Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, created a storm in a teacup over a hurricane last week, with her comment that T&T's giving of aid to St Lucia, where 11 people were killed and untold damage was done by Hurricane Tomas, would be conditional upon "what's in it for us." Now, some might say that, though her first public statement to the region after becoming Prime Minister might have been justified or even overdue–that T&T was not an ATM for Caricom–last week's gratuitous remark in the face of the suffering of her West Indian family was qualitatively different, and reeked of insensitivity unprecedented within Caricom, perhaps within history. I don't recall, eg, President Obama openly considering what the USA stood to gain when the Americans moved in to help Haiti after January's earthquake. Applying the Kamla test, every Haitian getting medical attention in Haiti would have to agree not to try to emigrate to the USA in the future.
Other obviously disloyal Trinis might wonder whether Ms Persad-Bissessar even understood the concept of giving to others in their time of need. If you give someone something, they might say, it's crass to tell them how to use it; it diminishes, even negates, your supposed generosity. Some unpatriotic Trinis might even be boldfaced enough to suggest that, if T&T had a mind to insist that any money it gave to St Lucia should be used to purchase goods and services from the donor nation, T&T shouldn't even bother to send cash, should just send what it wanted to sell to St Lucia directly. Don't give them US$6 million and then count the pennies until it was all clawed back. Just send them US$6 billion worth of Trini goods. And if you can't quite make the money stretch to six big ones using quality T&T products like Hong Wing Coffee, Holiday Foods Corn Curls, Matouk's Pepper Jelly, Angostura 1919 rum and cases of Carib and Stag, well then just throw in some Three Plumes matches, a container or two of rusted old steel pans and grocery carts with one wheel missing, and all the other old junk Trini manufacturers haven't been able to move.
And call that "aid"; even if the only person you're helping is yourself.
Other treasonous Trinis–those who might qualify as human beings, perhaps–might even be outraged that, at a time when her brethren in St Lucia were recovering from actual and facing possible imminent death, Kamla should even think about, far less focus on, money. The cynical might laugh openly that T&T's ruthless preoccupation with material gain should be so plainly revealed by the holder of the highest elective office in the land. But I'm with Kamla. Indeed, I'm going to take it farther. The next time I give a spranger on Independence Square a couple of dollars, I'm going to insist he use the money to buy a Guardian and read my column. And he better firetrucking enjoy it, too.
The above appeared, mutatis mutandis, as last Monday's BC's B'dos, the column I write in Barbados. I wanted it to be read in Trinidad because, from e-mail loops I've seen, and from this week's firing of Fazeer Moham-med, it is clear there is a real and present threat to independent commentary in Trinidad now, and a real danger that all the great potential good of the People's Partnership is about to be frittered away. Far more surprising than Kam-la's unprovoked provocation of her Caricom countrymen, as seen from outside Trinidad, was the reaction within it to the criticism of her statement, which (anyone from Georgetown to Kingston could see) was insensitive to the point of callous. Here in Trinidad, everyone from Minister of Works Jack Warner down took offence to the small islanders being offended. Trinidadians, locked in their energy-rich cocoon/ghetto, could say to one another, in increasingly officious language, "But why we should gi' them we morney to pay Yankee contractor?" Failing to see, like the PM, that you don't give to your own family with the expectation of getting back. The storm has now spread to the whole crockery set.
When Fazeer Mohammed rightly asked the Minister of External Affairs if the PM's words lacked diplomacy, and was led by the minister into an admission that he, Fazeer, did not approve of women holding leadership positions in religion, he was promptly fired. The CNMG group at once pretended they weren't really firing Faz, just hiring Andy Johnson for free–don't mind Andy is now, as MATT pointed out, clearly connected to the Government of the day and demonstrably not independent. Fazeer's traditional Muslim view of women is abhorrent to me but, from the transcript of the show, it seems obvious that holding that odious view of women in positions of religious leadership did not affect his job. His sacking, therefore, is as unjustifiable as Kevin Baldeosingh's was for outing as a plagiarist the then putative Integrity chairman. Kevin's rational view of women is superior to Faz's superstitious one, of course, and one can only pray God reveals that to Faz. Still, if to criticise the Government is to be unpatriotic–especially when it is plainly wrong, as in the case of $2 million flags, secret churches and open firing of journalists–there has been no point whatever to the removal of Mr Manning.
BC Pires is obviously St Lucian. Read more of his writing at www.BCraw.com