1970 or 1990: We resolve nothing

August 04, 2004

The reason you often hear the comment that the people of T&T are not serious about anything is because burning, fundamental issues are never resolved.

Part of the malaise is that we never seem to comprehend the process by which all phenomena develop, so we are never scientific in our approach to implement anything that would facilitate the resolution of contradictions and the cementing of levels of higher stages of our existence.

All talk, all discussion, all dialogue, all attempts at social planning by official society thereby tends to remain stuck at very superficial dimensions. Nothing fundamental ever happens and the constipation that results orientates our national psyche towards the tragic-comical more than anything else.

Are we really surprised today when almost everybody suddenly becomes a comedian? There are today a number of radio talk-show hosts and hostesses, commentators that revel only in comic nonsense and insipid silliness, and the fact that guarantees their continued popularity says a great deal about this town.

Even our only attempt at local TV programming, Gayelle, has found itself, 90 per cent of its broadcast time, posturing to the same ongoing comic approach with a set of presenters usually unprepared and uniformed, pretending to be offering viewers studied opinions or listening to callers who have nothing to say other than "Keep up the good work!" or wish somebody "Happy birthday."

The residual ten per cent of broadcast time Gayelle utilises to either interview some person or authority on a particular subject matter or simply push worthwhile Banyan re-runs.

So the impression is that no one here is serious about anything, no one here is responsible, no one cares about maintaining standards in any field, and that a general kind of lawlessness pervades the culture. Those are the negatives that are constantly being reinforced whichever way we turn.

But the history of this place says something else. From the turn of the last century to present times, every 20 years this society explodes, as if by clockwork, and the status-quo and the entire establishment is challenged to the core, and people put their lives on the line. Every 20 years, without miss, in this very place where we assume that the people are not serious.

That negative view persists because the burning issues thrown up in the course of the social explosions are never resolved. Those who hold and maintain the power to define and to validate never see or are incapable of seeing the significance of what people demonstrate, moreso than articulate, in the course of the explosions.

True to say the Caribbean people, who have always been left out of the structures of power and governance, have been writing their constitutional reforms by means of their social explosions. If you do not know that, then you know nothing about Caribbean people.

Fourteen years after the July 27, 1990, upheaval, commentators are today wondering why there is yet to be an in-depth investigation into the cause of that situation which led to the armed storming of Parliament. And this is not to be mistaken to be a demand for another Commission of Inquiry, but for in-depth, independent historical analysis. It is a demand, for example, for UWI to become research-oriented as ICTA, its predecessor, was.

But how can we be surprised about 1990 when we still know little about 1970, the February Revolution. The burning issue of the February Revolution was that the coming of political Independence did not bring with it the opening up and deepening of the economy to satisfy the needs of a modern people and the instrument with which this economic expansion could be accomplished was political power and political will.

A few UWI students began to march in solidarity with fellow students jailed in Canada for protesting institutional racism. A most insignificant act, one would think. But the UWI students in their march, symbolically exposed the relationship to, and the role of foreign banks in, the T&T economy, and ended up in the Roman Catholic cathedral charging the church with collusion in the systemic exploitation of the masses of people.

The leaders were arrested and the next thing we know is that the regime in power is faced with 250,000 people on the streets. Local Parliaments begin to appear all over the country and representatives are sent to the People’s Parliament of Woodford Square.

Dual power comes to exist in the country: the power of the people versus the power of the minority regime. The regime turns to the army to destroy the people’s power and the army rebels and transforms into a progressive soldiery.

How that comes to happen and what was the intention of the people’s army as it organised a convoy to occupy the city centre? That part of the story is yet to be told.

The regime in power only regained its foothold by rapidly moving into the economy, absorbing all the insolvent private enterprises and expanding business, becoming thereby the second largest bloc of capital in T&T, second only to direct foreign investments, and the biggest employer of labour. Palliatives really, because the core question of governance and the structural relationships of political power were not addressed.

Did the people, by their actions in 1970, not demonstrate the constitutional reform they desire?

The burning issue in 1990 was the issue of land. The IMF conditionalities and structural adjustments that burdened the poor and the hodge-podge, superficial alliance that comprised political power then were the objective historical backdrop that served to heighten the conflict between that State and one particular section of the religious community whose contact with the youth of the poorer classes was solid.

Who was to get which pieces of land to do what and by whose authority? It signalled the necessity for land reform on a national basis. After 14 years nothing has been resolved.

Land at Mucurapo were granted by Williams to a Muslim umbrella organisation of which the Jamaat was a part. Only the Jamaat remained and took the responsibility to fill and reclaim the lands.

They did the work, these otherwise "lazy Afro-Trinidadians." If the land was given as a grant, why was the deed of ownership never executed? Who were the people in the Ministry of Agriculture at the time who failed to comply, and why? What was their agenda?

That issue remained festering like a live sore with military threats and counter-threats from either side being issued until the July 27 fiasco and the storming of Parliament. It is what happens when people bury their heads like ostriches in the sand.

To date silence prevails. And the lack of will to resolve issues continues. In the meantime everybody is a comedian until the next explosion.