Mar­tin George

As I spend the Memo­r­i­al Day hol­i­day week­end in The Ba­hamas, I re­flect up­on what in Trinidad is our In­di­an Ar­rival Day hol­i­day week­end, which is made ex­tra spe­cial, eu­phor­ic and ex­cit­ing, be­cause it is al­so the oc­ca­sion of Kam­la's ar­rival to the high­est elect­ed of­fice in the land. It is, in­deed, in­ter­est­ing and co­in­ci­den­tal, the tim­ing of her ar­rival, with the cel­e­bra­tion of the In­di­an Ar­rival Day hol­i­day, be­cause more than ever, the day has sig­nif­i­cance and mean­ing, but it al­so gives us pause to con­sid­er the pro­found words of her ac­cep­tance speech up­on her in­vesti­ture with the Of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter. She was very clear that we must move away from the la­bels and we must no longer see our­selves as Afro-Trinida­di­ans or In­do-Trinida­di­ans, but rather as one na­tion, one peo­ple, one pur­pose.

A move away from eth­nic vot­ing

It is a very clear demon­stra­tion that she is will­ing to not just talk the talk, but is al­so pre­pared to walk the walk. It is clear, too, that she does not want this vic­to­ry to be par­layed or por­trayed as an "In­di­an vic­to­ry," or for it to be foist­ed up­on the na­tion as "In­di­an Time Now." It is clear that the na­tion has spo­ken–and de­ci­sive­ly so–in its de­sire to move away from the tra­di­tion­al trib­al and eth­nic vot­ing pat­terns which have so dom­i­nat­ed our po­lit­i­cal land­scape for decades.

Main ben­e­fi­cia­ries of this trib­al­i­sa­tion have been Messrs Pan­day and Man­ning, who have been locked to­geth­er in a death dance for years, with their mu­tu­al ex­ploita­tion of the racial bo­gey for their own in­di­vid­ual ben­e­fits, and in or­der to prop them­selves up in pow­er.

As I re­marked to Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar, two Fri­days ago, dur­ing a pri­vate re­cep­tion at my home, I told her she was poised on the cusp of his­to­ry, not just for be­ing the first fe­male Prime Min­is­ter, but al­so for the fact that it took one fe­male to re­move from the po­lit­i­cal fore­front of Trinidad and To­ba­go the two di­nosaurs, Pan­day and Man­ning, who have both con­tributed in no small mea­sure to the na­tion be­ing grid­locked, stymied and func­tion­ing un­pro­gres­sive­ly, be­cause of the fix­a­tion and ob­ses­sion with racial pol­i­tics.

Ar­rival Day for all

Mr Bal­li­ram (Bal­ly) Ma­haraj and his wife Leela, who were al­so at the re­cep­tion, made a sim­i­lar point, re­flect­ing up­on their re­cent trip to In­dia to re­dis­cov­er their roots. Bal­ly said the most im­por­tant thing for him would be to see all Trin­bag­o­ni­ans cel­e­brate their ar­rival, whether In­do, Afro, Asian, Syr­i­an, Chi­nese or Por­tuguese. He wish­es to see us all, as a na­tion, par­tic­i­pate in and cel­e­brate our ar­rival to this place and this space in the Caribbean called Trinidad and To­ba­go.

This is the type of uni­ty and com­mu­nal­i­ty that the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship has es­poused on its plat­forms, that with­out los­ing our in­di­vid­ual iden­ti­ty, we can come to­geth­er as one, for the greater good of our na­tion.

There is so much hope and ex­pec­ta­tion rid­ing on the shoul­ders of our new Prime Min­is­ter, and there is so much de­sire to see these things come true, that I trust that as a na­tion, we will be pa­tient and al­low her, in her own time and in her own way, to seek to ful­fil and live up to the man­date that she has got­ten. It is not an easy task, and it is, in­deed, a tall or­der, to try to unite this na­tion, so that we can all work to­geth­er and move for­ward, in peace and har­mo­ny and in a man­ner where, to par­don the clich�, "We will rise' to the point where we can cel­e­brate and ap­pre­ci­ate Bal­ly's dream of an Ar­rival Day for all.

Per­son­al, In­di­vid­ual changes need­ed

It will not be easy, and maybe we are be­ing over­ly op­ti­mistic, as old habits die hard, and once the hon­ey­moon pe­ri­od is over and per­sons get set­tled back in­to their for­mer ways and their tra­di­tion­al think­ing pat­terns and their fa­mil­iar mind­sets, change will be hard to come.

The fact is that no amount of Kam­la­ma­nia can change our minds and our think­ing, if we as a peo­ple do not work along with her and start to make that in­di­vid­ual change with­in each and every one of us. In the words of the late, great, Michael Jack­son, "I'm start­ing with the man in the mir­ror. I'm ask­ing him to change his ways...If you wan­na make this world a bet­ter place, take a look at your­self and make that change."

New dawn, new day

I note with pride, Sat Ma­haraj's glow­ing trib­ute paid to Mr Austin Jack Warn­er in this Thurs­day's edi­tion of the Guardian news­pa­per, for Jack's role in the vic­to­ry of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship. I lis­tened in awe at Jack Warn­er's mas­ter­ful and mag­nan­i­mous vic­to­ry speech on Mon­day night. I note with ad­mi­ra­tion, Mr Ash­worth Jack's un­stint­ing loy­al­ty to Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar, and in re­turn, her de­ter­mi­na­tion to keep her promis­es made to To­ba­go. It rep­re­sents the on­ly way that we can tru­ly try to move for­ward as a na­tion, and it is the fer­vent hope, de­sire and wish of this en­tire na­tion that we are re­al­ly wit­ness­ing a new dawn and, in­deed, a new day in the growth and de­vel­op­ment of tol­er­ance and un­der­stand­ing and an im­prove­ment in race re­la­tions and uni­ty. This has all been her­ald­ed, fos­tered and hinged up­on the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship and Kam­la's ar­rival, and may she be blessed and guid­ed in the task that lies ahead, and may God bless our na­tion.