Growing desertion may push Panday over too far

THE EDITOR: Somehow the MP Baksh referred to in my letters to the editor published in Newsday December 7 was mistakenly identified as Senator Sadiq Baksh. I apologise to the honourable gentleman for that error. It had to be the printer’s devil. Nowhere in my letter did I refer to the honourable senator. Ominously of late there is a spate of alarmingly subliminal stimuli in the volatile rhetoric of the formerly suave and witty leader of the Opposition. It seems that our veteran campaigner, swept away in the despair that his own political decline, is advocating the old colonial method of “divide et impera.”

He prattles that theme to his captive audiences among the supporters in his party’s heartland. He seems to have abandoned his thespian tactics of the true, true Trini whose identity is rooted in this his native land. There are frequently less than subtle suggestions of social unrest and possible violent reactions in his speeches to his party faithful. I fear that the growing desperation of the aging politician is threatening to push him too far. That would be a national disaster for Basdeo Panday is a political icon in some parts of our nation. No one is attempting to make him more or less than human.

Indeed, I am sure that the experienced campaigner would be among the first to admit that he is subject to all the ills that “flesh is heir to,” but ruthless is not an epiteth that our erudite former prime minister would choose to describe himself. Surely he wouldn’t promote or pursue any action to secure political power. That would lead to racial divisions and violent disturbance among our people. Certainly this is not the Panday whose inspiring oratory impressed so many Trinis 20 or more years ago. Age, we are told, brings reason and we hope the eloquent Silver Fox is not the exception that proves the rule.

GEORGE DAMIEN
Arima