Grasping the nettle

Prime Minister Patrick Manning displayed such mastery on Friday, when he announced that the Government would re-name Trinidad and Tobago’s highest national award, the Trinity Cross. The new title — and, presumably, new design — will be one which is acceptable to all individuals in the society, whatever their religious beliefs, or lack thereof, may be. This move reflects a commitment to the society as a whole; defuses accusations of racial prejudice directed against the PNM administration; and also undercuts Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s attempt to score political points off this controversy.

Still, this decision could not have been easily reached. Mr Manning in his address admitted that “No government wants to alienate any section of the population, however large or small, through any decision it makes on a matter like this.” But the decision will inevitably offend certain groups — primarily, those fundamentalist Christians who believe that their way is the only way. Such individuals — and they have their counterparts in all religious systems and political ideologies — believe in what is called a “comprehensive doctrine” i.e. an enclosed set of beliefs that, if adhered to by everyone, would supposedly create a perfectly ordered society.

History, however, proves that all such doctrines are impossible to implement, and that attempts to do so — as with Catholic Europe, Communist Russia, apartheid South Africa, and Islamic Iran — always result in oppression and dysfunctional institutions. In our society, however, the majority of Christian groups — as well as the main Hindu and Muslim organisations — generally accept that all groups must be free to follow their own way, as long as that way does not transgress the rights of others.

In this regard, Mr Manning noted that “divisive demagoguery of all kinds have so far failed in this country.” He also observed that “the management of diversity has always been a great challenge for government and society.” We would go even further and argue that managing diversity has always been the greatest challenge for any society, and it is one which the majority of nations have, at some point in history, failed dismally to meet. From this perspective, our country’s politicians face a far harder task than politicians in Barbados or Jamaica, and even developed nations such as Japan and South Korea and the Scandinavian countries, whose populations are far more homogenous than our own.

Mr Manning has therefore risen to the highest political level in making the decision to re-name the Trinity Cross. Indeed, his speech revealed a maturity and grasp that is new to his long career. Mr Manning’s two previous stints as Prime Minister were largely undistinguished, while his present tenure has been blotted by the unwavering crime rate. But, in two respects, Mr Manning has proven himself a more radical politician than any of his predecessors, including Dr Eric Williams and Basdeo Panday.

The first is in his refusal to hamper corruption investigations into two of his Ministers (an option that, in our immature political culture, is still open to Prime Ministers); and the second is in his firmly grasping the nettle of the Trinity Cross. If this is a sign of things to come, Mr Manning may yet write himself into the history books on some basis other than tall buildings.