Twists of Fate.... (What If?)

Nine months before history records as we know it, Claudette Colvin, a young black fifteen year old student was arrested on a bus for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman. Her case was set to become a landmark case as the NAACP had been waiting for a test case to challenge bus segregation, but some black leaders believed she was too young, and too dark-skinned to be an effective symbol of injustice for the rest of the nation. Then, as local civil rights leaders continued to debate whether her case was worth contesting, that summer came the news that Colvin was pregnant — by a married man, removing all doubt as to her appropriateness.

Were it not for these twists of circumstances both Rosa Parks and a then up and coming young Minister - Martin Luther King Jr., would be all but lost to history as the case that propelled them to celebrity status would never have happened.

That got me thinking, what if anything in our circumstances mirrored such coincidences of fate?

If Prime Minister Eric Williams had not died in Office, would we have ever known the George Chambers who replaced him, who became so universally hated the PNM was literally routed from Office in the worst trouncing in our history?

What if the victorious National Alliance for Reconstruction had rightfully pursued the recount of the San Fernando East seat in nineteen eighty six and Patrick Manning had lost (as many to this day still believe he did), would we have ever heard of Calder Hart? Julian Pena?

With a two seat minority in the House, what would have happened to the People's National Movement? Would they have survived?

Would we still have had an attempted coup in 1990? Who would the muslimeen have warned that such a thing was coming?

And what of Basdeo Panday? Without the attempted coup that destroyed the then government, would Club 88 have survived to become the UNC that put Basdeo Panday into Office?

Or would the NAR have gone on to win every consecutive elections as the urban vote migrated away from the dead PNM to fill the numbers void that Club 88 created, leaving the UNC in perpetual opposition to this day? Possibly. Without the loss of the ONR faction and coupled with the inclusion of the PNM voter banks, the NAR might have gone on to become even stronger than the PNM which begat it, and many big names we know today may have been barely footnotes to history if at all.

What would have happened to Patrick Manning? Would he have become a geology teacher at the University of the West Indies? And what of Kamla Persad Bissessar, Suruj Rambachan, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj and others? Would they have had the incandescent careers that the collapse of the NAR begat them? Would we have ever known Keith Rowley?

They say hindsight is twenty twenty, but isn't it funny how the simplest of decisions along the way could change so many things in the future?

Fast forwarding a bit, what if Basdeo Panday did not think Jack Warner could be 'handled' in exchange for his financial and other support, would there be an ILP today? What if the CONCACAF report did not damn the same Jack Warner so badly that he was left without choice but to leave the UNC, would he have eventually gained control of that party?

The Bible says it is the small foxes that spoil the vine, but it seems that too few of us pay attention to the choices we make that have the greatest of impacts. A party in Valsayn netted three million dollars from some high flying political 'financiers' who went on to build an airport that they have been avoiding using ever since.

If Vernon De Lima did not expose the Calder Hart Malaysia connection, would he still be here under a Balisier government building more unnecessary edifices for ten and twenty times their value?

Who knows?

Seems but for a turn here and a twist there, both history and the future changes. Knowing this does not free us, it yokes us to the choices we make. How insipid then, to use our very freedoms to enslave ourselves?

Would we, five years from now looking back, wondering where our democracy failed, would we have made better choices? I am sure we would. The art of critical thinking allows us the freedom of imagination, to cast ourselves forward to wherever consequence takes us, the opportunity to make better choices now.

Isn't it stupid not to use it?