Sunday, December 23, 2012

Letter: PNM remains irrelevant; let the PP continue to lead

The PNM is comparable to the keypunch machine: conceived in times far removed from the present, in 1956 it might have been enthusiastically viewed as a quantum leap in our drive towards full self-governance. 

However, its us-or-bust stance and deliberately-carved demography since then have combined to disillusion the majority who now see it for what it is: an anachronism driven by attitudes, philosophies and techniques irrelevant and highly toxic to politics and society's well-being in the 21st century.

No rational person would accept that the PNM can overcome or is a viable alternative to the People’s Partnership. 

The PP is a government that has continually demonstrated the citizens of T&T are first and foremost, not Party jefes, and responds proactively and promptly to the citizenry’s legitimate expectations, for instance, by diligently, fearlessly and successfully seeking the return of nationally-owned assets. 

Billions of our dollars have been recovered without an extra-judicial, cross-border shot being fired. Yet, PNM spokespersons insist the PP hasn’t done enough in the 2½ years it has been in office. 

Such a claim not only conveniently disregards that what’s being sought is what “disappeared” under the PNM's watch (therefore, well hidden), it also ignores if “what’s out there” wasn’t so extensive, the retrieved sums wouldn’t have been in the billions.

But, PNM’s philosophy has always been “Great is the PNM and it shall prevail!”, a subliminal message that springs from the long-debunked “Divine Right of Kings” idea and, more insidiously, subliminally prods its members to denigrate and frustrate all who are in government whenever the PNM isn’t. 

As the years went by, such a ratio deciendi has driven the PNM to become nothing more than a convention of “wingnuts” bent on obfuscation and reinstating old “divide and rule” paradigms, of which the narrow-minded objections to infrastructural development in central and south are prime examples.

Thank God Almighty, the majority of T&T has altogether rejected such retrograde practices and is dead set on never re-embracing Caroni River as an impassable divider, rather as a God-made opportunity to strengthen, widen and rebuild linkages among the various ethnic groups, each of which God Himself planted here.

I close with the very wise words of Bolivian President, Evo Morales, concerning the transformational event we just witnessed (December 21st 2012): "It is the end of the Macha and the beginning of the Pacha, the end of selfishness and the beginning of brotherhood, it is the end of individualism and the beginning of collectivism."

It's time civil society sees the PNM for what it is and describes it accordingly: a party that looks to fill our stockings with self-doubt, enmity and paranoia, the three things which history has shown destroy every society in which they took hold.

Aesop Nthanda |Pleasantville, Trinidad.

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Jai & Sero

Jai & Sero

Our family at home in Toronto 2008

Our family at home in Toronto 2008
Amit, Heather, Fuzz, Aj, Jiv, Shiva, Rampa, Sero, Jai