Creating a nation

In recent years we have seen the opening of the Caribbean Court of Justice, but with the embarrassing irony of the CCJ’s headquarters being based in Trinidad where the Government cannot pass the legislation needed to make the CCJ the country’s final court of appeal. This is because of Opposition intransigence, but recent decisions by the Privy Council against the Government, allied to the Chief Justice controversy, have strengthened the conviction amongst some we still need the British Law Lords to defend the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago.

This year we also had the Trinity Cross issue, with the Government allowing the dispute to reach the courts before deciding that the divisive title of the country’s highest national award would be changed. This decision has been decades in coming, and even now there are groups and individuals who oppose one award for all citizens — a sign that after 44 years of Independence, many people still do not grasp the concept of nationhood.

Then, three weeks ago, Prime Minister Patrick Manning laid a Draft Constitution in Parliament — a document that is supposed to form the basis of a national debate which will, in turn, determine the final shape of a new agreement between citizens and State. Critiques have already started, but several commentators have taken the tack that the Draft Constitution is the result of Mr Manning’s desire to be an executive president. But, if people do not trust the Government to have real consultation in this crucial exercise, this is only because the past autocracy of the PNM administration has given genuine cause for distrust. And a clause in the Draft Constitution which states “The President shall not be answerable to any court for the performance of the functions of his office” will not allay such fears.

Apart from these large issues, we have our daily deficiencies: rising prices at the supermarket; daily murders; child abuse; inadequate infrastructure; traffic jams; and so on.

This was not the vision in 1962, when Trinidad and Tobago ceased to be a colony of Britain and hoisted the new red-white-and-black flag over its sovereign soil. Back then, Dr Eric Williams declared, “Democracy means the responsibility of the government to its citizens, the protection of the citizens from the exercise of arbitrary power and the violation of human freedoms and individual rights.” The assumption was that self-rule would lead to better rule. And, although it is true that there has been progress in our social relations over the past 44 years, it is not at all clear that our gains have been a direct result of self-government. Indeed, it might even be argued that our society’s progress has often been in spite of the Government.

So, in 2006, the country finds itself with a Prime Minister whose development vision seems confined to a metropolitan skyline; an Opposition divided against itself; a Parliament taking measures to ensure that the people of the country don’t get a true picture of their MPs; a Police Commissioner asking for the cooperation of the public while failing to punish officers who abuse and kill members of that public; and an economy even more commodity-dependent now than it was four decades ago.

These are not signs of a truly independent nation. But citizens have become more socially conscious over the past decades, more aware of the need for different groups to compromise for the national good, and less tolerant of the abuse of power.

These are the foundations on which true independence will eventually flourish.