I am, at least as far as I am aware, descended from neither Indo nor Afro ancestry.
This does not prevent me from lauding Basdeo Panday for presiding between '95 and '01 over the most progressive and equitable ruling dispensation to date. Nor does it prevent my accusing President Robinson, and those who supported him, of having been motivated by ethnic bias when he ignored the majority vote in his undemocratic decision of 24/12/01.
Since Robinson utilised the authority vested in him to depose a majority supported incumbent Indo administration in favour of an Afrocentric minority supported PNM, rather than embrace the democratic imperative as suggested by Prof. Bognador of a return to the electorate, he ipso facto perpetrated a classic case of anti Indo discrimination and this must be openly acknowledged and accounted for before attempting to sweep the issue of race under the carpet.
I do not give a damn what bogus sentiments Robinson bandied about in mitigation. That none other has yet sought to identify that abuse of democracy for what it really was is tangible evidence of exactly how blinded my benighted homeland remains by the malign and pervasive legacy of Eric Williams as it stumbles to certain disaster as a result of such bigotry.
It is thus with both sadness and disappointment that I am forced to take issue with the most promising potential leader to have appeared on the political stage since Basdeo Panday has so effectively destroyed his own credibility.
I refer to Jack Warner and his recent treatise on race relations in T&T. While I thoroughly share his sentiments that a nation divided by any fundamental issue, such as race, religion or anything else, is doomed to failure, in a multi-racial society such as T&T the question of racial discrimination has first to be addressed, acknowledged and accepted as having existed, as a prerequisite to racial harmony.
It cannot, as he appears to suggest, simply be ignored and the races embrace each other with loving hearts. People are simply not made that way.
Read Warner's letter: "This race talk must stop."
Read the story: Cudjoe Warns of negative future for people of African origin
I can speak from personal experience as a member of the minority whom Williams demonised as his passport to power in '56. Today I can hold those from whom I am descended in nothing but scathing contempt for the common ground they made with the oppressor for the express purpose of maximising profit under "business as usual".
By the same token, since Williams dismissed Indo Trinidad as a "recalcitrant and hostile minority", not even Jack, who has done more for the Indian peasantry in this society than has any other politician, not excluding Basdeo Panday, can credibly deny the fact that that sector of society has suffered, if not ethic cleansing, as enunciated in Parliament, but at least a form of discrimination which has filled the ranks of professionals and businessmen in the developed world with Indian migrants out of their homeland.
As such, therefore, it is impossible to simply ignore and forget history and pretend that that discrimination never occurred, for that would merely be the legitimising of it and encourage the "we turn now" syndrome as and when the pendulum swings.
Should Mr. Warner, as I have no reason to doubt, really desire to unite this country in racial harmony, we have first to identify and dispense with the problems that exist and have existed for too long, perpetrated by whichever ethnic grouping.
These must first be admitted and apologised for before any healing process can begin. To simply ignore what has already occurred is to me the height of folly and if I interpret Mr. Warner correctly, to suggest similar is fatuous in the extreme.
I have not read Mr. Cudjoe's recent submission on the subject of race. I can only base my opinion on what I have read from him previously and as a result can dismiss Mr Cudjoe as beneath contempt.
Read Prof. Cudjoe's full speech
The very fact that Cudjoe's qualifications for his sinecure within the Central Bank of T&T has been neither justified nor explained and further, a veil of secrecy has been legislated to prevent further focus on that issue, is, I respectfully contend, given his highly visible racial stance, a classic and living example of ethnic discrimination; one which is actively sponsored by the extant ruling dispensation.
If, therefore, Mr. Jack Warner, who I wish to here re-emphasise I support as eminently suitable to fill the vacuum in leadership, wishes to retain this reader's credibility, he will, without delay, respond to this submission and explain why and how, his view is more valid than my own.
In doing so I urge that he keep in mind the old adage that there can be no omelette without first breaking the egg. The egg in this case, of course, being the acknowledgement, admission, acceptance and apology for racial abuses which for far too long in the society of T&T have been institutionalised.
I refer to such bigotry as persuaded business exemplars north of the Caroni to retain and maintain a pristine silence while an Indo majority supported incumbent was removed from power by an Afro President in favour of a minority supported PNM on 24/12/01.
While we all readily recognise the fact that their silence was economic, as opposed to any other strategy, the fact that an Indo administration, the first in this nation's independent history, was summarily removed without a return to the electorate, was and remains an act of ethnic bigotry and, as such, must first be admitted and accounted for before the races can realistically hope to kiss and make up and walk forward to a brilliant future hand in hand.
That objective, without soul searching, no little embarrassment and a high degree of honesty, neither Mr. Warner or any other well meaning individual, will accomplish in T&T.
Cry the Beloved Country.
T.G. Mendes | via e/mail (Barbados)
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