Richard Lord

For­mer head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Regi­nald Du­mas says there is need for a na­tion­al dis­course on race re­la­tions and oth­er is­sues af­fect­ing the peo­ple of T&T.In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Du­mas said a six-mem­ber body should be es­tab­lished to get the views of na­tion­als with a view to find­ing so­lu­tions to the prob­lems."We are not one in T&T, as is be­ing claimed by politi­cians and oth­ers in the so­ci­ety," he in­sist­ed.He said if T&T was one, the con­tro­ver­sial state­ment by for­mer chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion Nizam Mo­hammed about the need to ad­dress the eth­nic im­bal­ance in the ser­vice would not have been said, or re­ceived the ob­jec­tion from large sec­tions of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

"We need to talk about race, we must talk about race and the oth­er is­sues af­fect­ing us," Du­mas said."The is­sues that di­vide us must be con­front­ed in a for­mal and di­rect way with a view to find­ing last­ing so­lu­tions."Du­mas said the per­ceived un­fair treat­ment of To­ba­go by Trinidad, re­li­gious dis­crim­i­na­tion and gen­der is­sues must be dis­cussed open­ly and not emo­tion­al­ly at the pro­posed na­tion­al dis­course."Race has be­come the flavour of the month in T&T," he added.

Du­mas com­ments were sought in the wake of last Fri­day's de­bate in Par­lia­ment where both the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) Gov­ern­ment ac­cused each oth­er of en­gag­ing in racial dis­crim­i­na­tion.Re­spond­ing to a call by the leader of the Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC) Makan­dal Daa­ga to stop the race talk, Du­mas in­sist­ed: "We must talk about it in a prin­ci­pled way."It is caus­ing a prob­lem al­ready...it's al­ready deep­en­ing the di­vi­sion in this coun­try," he added.

Du­mas said the na­tion­al dis­course should be es­tab­lished un­der the aus­pices of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (St Au­gus­tine) and the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T.He said the dis­course should be tak­en across the na­tion for the views of as many cit­i­zens as pos­si­ble."It should be fund­ed by the pub­lic, with as­sis­tance from ei­ther the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB) or the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB)," Du­mas said."We must stop sweep­ing it un­der the car­pet and pre­tend­ing all is well here. All is not well. We are not one."