Shal­iza?Has­sanali

"Right think­ing peo­ple know the truth. The rest can't be con­vinced."

That's how Bri­an Man­ning, son of the late prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, re­spond­ed in a Face­book mes­sage to the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day about Sat Ma­haraj's claims his fa­ther was a "racist."

But steer­ing clear of the con­tro­ver­sial is­sue, Man­ning (Bri­an) stat­ed he pre­ferred not to say any­thing fur­ther on the mat­ter.

"I have no com­ment to make," he wrote.

Last Sat­ur­day at his fa­ther's fu­ner­al ser­vice, Bri­an had de­scribed his fa­ther as his hero and friend.

How­ev­er, there were sev­er­al cit­i­zens who yes­ter­day came out vo­cif­er­ous­ly in de­fence of the for­mer PM.

Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan, in weigh­ing in on the is­sue, said Ma­haraj's com­ments were to­tal­ly out of place.

"Man­ning could be de­scribed as pig-head­ed, ob­sti­nate and ar­ro­gant but he was not a racist. Hav­ing known him over the years, if Man­ning was a racist, what is Sat Ma­haraj?" he asked.

In de­fend­ing Man­ning, Khan said every­thing he did was to pre­serve his po­si­tion as prime min­is­ter.

"And if what­ev­er he did co­in­cid­ed with some ben­e­fit to cer­tain sec­tions of so­ci­ety or the coun­try he would have done it. Any­thing that was not in his po­lit­i­cal in­ter­est he would not have done," he added.

Khan said Man­ning was against grant­i­ng a li­cence to Ma­haraj "be­cause he did not want the Op­po­si­tion to have an av­enue of prop­a­gat­ing their views and ide­olo­gies and so on and just un­der­min­ing him be­cause they were East In­di­ans."

Khan cau­tioned Ma­haraj against mak­ing such un­war­rant­ed claims.

"Sat should stop mak­ing a fool of him­self. Whom the gods wish to de­stroy they first make mad."

Khan said T&T cel­e­brat­ed re­li­gious events year-round and Ma­haraj should not try to di­vide the coun­try.

For­mer Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Sing ac­cused Ma­haraj of try­ing to di­vide the coun­try along racial lines. He said Ma­haraj was not part of the so­lu­tion "but is the prob­lem in this coun­try."

In his claim against Man­ning, Ma­haraj had ar­gued that while Lee Sing ac­quired with ease his ra­dio li­cence un­der Man­ning's ad­min­is­tra­tion, the Ma­ha Sab­ha had to go to the Privy Coun­cil to get theirs.

"Let me say to you that my li­cence might have been in there be­fore Sat's li­cence. I am hap­py that he chose to raise it at this time be­cause I have no rea­son to re­main silent any longer," Lee Sing said, adding he sub­mit­ted his ap­pli­ca­tion for a li­cence in 2000.

Di­vi­sive tac­tics wicked

Lee Sing said rather than use his in­flu­ence among the Hin­dus and East In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty to bring our frag­ile na­tion to­geth­er, Ma­haraj in­stead chose to make ut­ter­ances "as if there is no to­mor­row."

"He is do­ing his ut­most to keep the tribes apart. Well, if that is what Ma­haraj speaks, I have noth­ing but to re­fer to him with what is go­ing on in Iraq, Afghanistan, In­dia and Sau­di Ara­bia. Maybe, it is in his genes to be di­vi­sive, vi­cious and wicked to­wards any­thing that does not look like him."

Lee Sing said at this time di­vi­sive­ness was not what T&T need­ed.

In de­fend­ing Man­ning's good name, Lee Sing said it took a dirty, vi­cious and a vi­o­lent mind to put a scathing as­sault on Man­ning, who could not even de­fend him­self.

Kr­ish­na Ramku­mar, a friend of Man­ning for 20 years, al­so in­sist­ed he was no racist.

Speak­ing to the T&T Guardian by phone yes­ter­day, Ramku­mar said he felt hurt and be­trayed by Ma­haraj's com­ments.

Ramku­mar said he met Man­ning for the first time in 1996 while serv­ing as the chair­man of the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self Help, a po­si­tion he was ap­point­ed to by the then prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day.

"Man­ning was Op­po­si­tion Leader at the time when I was ap­point­ed but yet still we be­came very close friends over the years, which con­tin­ued up un­til his death," Ramku­mar said.

Ramku­mar said dur­ing his friend­ship with Man­ning they met al­most every Fri­day over din­ner, where they would dis­cuss pol­i­tics and fam­i­ly life.

"Not one day did Man­ning show scorn to­wards the East In­di­an and Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty. Even at his wed­ding, Hazel's best man was an East In­di­an man. Man­ning was ab­solute­ly no racist," he said. (With re­port­ing by Rhon­dor Dowlat)