Pao­lo Ker­na­han

Noth­ing says Mer­ry Christ­mas like a shiny new po­lice boot crush­ing your lar­ynx. The se­cu­ri­ty forces had to move swift­ly, who knows what a vi­o­lent ag­i­ta­tor like David Ab­du­lah could rouse the teem­ing mass­es of 100 peo­ple to do with their lethal plac­ards and bot­tled wa­ter.

This in­sur­gent ...with his so­cial­ist bent; sub­ver­sive post-bud­get meet­ings, I tell you, at this den of in­iq­ui­ty known to non-mem­bers of this dark hood­ed ca­bal on­ly as the Para­mount Build­ing. He has an es­tab­lished his­to­ry of con­ven­ing clan­des­tine meet­ings at places like the "the UWI" and Cipri­ani Labour Col­lege, warp­ing young minds with mil­i­tant and ab­stract con­cepts like ed­u­ca­tion about the Con­sti­tu­tion, work­ers' rights, the en­vi­ron­ment, crime pre­ven­tion and oth­er such filth.

As I di­gest­ed the pho­to­graph of my friend David Ab­du­lah (now they will be com­ing for me! I will go so will­ing­ly, it will not even be worth your while. I call front seat in the jeep!), I re­clined in my faux leather Price Smart chair and pon­dered the chasm be­tween his sac­ri­fice and my week­ly scrib­blings in the news­pa­per. Trust me, it is not this event that has dragged me to the re­al­i­sa­tion that mine is tru­ly a fu­til­i­tar­i­an pur­suit. Of­ten peo­ple write me and im­plore me to con­tin­ue my work, be­cause Tri­nis "must wake up," Well kids, we wont. You see you were not there get­ting clubbed by the po­lice. That was just some ran­dom group of peo­ple op­posed to an is­sue far too sinewy for you to mas­ti­cate so you leave it to those who know of such things... the Gov­ern­ment. Here is my fail­ure. I read with lit­tle in­ter­est ar­ti­cles and com­ments on the prop­er­ty tax and I am ashamed to say I have giv­en a bmo­bile pull­out more at­ten­tion. The flawed think­ing was that it was a fait ac­com­pli. What pos­si­ble im­pact could I have where the Op­po­si­tion (which has been chas­ing its tail for years now) has failed to land one punch.

They could give Roodal Mooni­lal three hours to talk. Leader of gov­ern­ment busi­ness Colm Im­bert glee­ful­ly ap­proves ad­di­tion­al time for these in­ter­minable mono­logues be­cause he knows that it will go nowhere and mean noth­ing! So I did not sign up for the "axe the tax" ini­tia­tive and un­wit­ting­ly added my name to Karen's list of peo­ple who sup­port the tax. Of course this is not about the tax at all. You will re­call when the mass­es of pnm sup­port­ers con­verged on Wood­ford Square with­out au­tho­ri­sa­tion and the Prime Min­is­ter en­dorsed their law­less­ness by ad­dress­ing them, the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er was nev­er held to ac­count in that mat­ter even though just pri­or to that, per­mis­sion for an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion to use the pnm's sa­cred grounds was turned down by the au­thor­i­ties.

We first saw shades of this op­pres­sion dur­ing the Drum­mit 2 Sum­mit, where a treach­er­ous band of dashikied hip­pies and caf� au lait week­end rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies plot­ted to desta­bilise the coun­try with their in­sid­i­ous com­mu­ni­ty uni­fi­ca­tion and peo­ple's voice non­sense. Ob­vi­ous­ly it was their in­ten­tion to fo­ment some sort of con­nec­tion be­tween the com­mon man and the neb­u­lous ideals of the Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as. You have to nip that kind of thing in the bud! I will take you are far back as the ar­rest of so­cial ir­ri­tant In­shan Ish­mael, against whom a sol­id case was mount­ed for the ...what was it again? Such a com­pli­cat­ed charge it was but it was in some way con­nect­ed to the il­le­gal print­ing of fliers, which of course would have been print­ed in such quan­ti­ties that they would have been used to smoth­er the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty forces.

The Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er has waf­fled vi­o­lent­ly on the is­sue in the space of two days, at first sug­gest­ing that the ac­tions of the po­lice were per­haps hasty. By Wednes­day the po­lice were jus­ti­fied be­cause the pro­test­ers were talkin' too hard and get this... swing­ing ob­vi­ous­ly sharp-edged plac­ards at the po­lice. Those row­dy toughs are lucky they did not get gassed. I would like the com­mis­sion­er to con­sid­er this. I have as a re­porter cov­ered sev­er­al volatile tyre-burn­ing protests, scenes of al­leged po­lice killings in Laven­tille and not once have I ever seen of­fi­cers go to def con 5. Se­nior of­fi­cers would in a diplo­mat­ic man­ner rea­son with the main ac­cel­er­ant in a po­ten­tial­ly ex­plo­sive sit­u­a­tion; all the while there are you men with their pants at half mast, back pock­ets filled with the stout bot­tles they had just fin­ished. At a dis­tance I could see res­o­lu­tion achieved and all out ri­ot avert­ed.

So I want you to di­gest that in the con­text of David Ab­du­lah and com­pa­ny who, had they been any more se­date, would all have been singing Kum­baya in lo­tus po­si­tion on the sear­ing as­phalt. Colm Im­bert's im­me­di­ate re­sponse to the protest was that it was polit*&$# ! It is in­ter­est­ing how that word be­comes ob­scene when it goes against you. Once again he got it wrong, a tal­ent he is per­fect­ing with age. Folks, this is re­al­ly very sim­ple; no one should have an ex­pec­ta­tion that just be­cause you op­pose gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy that it should be re­versed or jet­ti­soned. If this were the case gov­er­nance of the coun­try would be stalled in fil­i­buster in per­pe­tu­ity. What must al­ways be up­held and vig­or­ous­ly fought for is the right for peo­ple to voice their opin­ions, be they ob­jec­tions or ap­provals to every­thing pro­posed by the Gov­ern­ment.

Our path to dic­ta­tor­ship was not built last week, and you and I both had a hand in the lay­ing of those cob­ble­stones. There is not enough room in this cen­tu­ry for the scan­dals which have dogged this ad­min­is­tra­tion (Ude­cott, John Je­re­mie, the re­turn of the king, NA­PA, the Sum­mit, crime, the "schol­ar­ship fund," squan­dered rapid rail funds...the cast is sim­ply too nu­mer­ous to men­tion) and what do we do? Let­ters to the ed­i­tor, rumshop rum-fu­elled di­a­tribe, morn­ing talk shows, then for­get every­thing at the week­end. This is why af­ter the Sum­mit and the chogm there was a "par­ty for the peo­ple" be­cause even a gov­ern­ment as ir­re­triev­ably hope­less as this knows what they peo­ple want.

We left the tax to the Gov­ern­ment and dem ow­tu fel­las much in the same way that we ab­di­cate re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for our own per­son­al lives. So do not be sur­prised when you wake up one day and po­lice are ask­ing you to present your "pa­pers" while walk­ing down the street. Don't be alarmed when you are press-ganged in­to work crews for na­tion­al con­struc­tion projects. That in­ter­mit­tent click you are hear­ing on the re­ceiv­er, don't wor­ry, that is just the state eaves­drop­ping on your con­ver­sa­tion. Is this alarmist? No, ac­tu­al­ly it is quite near-fetched. The trou­ble with dic­ta­tor­ship is that the 30 years or so that it was creep­ing, you were sound­ly sleep­ing. All the while dream­ing of change, a land where peace pre­vails and pros­per­ous winds bil­low you sails, push­ing you on­ward to utopi­an shores. As you turn in slum­ber, count­ing sheep with no fixed num­ber, soon your rest­ful night will pass, and you will find dic­ta­tor­ship ...right on your a--.