Ken Ali

?Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning's lat­est re­gion­al uni­ty she­bang is a throw­back to that fate­ful evening in 1994 when he sober­ly an­nounced him­self fa­ther of the na­tion. The mat­ters at hand are rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent, of course, but the cen­tral fig­ure re­mains a man be­ing ac­cused of grandios­i­ty and po­lit­i­cal van­i­ty, in ad­di­tion to the as­ser­tions–de­tailed by the Ja­maica Glean­er–of con­de­scend­ing at­ti­tude and im­pe­ri­al­is­tic de­signs.

Then there is Regi­nald Du­mas' de­pic­tion that Man­ning "verges on the colo­nial" in seek­ing to dic­tate po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic pri­or­i­ties to hand­picked re­gion­al States. Man­ning's pre­ten­tious ut­ter­ing in his first wob­bly po­lit­i­cal term eas­i­ly comes to mind. He had sum­mar­i­ly sacked an hon­orary en­voy to the Far East by fax and un­der­tak­en an of­fi­cial mis­sion to the re­gion that clear­ly ad­dled his po­lit­i­cal mind to the point that his re­turn was marked by rag­ing pom­pos­i­ty.

In a tele­vised ad­dress to the na­tion in­di­cat­ed by blind­ing self-im­por­tance and ir­ra­tional­i­ty, he pinned the fa­ther of the na­tion dec­o­ra­tion on his lapel and pa­tro­n­is­ing­ly talked down to cit­i­zens. It was the be­gin­ning of the end of his shaky term of of­fice, since he was rushed in­to a snap elec­tion that he pre­dictably lost.

That ver­sion of Man­ning has re­gret­tably re­turned 15 years lat­er, and his haughty, im­pe­ri­al­is­tic nar­ra­tive on a slip­shod bond with OECS is­lands is on­ly the most glar­ing ex­am­ple of a leader con­sumed with self-ab­sorp­tion and bor­der­ing on nar­cis­sism. The dev­il is in the de­tails of the pact he is cre­at­ing with Grena­da et al.

How, for ex­am­ple, does he jus­ti­fy toss­ing re­sources up the is­lands when 30 per cent of our na­tion­als could bare­ly put food on the ta­ble? Does the thrust to de­bar il­le­gal mi­grants to T&T ra­tio­nalise this patch­work in­te­gra­tion scheme? Why doesn't Man­ning op­er­ate with­in the Cari­com frame­work to bet­ter things for the is­landers, over whom he is gnash­ing teeth?

But it is fool­hardy and near-sight­ed to analyse this Man­ning mea­sure mere­ly in an eco­nom­ic con­text. This flam­boy­ant and roy­al ven­ture is both a com­ment and in­sight on its pro­po­nent. It rep­re­sents the up­dat­ed ver­sion of the fa­ther of the na­tion. T&T has be­come too tiny a stage for a leader pre­sid­ing over a neat econ­o­my, toy­ing with a de­plet­ed and piti­ful op­po­si­tion, and host­ing in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences and shar­ing cof­fee with Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma.

Man­ning has his back­yard com­fort­ably sewn up, ma­nip­u­lat­ing do­mes­tic pol­i­tics, re­mak­ing na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions in his im­age and like­ness, and spend­ing tax­pay­ers' mon­ey like, well, a dose of salts. On­ly a leader tall in the sad­dle could cold­ly pre­side over the Calder Hart de­ba­cle, Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um fi­as­co, and the near $1 bil­lion spree on the Amer­i­c­as' shindig. On­ly an as­sured leader could side­step na­tion­al up­roar and up­hold his con­tentious se­lec­tion as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

Fast be­com­ing a leg­end in his own mind, it's now time for Man­ning to spread his po­lit­i­cal wings and to but­tress a lega­cy that, so far, has not trou­bled so­cial sci­en­tists. "The un­rav­el­ling of log­ic" is how the Glean­er sneer­ing­ly dead­panned this Man­ning mas­ter plan. But there are not many op­tions open to the head of the most south­ern­most is­lands in the Caribbean Sea aim­ing to spread his po­lit­i­cal wings and af­firm au­thor­i­ty and lead­er­ship.

The bru­tal re­al­i­ty is this: Man­ning is be­cause the Op­po­si­tion isn't. If he had to spend off a unit­ed, pow­er­ful and rel­e­vant al­ter­na­tive ad­min­is­tra­tion, he would not cal­lous­ly dis­miss nag­ging con­cerns over the crime epi­dem­ic, traf­fic woes and the throb­bing pain of a grow­ing un­der­class. But with a sheep-like op­po­si­tion, he can af­ford to again dis­dain­ful­ly put off lo­cal gov­ern­ment polls while he seeks to bol­ster his po­lit­i­cal stocks, through his hare-brained in­te­gra­tion scheme and a pa­thet­ic at­tempt to shore up his po­lit­i­cal im­age.

Nei­ther is go­ing to work for the rein­car­nat­ed fa­ther of the na­tion, so he may well opt for Plan A, a re­work­ing of the na­tion­al con­sti­tu­tion to cre­ate an ex­ec­u­tive pres­i­den­cy to be filled, by–you know the sto­ry! The tat­tered state of Pres­i­dent's House, Man­ning's fortress-like man­sion and cer­tain diplo­mat­ic foot­work sym­bol­ise a leader who has as­tute­ly be­come Chief Cit­i­zen. A bungling Max Richards has, of course, not helped his cause or re­in­forced faith in the pres­i­den­cy.

Man­ning's man­ner may, soon enough, be the stuff of re­search by Prof Sel­wyn Ryan, who, in Er­ic Williams: The Man & The Myth, de­pict­ed the de­serv­ing fa­ther of the na­tion as ex­hibit­ing "ex­ces­sive ir­ri­tabil­i­ty, nar­cis­sism, mega­lo­ma­nia, grandios­i­ty, para­noia," and of "ar­ro­gance, haugh­ti­ness, lus­ter, rude­ness, per­va­sive sus­pi­cious­ness." Williams' daugh­ter, Er­i­ca Williams-Con­nell, has dis­count­ed that por­tray­al. As for Patrick Man­ning, he re­mains a work in progress.