that first ‘Black Sunday,’ I promised Patrick Manning that the column’s name would remain intact until “his period of insanity,” that is to say, his mania to transfer his office to the Red House, was at an end. I insisted in April 2003 that Mr Manning’s bid for the Red House was lunacy because not even his extreme conceit could explain why this Prime Minister would publicly say he was going to move into the congress, or that in his view, the legislature needed to be relocated to a more modern building. I could conceive of no modern democratic leader, not even Tony ‘Cheerleader’  Blair or George ‘Weapons (of Mass Destruction)’ Bush waking up one morning and announcing they were moving into the House of Commons or onto Capitol Hill. If they did both men would have to simultaneously write letters of resignation because such declarations would be political suicide.

That was April 2003. Today, 456 days later, I am still using “No Red House for Manning” as a title because I still cannot give the PM a clean bill of  health. Indeed I think his condition, which I have discovered is called Red House Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, (RHOCD) a debilitating constitutional illness, is worsening. Readers, the PM is in serious trouble and thus, so are we. I have read up on this particular political disorder and Mr Manning displays some of the worst symptoms of RHOCD: his brain has become stuck on the idea of moving into the congress and he’ll do anything to get there; because he just can’t stop thinking about the Red House, RHOCD is significantly interfering with his work and relationships; and thirdly, the PM is depressed. The first feature of the disorder is the most obvious: his occupation of the Red House has been preying on Mr Manning’s mind since the last millennium.

He’s so bent on having his Red House Mr Manning is ready to put the parliamentary staff out on the street and into any old place. He is also ignoring the recommendations of yet another parliamentary committee, this time the House Committee, which in its report of last September, recommended that during restoration work, the legislature’s employees be minimally disrupted. The Committee suggested that as such, all parliamentary activities be shifted to the north wing of the building, while the south wing, south chamber and the rotunda were being restored. The second effect of RHOCD — its interference with his work and relationships — is manifested primarily, in Mr Manning’s current inability to sit at his desk in White Hall because he has to duck water pouring from a leaking roof. He is also unable to hold his parties because he cannot convert White Hall and Stollmeyer’s Castle into a resort for visiting dignitaries. His RHOCD has also affected his relationships with most rational people. You name them, senators, judges, first ladies; the PM has ticked a lot of people off, everyone probably except Balisierites.

The third mark of his RHOCD, Mr Manning’s depression, is visible every Friday when he falls asleep in the Red House Chamber. His slumber is not induced by the boring speeches made in the House, as everyone so unfairly thinks. When the Prime Minister’s eyes are shut, Mr Manning is actually in a catatonic state, brought on by the depression of being in a place he desires desperately, but one which few want him to have. I am sure that you have many FAQs (frequently asked questions) about the PM’s RHOCD. Questions such as, is there a cure for it, or how do we get Mr Manning to comprehend that the decision to move the legislature does not fall within the Prime Minister’s political domain, even if he commands the majority of seats in the House.

Can the Prime Minister be brought back to constitutional reality, you might ask, where he is supposed to be, and occupy himself with running the executive branch of the TT State? Can he be made to understand that his RHOCD is taking TT back into the dark ages? It’s hard to answer any of these FAQs. Mr Manning’s RHOCD is at such an advanced stage, it has rendered him constitutionally regressive. In layman’s terms, this means he is incapable of grasping the concept of the separation of powers, the doctrine which divides government into three categories: the executive, legislature and judiciary, a key philosophical underpinning of TT’s Republican Constitution. To tell the truth, readers, at this advanced stage, I’m not sure there is a remedy for Mr Manning’s RHOCD.

If when he first announced his madcap plans, the population had realised there was need for serious, continued intervention, not the typical Trini seven-day cure all, by now Mr Manning might be on the road to full recovery. But he was left alone after a week of scathing columns, angry rhetoric and a short petition. As a result, the PM’s RHOCD was allowed to deteriorate over the past year. If this Prime Minister gets the Red House for his office and Parliament has to find a place to squat TT citizens will have to accept most of the blame because it is really our own equally debilitating local political disease, known as APATHY, which will have cost us our Parliament. It makes you wonder. We have so easily given up our congress. What next will we be prepared to sacrifice?