Trinbago’s political animals

Owls: The owl throughout history has represented knowledge, wisdom, foresight, and intelligence. The political owls in TT are mainly the fence-sitters or the undecideds who are able to think independently and openly reject all staunch political party ideology. Owls are guided by Albert Einstein’s quote, which tells us that “the world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it.” Owls are usually focused on the holistic betterment of the country and would readily refuse any option to join the “parasitic oligarchy.” Owls are perched high up, viewing everything from their lofty vantage point, which enables them to make impartial contributions to issues and act as the conscience of the wolves and the voice of reason to the sheep.

Wolves: It’s difficult placing politicians into a category because many of them appear to be sheep, but it’s only until they get an opportunity to behave like wolves. Essentially they’re just wolves in sheep’s clothing; each one falling in line for their share.

According to dictionary.com, one definition of a wolf is “a cruelly rapacious person”, and for those who may not know its meaning, rapacious is defined as “given to seizing for plunder or the satisfaction of greed.”

The political wolves constantly circle the sheep pens, patiently waiting to pounce on any sheep who decides to venture out. A clear example of this is when former Prime Minister, Patrick Manning, fired former Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Keith Rowley over his objection to certain activities at UDeCOTT. Dr Rowley refused to be a sheep, so he was quickly consumed by the wolves.

Wolves, like our politicians, are very intelligent creatures and this intelligence, when combined with their carnivorous diet is the reason why political sheep are easily preyed on and devoured.

Sheep: In TT, sheep are usually referred to as party “loyalists”, “tribalists” and “faithfuls”. Unfortunately, sheep comprise the majority of our population; and they’re defined as “people who are too easily influenced or led.” In terms of the voting public, sheep generally have low levels of political intelligence, and therefore their political choices are based on anything else besides real issues. Sheep are vulnerable to fear, so they will immediately respond to comments like “A Calcutta ship is coming down for you” and any other divisive statement (usually along the lines of race). In actual fact, they aren’t interested in sensible dialogue because right or wrong, their party is right. As a matter of fact, many of these sheep have been voting for the same party for years, and choose to ignore any and all transgressions, and even at times, defend to the last, the errant behaviour of members in their beloved party. This encapsulates the true sheep mentality.

I felt very embarrassed for my country when a television reporter interviewed supporters of “Kamalah” (as they all referred to her) outside of parliament during the no-confidence motion against Opposition Leader, Dr Keith Rowley on March 25. The video, which was aired during a news broadcast that night, and can be found on YouTube, shows the reporter asking various supporters if they knew what was being debated in parliament at that moment. The answers to that question highlighted the paradigm of political sheep; “no, I have no idea”; “not really”; “well, everything good, everything good, everything, everything good”, “well, sort of yea”, and when pressed further, she admitted to not knowing.

The existence of sheep allows politicians to focus on bacchanal, insults and the wastage of valuable parliament time to defame each other’s character under the cloak of parliamentary privilege.

I recently met a young lady who describes herself as a “bornPNM”. She holds numerous positions in various party organisations, such as the Women’s League in Couva, is Secretary of her Party Group, and a member of the operations and marketing team for the MP-select in Couva South, yet she firmly declares that she will only continue to support the PNM as long as they continue to give her something in which to believe. Thankfully, there are many young people out there like this young woman who refuse to be a political sheep or a staunch anything.

However, sadly, the sheep will remain a staple in our politics because the wolves will never let them out the pen.