Den­zil Mo­hammed

Great lead­ers are the ones who do his­toric things. Free slaves, end wars, em­pow­er the dis­en­fran­chised, put men on the moon...The Prime Min­is­ter's ap­par­ent promise to pro­duce a "pol­i­cy (that) will forge the way for­ward for T&T as (her) gov­ern­ment seeks to put an end to all dis­crim­i­na­tion based on gen­der or sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion" can be Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's his­toric move to cat­a­pult her in­to the realm of great lead­ers in his­to­ry.

Why? Be­cause even though we de­cid­ed to be­come in­de­pen­dent of our for­mer colo­nial pow­er, we re­tain the worst of its lega­cies: its ar­cha­ic, dis­crim­i­na­to­ry laws, which even it has long changed. Be­cause even though we've done away with the Privy Coun­cil as our ul­ti­mate ar­biter of jus­tice, we've re­tained a strange pride in these laws that patent­ly vic­timise some of our cit­i­zens.

Be­cause de­spite rare state­ments by re­gion­al lead­ers of open­ness to rec­ti­fy­ing the scar of le­gal dis­crim­i­na­tion against gay cit­i­zens, no ac­tion has been tak­en. Be­cause the in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion of the is­lands has re­mained, and jus­ti­fi­ably so, as a hotbed for vic­tim­i­sa­tion of and vi­o­lence against gay cit­i­zens born of a cul­ture and le­gal sys­tem that tac­it­ly and ex­plic­it­ly con­done such ac­tion against gay cit­i­zens for the on­ly rea­son that they are gay.

This can be Per­sad-Bisses­sar's his­toric act to cat­a­pult her fail­ing rep­u­ta­tion in­to a lega­cy of epic pro­por­tions, some­thing by which she will be re­mem­bered and revered for cen­turies to come. Be­cause, face it, T&T is sore­ly lack­ing in great lead­ers.

Pave roads or change his­to­ry

Think of our last four Prime Min­is­ters. One fad­ed in­to in­famy, one was forced to grant amnesty to a "ter­ror­ist," one lost an elec­tion and with it his dig­ni­ty, and one went to jail. Did any of them curb ris­ing crime, stop the drug trade, tru­ly pro­tect chil­dren, give us world­class health­care, take us to de­vel­oped-na­tion sta­tus, or put a stop to gut­ter pol­i­tics or trib­al pol­i­tics?

They built roads, paved roads, gave us un­nec­es­sary pub­lic hol­i­days, and dis­trib­uted Christ­mas ham­pers to the poor. Equal civic rights to gay cit­i­zens were not im­por­tant to them be­cause they did not seem im­por­tant to any­one. That's the thing about hu­man rights.

Peo­ple are of­ten sat­is­fied with their ways of life sim­ply be­cause it is all they've ever known. But look­ing in from the out­side, from the fu­ture or from a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive, it can be seen peo­ple may lack many in­alien­able hu­man rights. Women can't dri­ve, the dif­fer­ent­ly abled are de­nied jobs, chil­dren aren't schooled, child labour still ex­ists, rape camps still ex­ist, al­bi­nos are mur­dered for their "good luck" prop­er­ties...

While so­cial change takes time, leg­isla­tive change ought not to take longer. Yet, a draft na­tion­al gen­der pol­i­cy has been float­ing around for more than a decade. The Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship was elect­ed in no small part on the pre­sump­tion of pro­gres­sive ideals on so­cial and civic pol­i­cy.

There was the be­lief among some vot­ers the Gov­ern­ment would not "im­i­tate for­eign coun­tries" but in its own right cor­rect the laws that do not serve the peo­ple and en­act new ones that bet­ter pro­tect us. In­stead, news­pa­pers are con­duct­ing polls on whether pro­test­er Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh should be ar­rest­ed on an­oth­er ar­cha­ic law, one that crim­i­nalis­es sui­cide at­tempts.

The Prime Min­is­ter, as a lawyer, leader and woman, can take the lead in en­sur­ing our laws match up not mere­ly to the times but to the fun­da­men­tals of hu­man dig­ni­ty. De­crim­i­nal­is­ing ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty, en­sur­ing eq­ui­table rights to all and pro­tect­ing cit­i­zens with the law is not a mat­ter of opin­ion or re­li­gion but of some­thing far more in­her­ent.

Brim­stone and oth­er BS

Pub­lic dis­cus­sion on the top­ic will no doubt bring heat­ed de­bate. No doubt the main naysay­ers are the ones who will take out full-page ads us­ing the mon­ey of their con­gre­ga­tions. Yet one would ask all par­ties come to the ta­ble with facts. If de­crim­i­nal­is­ing ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty will bring fire and brim­stone, let's see an ex­am­ple of when this has hap­pened (from re­al life, not from a para­ble).

If chang­ing our im­mi­gra­tion law such that peo­ple like El­ton John are not cat­e­gorised among pros­ti­tutes and im­be­ciles would make T&T one big or­gy, show us how. If pro­tect­ing the rights of gay cit­i­zens through equal op­por­tu­ni­ty laws would some­how spark eco­nom­ic ru­in, then show us the proof.

With a lit­tle ed­u­ca­tion on the top­ic all cit­i­zens and their re­spec­tive lead­ers will see be­ing gay is not a choice and be­ing gay nev­er hurt any­one else. The fact is these laws would re­al­ly af­fect on­ly the cit­i­zens they pro­tect. The fact is some peo­ple are born with tight curls or of In­di­an ori­gin or fe­male or gay.

No one should be dis­crim­i­nat­ed against by the pro­tec­tive ser­vices or em­ploy­ers or the State for any of the things they can­not change. This sim­ple thing can be the Prime Min­is­ter and her Gov­ern­ment's most sig­nif­i­cant act, one on which his­to­ry will shine. Let every­one re­al­ly "find an equal place" in our rain­bow coun­try. Maybe this can re­deem Per­sad- Bisses­sar and make her one of our "great lead­ers."