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TRINIDAD & TOBAGO goes to the polls on Monday morning and God alone knows what they will come back with; it's a long weekend in Barbados, whence I write, but, in Trinidad, what was once a holy day will be devoted to the unholy Trini activity of picking another group to raid the white people' energy tax. It might be better if, instead of fighting up with Hobson's choice, Trinis just brought back the old Whit Monday holiday and went to the beach. It's not like it's going to make a long-term difference who is elected, anyway.
Of course, if you care about the place at all, you have to be hoping that the PNM is thrown out on its collective ass for not having the individual guts, political sense or simple patriotism to chuck Mr Manning out on his. The election is a referendum on Mr Manning and
he seems to be doing his best to remind people of what a millstone he is: one is supposed to accept, because it comes with his assurance, that a "State of the Nation" address a week before the election is really not a barefaced stealing of airtime for PNM party purposes but an important report to the citizen; one is supposed to be impressed by his pointing out that "PM" in the Guanapo church plans could stand for "Project Manager"; one is supposed to think that Planning Minister Emily Dick-Forde was not spouting the official Patrick-declared line when she said Trinidad & Tobago should be ashamed of hounding a good man like Calder Hart out of office.
Now, I may be the only Trinidadian left in the world (who is not beholden to him) who holds any regard for the old Patos at all, but I do. I imagine him, next week, rejected, with no one in his gallery to commiserate with him, except maybe Mr Panday, and I tell myself I'd take the boof from my wife and readers and go visit him, do my bit to help drink those cases of beers (although it would be an uphill struggle, even with me and Bas batting together, for just three men).
Deep inside the pompous ass that struts around earning himself comparisons with Robert Mugabe, there's a decent man in Manning; it's my own hope that he may find that man again, by getting a good cut-ass next Monday.
But even wishing him all the best - which, for him, would be losing the election badly - it's been a while since I was able to think of something good to say about him. Where would I find it? Not in the heights of Guanapo or the depths of the Uff Commission report or the mid-range of secret "scholarship" funds, destruction of our own forests to make way for foreign smelters, sacking of Keith Rowley for wadjankism and so on (and on; and on).
For many, though, Monday's choice equates to either exactly the same or more of the same, just in yellow joe-sey, not red one. Michael Harris, who, for my money, has been writing most sensibly about TT politics - if you haven't read his column last Monday, Down to the Wire, you should -sums up next Monday's dilemma for the Trini/'Bagonian voter by quoting a young woman who told him she was being forced to vote for a party she didn't trust to get rid of one man she didn't want.
Nothing good, therefore, can emerge in the long run from next Monday's exercises. Trinidad's whole problem is that it thinks only in the short term, if it thinks at all; which is exactly why it continually finds itself in the position of having to eject the most recent in a long line of rulers who abuse power and privilege; it has been going on in these parts for 400 years and it's not going to come to a sudden halt next Tuesday morning, even if Kamla Persad-Bissessar becomes the new prime minister. You do not become a citizen by staining your finger every now and again and you are not a republic if, at any time, between ten and 50 per cent of your voters are simply unrepresented.
For all the hard work put in by my politically-aligned friends in the PNM, UNC and COP, nothing material will change in Trinidad, this time next week, because, for the last few weeks and decades, we have been dealing only with the fringes of our problems and not their fabric. What is needed in Trinidad & Tobago is not a change in government but a change in mindset.
For the country's sake, the non-aligned commentator can only hope more people are fed up with Mr M than mistrust Ms P-B, Mr W or Mr D; but Trinidadians will not solve their ongoing problem by taking their usual approach. Yes, they must shuffle the jokers in the pack next Monday, if the whole house of cards is not to collapse at once - but the real change must be in their own hearts and minds; and is that even possible?
In August, 1991, when Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, was arrested by the Politburo resisting Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost, thousands upon thousands of Muscovites left their homes to stand, all night, between the tanks and Mr Yeltsin's White House; they valued their hard-won freedom that dearly; almost a year before, in Trinidad, when Abu Bakr attempted his bloody coup, murdering innocent people in his ignorance, Trinis came out in their masses -to fill the bars and nightclubs. Ask any Trini who was in a "curfew party" and he will tell you it was the best thing ever to happen to Trinidad: 18 hours of party and nobody cyar leave. Understand that and you understand that, no matter who is PM this time next Friday, the election itself is going to turn out to be just another manic or Manning Monday.
BC Pires is a special early elector; he voted with his feet two years ago
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Change in mind-wha? Mindset!? Best adjust yuh TV set. Obama gone to yuh head.
Alas, 1990 was a good chance, but the hard backs turned out to be too weak. Hope another chance is round the corner and it don't get dan-it up.