I am sick and tired of the carping and criticism aimed at Attotnry General Anand Ramlogan's revelations of sordid details on the well known corruption perpetrated by the Manning PNM and it's opportunistic fellow travellers between their presidential "elevation" on 24/12/01 and their popular dismissal by the electorate on 24/5/10.
Only in T&T does the victim resent and fear disclosures of his victimisation even more than does the perpetrator!
Do those who now live in fear of a premature, violent and possibly unpleasant death at the hands of criminals not recognise that even hardened criminals harbour fears of a similar fate inflicted upon them by the hand of a really committed State?
Where was their sense of outrage at the blizzard of vilification, accusation and persecution which the PNM, at significant taxpayer expense, inflicted upon their majority supported rivals after 24/12/01?
Between the latter date and the overdue and flawed election of October '02, that elevated, though minority supported administration, did nothing but persecute the UNC and handsomely enhance their own emoluments!
Was that then the popular definition of "getting on with the job of governance"? Where was public outrage at that expensive obscenity perpetrated by an illegitimate ruling dispensation?
Were none of those today criticising Anand Ramlogan, from editorialists to letter writers, concerned that Manning and his minions had devoted an entire inherited budget to nothing but vilification and accusation while crime and violence were already spiralling out of control?
During all of '02 and most of '03 where was that urgency for forgetting the past in order to fulfil platform promises? How many platform promises has the Manning PNM ever fulfilled?
I dare any of Mininster Ramlogan's critics to credibly respond or refute any of the above. The hypocrisy of the Williams legacy is obvious in ongoing attempts by Selwyn Cudjoe and Marion O'Callaghn to trash a recent scholarly debunking of the Williams myth by Gerald Besson.
Yes Prof Cudjoe Eric Williams did have a profound effect upon T&T, one however, which we, to our advantage, have been better off without!
Had political roles been reversed in '02 and a minority supported Panday UNC been "elevated" at the expense of a majority supported Manning PNM, I am certain that the challenge above would have been overwhelmingly answered - provided that is that Robinson was ever endowed with the testicular fortitude to have perpetrated any such obscenity against the PNM!
So much for the hypocrisy of "morality, spirituality and sic, the rule of law". The explanation for the foregoing "what if" may be summed up in 2 words - ethnic bias!
Where was that richly merited opprobrium for AG John Jeremie as he hounded an Indo CJ, Sat Sharma out of office upon spurious and politically expedient charges?
I rest my case, without even referring to a recently resurrected Fitzgerald Hinds and his repetition in '02 in parliament of Williams' reference to Indo Trinidad as a "hostile and recalcitrant minority".
The fact is that bigoted double standards now once more in evidence have been arrived at quite honestly. It is but one of many unfortunate legacies of the malign genius that was Eric Williams.
Between arrival in 1955 and his demise in '81 he found ample time and opportunity to inculcate into the national psyche, even of generations yet unborn, his own resentment and distortions of unpleasant truth, contempt for integrity in public office and ethnic bias, all of which are currently being regurgitated in the media.
If the new dispensation is to save us from ourselves, many more like Anand Ramlogan and Jack Warner are required.
We have to be re-educated into treating that malign legacy with the contempt it has always merited. This is the challenge facing any new dispensation.
Cry the beloved country
T.G. Mendes
No comments:
Post a Comment