GOOD GOD!

A PNM fan, employing what seemed a false name, recently sent me a long electronic letter coated in outraged, but steeped in malice, its objective being, I imagine: intimidating me into silence. He — the choice of language led me to believe the letter writer was a man — ended his bitter note with what he must have believed a deadly Trini challenge: “What you have with Prime Minister Patrick Manning?” Today I intend to respond to this Balisier bearer’s question partially, but publicly and in my own name. Here’s one of the things “I have with Patrick Manning:” he’s a very fortunate politician but his reaction to a gift horse is to always shoot it on the spot and then shoot his own mouth off.

Look at our Prime Minister today. He’s in quite a privileged political position. Patrick Manning has no Opposition in Trinidad or in Tobago, at least no Opposition anyone will take seriously; he’s got buckets of money to spend and as such, he has a firm grip on his party and on government even though a large number of people within and without the corridors of power don’t like his style of leadership. Does he humbly thank his God and as Trinis say, hush? Not at all. He’s got to open his mouth and irk both God and man alike.

These days he’s busy irritating us by playing Patrick the Preacher Man, TT’s best crusader. He’s been born again and is thus moved to Bible beat the rest of us into a new beginning, into refreshing our morality, morality a la Patrick, that is, a morality which allows you to appoint your wife to office, to try to oust others from theirs and to take the Parliament for your own. He’s also the religious Don Quixote of TT: he takes a swipe at Catholic windmills, pretends he’s not living in a multi-faith country while he woos his beloved Christian constituency by waxing biblical. Except where Don  Quixote’s verbal meanderings were often comical, Don Patrick’s lines are soaked in arrogance.

“What God has joined together, let no man put asunder,” he warned Tobago “secessionists” in his Scarborough sermon last Sunday at the climax of the PNM election rally. Caribbean history according to Manning. God forged the union of Trinidad and Tobago. Wouldn’t the British be delighted to learn they were still seen as deities in their former colonies? Then as if to confuse his audience about God’s real identity, he declared: “Whenever I look at Orville London, I am reminded of the Biblical injunction, ‘This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’” So just exactly who was God? Was he the PM come to anoint London? Was the Prime Minister saying he was British? Then what of Orville? Who was he in this liturgical play? An English Jesus? Or was the Prime Minister claiming the Brits were God, he Patrick was the Holy Spirit and Orville the Son? I was wrong before: Patrick Manning can be both arrogant and comical.

Our Prime Minister can also be extremely patronising. His latest advice to the nation that it should repent and pray is the biggest insult to our intelligence yet. Repent and pray? Is this the PM’s opium for the very disgruntled masses? Is Patrick Manning suggesting that each and everyone of his citizens is a sinner deserving of floods and of suffering? And what indeed would happen if we did heed Mr Manning’s advice? What if we repented our alleged sins and prayed for whatever we were supposed to pray for. After that, what? Would we awake to a world without tsunamis, floods, earthquakes and hurricanes, to a country that wasn’t crumbling around us, as Trinidad and Tobago is? Would the rains cease? What about the villagers of the North Coast? Would these feel safer after a period of prayer and repentance? Would the waters of the Caroni River return to their source? Would we stop getting murdered or kidnapped? Would we rise to a proactive, accessible and accountable government? And should we repent and pray before we took the appropriate steps to prepare for natural and manmade disasters or after?  Repent and pray, yes, that would solve our many problems and prevent calamity.

It seems Mr Manning believes he has graduated successfully from Father of the Nation to Godfather of the Caribbean so he can now slip into the role of God the Father of Trinidad and Tobago. In the process, his political fortune is not to be savoured, but squandered. He can now bombard us with biblical passages on every political stage, preach to us ad nauseam. Of course, the Prime Minister is very selective in his citations. You’ll never hear him quote Matthew, Chapter Six and tell his people, “Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee” or say “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret;  But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.”

Mr Manning’s quotations are also ones which place him in a unique position of moral authority over his countrymen. He is first among Trinis and Tobagonians in morality. He and only he can lead and save us. All we have to do is follow our spiritual leader and repent and pray, be beloved sons and daughters of whom he can be proud. Never mind that the people of TT didn’t vote for a God or a preacher, but a Prime Minister who would get the job done. Never mind he doesn’t think he has to practise what he preaches. “What I have with Patrick Manning?” Look, don’t get me started!
  suz@itrini.com