Politicians’ patron saint

To tell the truth, I don’t think I’m sufficiently qualified. Yet, two of my 67 scripts may be classified as political plays. Firstly, there is the three and a half hour long God and Uriah Butler which was commissioned by the Oilfields Workers Trade Union in celebration of their 30th anniversary. It chronicles 22 years of Butler’s life from 1928.

As a boy about ten, my father took his last two sons — Victor and me — to Woodford Square to hear Uriah Butler in full cry. I can’t remember what on earth he talked about but he had a real raspy stentorian voice and we found every thing boring. Little did I imagine that some 26 years later, I would be face to face with this colossus of politicians interviewing him for the play about his life.

Every time I think of the first performance at Naparima Bowl, I remember how my blue Taunus 12M stalled several times and the actors travelling with me had to practically push the car from San Fernando to Port-of-Spain. One night after a City Hall performance, almost the entire cast of 50-odd players decided to pay me an unexpected visit at home as I was recuperating from an appendectomy operation.

While I appreciated their wonderful gesture, the pain was killing me and I had to pretend I was enjoying the camaraderie. After that, as the man at the helm, when ever some one suggested that we visit a sick member, I always enquire if that member wants visitors. If he so desires, we then fix a definite date, time, duration of visit and the number of members who would like to visit his home.

Once in my life, more than 50 years ago, I attended a parliamentary meeting and no one could ever guess what I learnt. A good method to clean eye glasses was to put one lens in the mouth, blow on it, wipe it with a handkerchief then do the same to the other lens. One of the parliamentarians did just that when a representative was speaking. I can’t even remember what the debate was all about.

In my second political play, What Party You Voting? while I had a good slug at all the parties, I had a PNM canvasser make a prediction which I myself thought could never happen and many persons felt was absolutely preposterous at the time because the PNM was in opposition with only three seats to NAR’s 33. The canvasser told Beulah, “We are on the comeback trail. After elections, we will again hold the reins of power.” I don’t know if the politician’s saint was spiritually instrumental in anyway but the prediction came true.

That saint is Sir Thomas More — born 1478 and died 1535. He was Speaker of the House of Commons and Lord Chancellor under King Henry VII. When Henry disobeyed the Pope, declared himself head of the Church of England and divorced Catherine of Aragon, Sir Thomas refused to recognise these decisions. He was accused of treason and King Henry had him beheaded. Exactly 400 years after, he was caononised.

“We Pope” — Pope John Paul II who paid a one day visit to Trinidad in 1985, declared the martyr Sir Thomas More to be the patron saint of politicians and statesmen in 2000. It took a very long time to come, but politicians do have a patron saint whether they wanted it-or not.

Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), Russian revolutionary leader and Marxist philosopher said, “There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.”