Searching for the common good

Several persons have commented in the press that a consistent wage policy has been wanting through successive governments. One reason is we always seem to come to the bargaining table as enemies. As today’s second reading tells us: “I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ.’” The seed to this impasse is our underlying philosophy: the opposing party is no good; they have never done anything well; they have wasted all the money. If the bane of one government is the Toruba stadium, then the bane of the other is the highway to Point Fortin. I exist to undermine and pull down the other. There is nothing good about the other that is praiseworthy. This is the background to discussions on FATCA as well as other national issues.

But, the results of the US elections are a timely warning to us. We need to remember that too far east is west, and so attempts by the other side and particularly by the world press to demonise Donald Trump only served to buttress the victory of the same and which now carries with it the ominous possibility of the death of Obamacare.

Similarly, our prevailing political philosophy does not allow us to ‘big up’ the other side, even rarely.

We are telling our young population there is no ‘middle ground’.

Of course, political parties are not supposed to be bosom buddies; nor are unions called to be ‘chummy chummy’ with governments, which explains why the practice of having ex-union leaders become ministers of government has never worked. A respectable distance must be kept for the purposes of objectivity and not selling off to the government of the day. Whatever our political persuasion — especially in the current atmosphere where there is talk of devaluation of the US dollar to TT $10 and the forecast of negative economic growth for 2017-mediation and compromise must be part of important negotiations.

In Jamaica, once pleadings are closed in the High Court, the parties must sit down and open themselves to what grace brings. For both sides to benefit there must be dying on both sides or, put more positively, both must come out winners.

There is another important point. Politics was once a branch of moral philosophy, ie, it is a way of seeking the good for the whole, or at least the majority, mindful of the concerns of the minority.

‘Politics has its own morality’ is not the most noble thing we can say about politics; about what successive popes have called a “sacred” function.

Rather, we need to see a convincing search for the common good in our politics so that unions and others may follow the lead and steady the Trinidad and Tobago ship across treacherous waters.