Commentary
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Posted March 14th. 2010 - Trinidad Express

By Selwyn Ryan

Hearts not trumps

I have had a great deal of difficulty trying to understand just why Patrick Manning stood so firmly behind Calder Hart when it was clear that Hart was the most toxic political figure in Trinidad and Tobago, and the Prime Minister’s support for him was one of the main reasons for the poor rating which he and the People’s National Movement (PNM) were getting from the polls. Manning called Hart ’indefatigable’ and called his critics a ’wild reckless lynch mob’ bent on a political hanging. To many, the reason for the support and condonation was obvious. Hart and Manning were assumed to be an ’item’; the former was said to be holding secrets for the Prime Minister and could therefore not be touched without Manning also becoming compromised. In sum, Hart was too big to ’fall’.

There were times when I too felt that that explanation was the only one that made sense, and that I could no longer plead ’agnosticism’ when it was argued that we were witnessing a replay of the Williams-O’Halloran saga in which Manning was a bit player.

My willingness to accept the’follow the money stupid’ explanation was however never ever complete. I had doubts and still do since it did not fit with earlier assessments which I made of the Prime Minister’s probity in respect of money whatever one might say about his addiction to executive power. Was it not possible that the Prime Minister was merely being politically stubborn or arrogant, someone who was saying to ’witch hunters’ in general and Rowley and Emile Elias in particular, ’up yours’. Might he not be saying we have no justiciable evidence to convict Hart; was he not saying that we should wait until Uff submits his report and the courts its judgments, and that until that is done, we should call off the posse?

Manning seemed convinced, against all that was being made public at the Commission, that Hart will be found innocent of all charges. The possibility thus existed that he was simply being loyal to someone who was his chosen czar in the construction industry, the person whom he had chosen to help achieve his own ambitious ’20-20’ developmental goals in terms of the urban skyline.

As he said contemptuously, ’many can talk, but few can build’. Manning seemed so confident of Hart’s innocence that he quixotically urged us not to rule out the possibility that Hart could one day be made a member of the Integrity Commission! This was the advice of an unhinged and not necessarily a corrupt person!

On numerous other occasions on which Manning heaped praise on Hart in the face of all the indications that something was just not right. When pressed, he explained that the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDeCOTT) was acting as the agent of the Government and not on its own. It was pursuing Government’s policy. ’Its purpose was to establish a new order in the construction industry.’

Strangely and inconsistently, Manning complained that what the cartel in the construction industry and their allies wanted was to get him and not Calder Hart. ’They want the Prime Minister whose skin was however thick and lined with asbestos.’

Manning went on to enunciate a ’Doctrine’ about his preferred model of development for situations such as what obtained in Dubai. When questions arose as to whom boards of special purpose firms such as UDeCOTT should be responsible, the Prime Minister made it clear that they had to be given the authority to act with a free hand subject only to the intervention of the top political boss.

’We need to give individuals who have the responsibility for execution the requisite level of authority. The weight and influence of the office of the Prime Minister had to be brought in to ensure the company executed its wide mandate.’ The company should report directly to the Prime Minister’s office and not to the line minister. As Manning advised, ’if individuals did not have a heightened level of authority, development will not happen .’ Hart then was probably seen as being as much a part of God’s divine plan for Port of Spain as Rev Pena!

If then the Prime Minister gave Hart the authority to act, subject only to his advice and ruling whenever those were required, is he then not responsible for what eventually happened? If he told Camille Robinson and Rowley in effect to mind their own business when they raised red flags, was he not guilty of being a poor manager and judge of character? Was he duped by a clever snake oil or three card salesman? Could the Prime Minister not have been more vigilant? Is it that he knew that all was not well in the state of Denmark, is it that he was willing to forgive them their trespasses or at least turn a shaded eye to their missteps because he desperately wanted to get his favourite projects completed, and was prepared to condone illegalities in order to get the job done.

Might it be that, in his view, Hart and the Chinese and Malaysian mafia were the lesser of two evils, the worse being the taming and reining in of the local cartels which he accused of conspiring to submit overpriced bids on projects which took ages to finish. Was the choice which he made not one that required him to demonise and sacrifice Rowley and Elias? At what cost to the country and its institutions was that choice made?

When Mr Hinn described Mr Manning as a foolish man, his reference was to spiritual foolishness. Mr Manning also seemed to be foolish and naive in matters of State, a naivety which has caused his party and the country great grief, financial waste, and which has led to gross misgovernance.

Someone has to be accountable. Hart seemed to have been forced to fall on his sword in order to protect the leader. If so, what happened to all the earlier arguments about Calder being too big to fall? What did the Attorney General tell the Prime Minister? Why did the Prime Minister continue to praise Hart even after he was told that an investigation was underway? It would seem that the PM told Hart that clubs were now trumps and that he had to go. What else did they say to each other?

The PNM as a party with pedigree should also recognise that it has a responsibility to get to the bottom of the mess in which its leader currently finds himself. It should therefore not merely echo words about the need for discipline and the need to avoid washing soiled linen public.

Manning is dead in the water, and the PNM must ask him to ’stand down’ for someone more electable, unless of course he has something to say in the next few days that assuages the fears and concerns of the membership. I doubt that he can do so.

Mr Manning is also the duly elected Prime Minister of the country and he must be required to come clean to Parliament and ultimately to the electorate. He has made a mess of things, and there is a price to pay for that. Nemesis is closing in on Hubris.

Posted March 7th. 2010 - Trinidad Express

By Selwyn Ryan

Holy madness

Several allegations or assumptions have been forthcoming to explain, justify, or lampoon the Prime Minister’s now celebrated speech in which he complained that he and members of the Full Gospel Church were being ’persecuted’ for reasons having to do with their faith as ’born again’ Christians. It was said, inter alia, that:

- The speech was the work of a ’con man’ who was using religion as a ’weapon of mass distraction’ to conceal matters which he is unable to explain without becoming a victim of the law or of the laws of political retribution.

- The speech was a deliberate ploy to manufacture an artificial ’religious crisis,’ since he could no longer rely on racial divisionism to cause the PNM to be returned to power. Mr Manning was accused of deliberately wooing the ’born again’ vote to shore up his rapidly declining popular support.

- That Mr Manning was frightened like a church mouse when confronted with pictures of the structure which he had hoped would have remained under wraps until such time as knowledge of its ownership would not give rise to political embarrassment. The fact that the matter had been made public forced him to invent fables to cover his ’rear’.

- That Mr Manning panicked when reports surfaced that the Chairman of UDeCOTT had sourced help from professional firms to design the edifice. There was more panic when reports emerged that the Shanghai Construction Group (SCG) and Chinese workers were building the project. This led sleuths to ’connect the dots,’ which suggested that funding for the project, including funds to acquire the site from the existing occupants, might have come from the Chinese. Was this one of the smoking guns which linked Mr Manning to the Chinese and Mr Hart, and helps to explain why it seems he can do no wrong?

- That the public at large is more than ever convinced that the Prime Minister is ’mad no a..e,’ and that he should be referred for psychiatric evaluation.

- That the PNM party should address the problem of the Prime Minister’s mental health as a matter of urgency lest he endanger its electability as a party and also take decisions that are injurious to the public weal.

- That the secrecy with which the whole matter was treated by My Manning suggested that there was more in the mortar than the pestle, and that the Prime Minister should come clean.

These explanations might all have some merit, although we sometimes attribute more political shrewdness to leaders than is warranted. I, for example, am not convinced that there was a deliberate strategy to replace a’ racial bogey ’with a ’religious bogey’. This might well have been an unintended ’collateral benefit,’ if indeed it proves to be electorally significant. Mr Manning may have been merely scrambling for something to say that would take him down from his own petard. In doing so, he may well have been ’too clever by half,’ as the English say.

Some men are ’born’ mad, others in time become mad, while yet others have madness thrust upon them. I am here talking about men and women who choose politics as a vocation. My hypothesis is that Patrick Manning was born a ’normal’ human being.

He was ’born again’ in 1986 after the NAR’s 33-3 victory, which left him as the defacto successor to Dr Eric Williams. That improbable event convinced him that God had chosen him to lead the party and the country . Manning literally saw halos where before there were none. ’Holy madness’ had been thrust upon him.

Following his dramatic resurrection of the party in 1991, he may well have become even more convinced that he was the elect of God. The party thushad to be remade in his image. Party rules, symbols, and leaders were changed, and entries to party conventions became dramatically triumphal, complete with garlands and tassa drums etc. A concerned Muriel Donawa felt driven to complain that the party of Eric Williams was being sedulously transformed into the Patrick National Movement.

Notwithstanding what they seek to project to the public, leaders are never ever sure that people who sing hosannahs and wave palms really love or admire them, or are as loyal as they seem to be. Threats appear everywhere. Thus the need to be surrounded with individuals and groups who are dependent on them. They buy loyalty with patronage, and in various ways, seek to acquire the resources which they need to stay at the top.

Uncertainty about their own worth and the loyalty of others drive some of to seek out persons who have reputations for being spiritually developed and who appear to have links to the divine. We are familiar with the ancient Greeks whose leaders rarely ever embarked on any significant course without checking with the oracles. Amerindians rely very heavily on shamans, and other cultures identify persons whom they should consult professionally (eg psychiatrists.) Almost all Africans leaders seek advice from what is called the ’obeah man’. Daniel Etounga-Manguelle, a Cameroonian scholar and author, had the following to say: ’Sorcery extends to government. Witch doctors surround African presidents, and nothing that really matters in politics occurs without recourse to witchcraft.

Occult counsellors, responsible for assuring that authorities keep their power by detecting and neutralising possible opponents, have power that the most influential Western advisers would envy. The witch doctors often amass fortunes, and they sometimes end up with official designations, enjoying the direct exercise of power.’ It is well known that even radical socialists such as Toure and Nkrumah had their spiritual advisers, and that various ’Kankans’ competed to determine who had more spiritual and thus more material power than whom.

Power not only corrupts, but it also distorts perception absolutely. Leaders, especially those who stay in power too long, begin to get messianic visions about what ’Almighty God’ has in store for them and what he expects them to do for his people to please him. What they hear is invariably an echo of their own voice.

It would seem that Mr Manning is genuinely persuaded that Mrs Pena is touched by God and that he sees her as one of God’s messengers.

Posted February 28th. 2010 - Trinidad Express

By Selwyn Ryan

The Panday legacy

Mr Panday’s reaction to the political defeat which he has sustained suggests that he is still in a state of shock and denial, and that he has not yet fully accepted the fact that he has lost the mandate of heaven.

Mr Panday initially refused to resign as Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, saying that he wanted ’History to record what is taking place’. He now finds himself on the wrong side of history, its victim rather than one of its makers. Mr Panday clearly did not believe the findings of our poll which told him that he was in a ’race to the bottom’ with Mr Manning. He seems to have gotten there first, but races with history are not always won by the swiftest. Nemesis can at times be a slouch.

In assessing Mr Panday’s reaction, we need to recall that he does not believe that maximum political leaders should be challenged by mere mortals. He once remarked that ’in Caribbean parties, some ’jackass’ always challenges the leadership’. He in fact described Sudama, Maharaj and Maraj, then members of Team Unity, as ’neemakharams’ and ’treacherous triplets’, and warned them that they would have to’ live in the sky’ if they persisted in challenging him. They were accused of ’playing with fire’. Sudama was told to apologise for his treachery or face oblivion for the ’rest of his life’. Sudama however refused to ’kiss’ his feet as Kelvin Ramnath reportedly did.

Ramesh Maharaj, was also dismissed as ’Judas’ or as ’Rawan’, the demon king of the Ramayana. As Panday whined peevishly, ’over the years, the Rising Sun had come to be regarded as my shining and beloved wife, but recently, a political Rawan has tried to steal her from me. He will be destroyed.’

How will History judge Mr Panday? Mr Panday has been a central figure of Trinidad’s political life for the past 43 years and has been responsible for much of what has characterised that life. He has often been accused of being ’racial’ and of contributing by his rhetorical excesses to the racial polarisation of the society. And it is true that Mr Panday said and did many things that have led to speculation that he suffers from hubris or a narcissistic personality disorder (NPD)

He himself admitted that he was aggressive. As he told the media in May 2002, ’if I was rude and aggressive, I am sorry. Some people are made up like that. It is my nature, but I assure you, it is a pleasant kind of aggressiveness’. ’It is all part of a day’s struggle.’

Much of what Mr Panday said and did was driven by the need to build a base among sugar workers and ’alienated’ Indo-Trinidadians from Aranguez to Cedros. Over the years, there has been intense ethnic competition between the two dominant ethnic segments, and survival and success depended on how well the ’struggle’ was waged. As Mr Panday himself put it, ’in politics, you do what you must in order to win in the struggle for power. You either do or die. There are no points for coming second. Glory belongs only to the winner. That is the nature of our political system. Politics has its own morality’. This remark got him in a lot of difficulty, but he was basically correct. It may be that he should have said that politics has its own immorality!

Mr Panday however had another ideological side to him. From the moment he entered Trinidad politics, he emphasised that the problems facing the country were driven by class rather than by race. Thus the Workers and Farmers Party and The United Labour Front.

He was however not always consistent on the class issue, and was often accused of trying to create an ’all Indian party’. But he understood the need to build political alliances to defeat the PNM. Thus the National Alliance of 1981 and the National Alliance For Reconstruction in 1986. In the latter case, he gave way to ANR Robinson because he was convinced that Trinidad was not yet ready for an Indian Prime Minister. His preferred strategy was to fold up the ULF tent and enter into an alliance with the ONR and other opposition elements to create the NAR.

Panday and the ULF element were shocked by the outcome. The 33-3 result left them in office but not in control. His struggle to get a ’fair deal’ for his supporters went a long way towards creating the perception that he was racist and that he would mash up the society if he could not get his way.

We also need to assess what happened between 1995 and 2002 when the UNC held power. My own view is that Panday was given a marvellous opportunity to improve the governance in the country and that he blew it. What we had instead was what he himself termed a feeding frenzy which ultimately led to the collapse of his government.

Panday however handled the transfer of power well, at least initially. He sensed the emotional loss experienced by the Afro-Trinidadian community, and discouraged Indian triumphalism. He also built bridges to other minority communities to the point where Hindu-centric elements accused him of forsaking his ’own people’ in his pursuit of alliances with the once demonised ’parasitic oligarchy’.

Panday’s commitment to inclusive politics was best seen in the intra party elections of 2000 when he quietly backed Carlos John for the post of deputy political leader. John’s rivals were Ramesh Maharaj and Kamla Bissessar. John’s team, the so called ’All inclusives’ took the view that the UNC could not win and sustain itself in power on its own and could not remain parked South of the Caroni.

Their view was that the UNC had to become a national party, and that John was the bridge that would take the UNC across the Caroni River. Panday’s view was that power had to be shared with Afro elements if it was to be augmented or sustained.

The Hindu-centric fundamentalists felt that Mr Panday was himself a ’neemakharam’ who was afraid of being tagged as an ’Indian’.

At one time, it appeared that Mr Panday might choose to mash up the UNC rather that have it appropriated by a female version of ’Rawan’. Fortunately, he chose not to do so. He had earlier remarked that the UNC was his legacy to the country, and that he would do nothing to destroy it.

As he declared: ’If I have to leave any legacy to the country, it has to be the political party which I now belong to, and which will struggle and fight for the rights of people. I have seen many parties die with their founders, including the PNM. I do not wish my party to die with me; I, therefore, must prepare the party for my demise. I don’t want to die in the party, because if I die in the party, I fear the party will die with me and I would have left no legacy in the struggle.

The mantle has now passed to broken but less hairy hands, and we wait to see whether she can broaden the base and help to make Trinidad’s politics genuinely competitive, since our political salvation requires that this be so.