The Red House must go

It is a symbol, at once, of the old colonial and post-colonial order. It represents the seat of monolithic, despotic, authoritarian power.

Centralised, bureaucratic, bungling, and capable of horrible acts, missteps and mistakes.

It represents the old colonial hood – from Chacon to Abercromby to Rance, Beetham and Hochoy. And the neo-colonial parliaments from Eric Williams to Kamla Persad- Bissessar and Dr Keith Rowley.

It represents the will of client governors who serve the will of plantation, massa, foreign powers – the bureaucracy, technocracy, contractocracy, servants acting on behalf of the global financial, industrial and military complex.

It represent thievery of the commons and the social, cultural, spiritual and economic accomplishments, by busting into their welfare and civilization.

Who decimated the ancient civilization of the indigenous peoples? Decimated their agrarian life, their ceremonies, their captains and caciques, raped their women and children? Set them afire, ran them out of their villages and homes? Enslaved them in mines and missions? Made them jump off the cliff in Toco? Who cut down the trees, the forests, made the land into a patchwork of slave industrial plantations? Made the ports to serve plantation? The church to serve plantation? The Cabildo, the Crown Colony, Whitehall, and Parliament to serve plantation? The primary and secondary schools to serve plantation? The media to serve plantation? The monetary system and system of production to serve massa and plantation? The import economy to serve massa and plantation? The Red House to serve plantation? And who busted the best systems of economic and social production? The train? Agrarian life in our food baskets, Tobago, Aranguez, Caroni? Built the new channel, failed to maintain the sluice gates, salinated huge parts of the Oropouche food basket? And who busted Caroni 1975 Ltd? Petrotrin? The commanding heights of our economy? Corralled our children into huge ungovernable comprehensive schools? Common Entrance? Politicised everything, from Laventille to Debe/Penal to Parlatuvier? And created all our lines of suffering in the Licencing Office, the Red House, the hospitals, the remand yard, the courts and registries? The Red House represents the house of title and deeds. The gross monetisation and capitalisation of land.

So that land title and deed are beyond the reach of the average citizen, bleeding the middle classes from the nose. All the villages, built up by the people after emancipation, indentureship, now stand in danger of capitalisation, urban sprawl; that is, conversion by the technocrats and bureaucracy into assets for the contractocracy and the conglomeracy; all stamped by our Prime Ministers, their Cabinet notes and bureaucracy, the Parliament.

So no more public dollars should be spent on garnishing and sprucing up that carbuncle of centralised power. St Vincent and Abercromby Street power must go. It must be toppled and replaced all over the country, in 33 to 41 municipalities with local elders, caciques or chiefs, and village councils. Replaced with local government responsive to the detailed care of the lands, people and communities, bringing good order and relief, growth and prosperity, everywhere.

And all public buildings in the republic must play their part in economic redevelopment.

Ital development.

All those tall glass buildings, in the waterfront, where the current Parliament (which has to go too) is, must be reconfigured with solar panels.

A symbol of the new economy based on ital, that is genuine development, authentic progress, real prosperity.

It is not our natural infrastructural assets, our social, economic and ecological assets, which must be torn up, tractored, destroyed. It is the Red House that must be.

Wayne Kublalsingh via emai