Political Sense & Sensibility...

If (as David Rudder said) 'how we vote is not how we party,' then why do we vote the way we do? Is it that the people of this country are predominantly racist, or are we somehow stuck with a racist political system? To me this is the question that most needs answering if we are to ever grow into one people (if such a thing is indeed possible) and the reality of course is that for our politics to ever mature to that level, the first thing that has to happen is that the openly racist PNM and its spawned adversary the equally (if not more so if such a thing is again possible) racist UNC both have to be destroyed.

Not sidelined, marginalized or voted out mind you, but destroyed; destroyed the way you kill a cancer before it kills the host; destroyed the way the PNM was obliterated and on the way to destruction prior to the staged and funded attempted uprising of 1990. Make no mistake, what occurred in 1986 was the most important thing to happen to us politically since Columbus, because (ignore independence for a while) for the first time the people had real political power within their grasp. So important actually that the unseen hands that 'controlled' the nation from behind the scenes had to take it upon themselves to unleash an up 'til then little fringe religious group with axes to grind against the state, and so perfect was the deception to this day Bakr, Abdullah and others still believe it was their idea in the first place.

Putting a pin in that too for a while, I want to remain focused on the divisive issue of race because real change will forever elude us as long as half the country has to be marginalized for political victory to occur. Neither of those two Parties could ever be a national Party simply because their base and base ideology is an 'us against them' posture based on race, the ability to recognize the enemy from a mile away. Add to this the idea that half breeds and douglas should inherit the whole thing because of their ability to exist in both camps simultaneously, but no, the game has been organized in such a way as to leave them even further marginalized because in Trini racist politics, half a thing is not as good as the whole.

Independence changed the handlers but not the way we were handled, and it was only until the Black Power Uprising of 1970 were 'the people' given real citizenship (not belonging to a country, but owning it), and it was sixteen years later at the height (depth?) of the recession that we finally pushed the handlers aside and seized the power of the state ourselves. Had we been able to keep our racism in check, if we did not need to visit Mother Africa and come back with useless,  jackass titles, if we did not need to take we 'indian self' to Aranjuez and build Club 88 to say Indian and African really cant saddle the same horse, 1990 would not have or could not have occurred. The Unity that Basdeo Panday and his Club 88/UNC was peddling was a 'Unity on an Indian Bed,' a concept that furthered our descent into the racial quagmire that has allowed Ishwar and Calder to rape and pillage knowing that as long as one side 'claimed' them they would remain free. Short of a calamity of tragic and destructive proportions that upsets the entire thing a la Haiti, Katrina or Japan, I do not know from where we would find the impetus to build real unity into what we think ourselves to be. Rest assured though, until we do we will continue to be divided and conquered, separated and culled, to the delight of those who want us to never find an equal place. Noted journalist, publisher, poet and thinker Charles Mackay said “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."

Sitting here contemplating the continued madness of our unwillingness to unite I see the vast wasteland that the squandered opportunities have wrought for us, but I remain hopeful for a better day. It's what keeps me writing long after I can no longer remember what was the point in the first place.