Race and reason

I congratulate Sat Maharaj, the Maha Sabha and their attorneys for their victory before the Privy Council. And while everyone agrees that the Government discriminated against Sat Maharaj and the Maha Sabha, we must decide — as reasonable people, in a reasonable manner — whether this was discrimination against an ethnic group (“East” Indians), a religion (Hinduism), both, or was it an act of spite against an “unpopular” individual?

Several radio broadcast licences have been issued to stations which are totally “east” Indian in content. None of these are debarred from presenting Hindu religious programmes. Together they are the vanguard of what I see as a Renaissance of Indian and Hindu culture in Trinidad, and we are all enriched by this. I do not accept that there is some PNM policy against Indians which drove the refusal to grant the Maha Sabha their licence. “Policy” comes out of some forum involving vision, planning and implementation. How can this PNM government create — far less implement — “Policy?” Here we have the most inept and spiteful government with which we have ever been cursed, who cannot do anything for the country, and we suggest they may be influenced by something as practical as a “policy”?

Ladies and Gentlemen, if there was a “policy” to deny radio licences to East Indians or Hindus, there would be no Indian or Hindu radio stations. The refusal of the PNM to grant the Maha Sabha a licence was an act of pure spite, for only spite — as opposed to policy — could fuel the disgraceful behaviour of the government through this sordid affair. I applaud Sat’s call for an Inquiry into this matter, and I hope the minister(s) responsible would be made to pay the cost of the long judicial battle. If company directors are responsible to the shareholders for their (directors) actions, then the ministers who denied the Maha Sabha, and who spent millions of our money to do so, should be made to pay. Go for it Anand!

Our politicians — of all parties — are nasty, spiteful people. This is something upon which we are all agreed. They care nothing about the country or the citizens. Indeed, they care nothing about “race.” They use “race” as an inflammatory political device, and if we, the people, are not careful, they — the politicians — not race, will destroy us all.

A special report in Sunday Newsday, July 2, by Mark Lawrence, unfortunately attempted to legitimise the political viewpoint. The report titled “Ethnicity used as a political pawn” was flawed from its beginning by suggesting that the last census (which omitted about 300,000 persons) had “found a dominance of the East Indian population in terms of the figures.” A dominance? The “figures” Lawrence quoted were: East Indian population — 40 percent; African — 37.5 percent; Mixed — 20.5 percent; “Other” and “Unspecified” — two percent. Forty percent of any population or grouping is a clear minority, not “dominance” as Lawrence states. According to questionable census figures, the ethnic East Indian portion of our population is marginally the largest single group in the society. However to suggest that this portion is now “dominant” is simply — wrong! Indeed, in terms of culture and religion, that third group — 20 percent Mixed and the two percent “Other” are socially, culturally and religiously aligned to the African 37 percent. Do we need a poll or a census or a “study” to confirm this?

However, some politicians and columnists see the marginal difference between Afro and Indo citizens as a “majority” for the Indos. And, wrongly assuming this majority, they see great discrimination in the fact that Indo “culture” and “position” are not automatically given dominance in the society. Using this flawed premise, Mark Lawrence quotes interim Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, speaking on Indian Arrival Day: “Indians in the State employ are being fired or displaced by Government merely because they are Indians.” And she added: “The Indo-Trinidadian community is witnessing a ‘shock and awe’ programme with State-sanctioned policy that significantly discriminates against Indo Trinis.”

What is wrong with Kamla? Just a few years ago, many people, including much of the Women Leadership of the country, saw Kamla as a potential leader of this country, able to rise above the filth of the PNM and the UNC. Sadly this is not how it turned out, our Margaret Thatcher or Indira Gandhi she will never be — nor a Eugenia Charles. Kamla is currently warming the Opposition Leader’s seat for Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, a position in which she is well experienced. She warmed the attorney general’s seat for Ramesh in the recent past, smiling and dutifully stepping aside when Ramesh was ready. When Ramesh began the proceedings that eventually saw her prime minister convicted and jailed, he was expelled and the UNC, including Kamla, was voted out of office.

That Kamla is now willing to embrace Ramesh — and when asked, to yield to him — may set some psychologists to make comparisons with Abused Women’s Syndrome.

For her to use George Bush comic book slogans like “shock and awe” to describe the dismissal of UNC supporters from State jobs is just as pathetic as Ken Valley’s “another black man bites the dust” when the UNC dismissed PNM functionaries in favour of their own in 1997. I expected more from Kamla. When there is a change of government in Jamaica or Barbados, hundreds of people lose their jobs, their cars and their cell phones. And in those countries “that’s politics.” But in TT, when we change government, then the replacement of supporters in government and state enterprise jobs is not “politics” — it’s “race!”

Wake up TT.

Do not let your politicians divide your country, your community, and indeed many of your families, in pursuit of their political agendas.