Po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor, Ralph Maraj, be­lieves that there should be some­thing to com­mem­o­rate the Red House’s in­va­sion in 1990, now that it has been re­turned as the home of Par­lia­ment.

Mr Maraj is a for­mer par­lia­men­tar­i­an and gov­ern­ment min­is­ter. He would have been in of­fice in the late 1990s, when the Red House still func­tioned as Par­lia­ment’s home.

Ac­cord­ing to Mr Maraj, in­stalling some sort of com­mem­o­ra­tive piece at the new­ly ren­o­vat­ed Red House, would be a pow­er­ful sym­bol to the coun­try, of the tri­umph of democ­ra­cy over in­sur­gency.

“I think it is trag­ic that we do not com­mem­o­rate that 27 Ju­ly 1990 event, that in­va­sion of the Red House, which end­ed in the tri­umph of democ­ra­cy over in­sur­gency. We can­not for­get that at all,” he ar­gues. “That is im­por­tant for us as a na­tion—for our evo­lu­tion as a na­tion. For our self-re­spect and for our com­mit­ment to democ­ra­cy. We need that in the present en­vi­ron­ment, in the ren­o­vat­ed Red House.”

He adds: “They had a flame there once. Whether it is go­ing to be an eter­nal flame or what­ev­er it is, we need to com­mem­o­rate 27 Ju­ly 1990 be­cause we tri­umphed over an in­sur­gency and our democ­ra­cy pre­vailed.”

Mr Maraj is con­cerned whether the ren­o­vat­ed build­ing it­self would have room for ex­pan­sion.

He says Par­lia­ment is an or­gan­ic en­ti­ty which con­tin­ues to grow, and must be mod­ernised and staffed with the nec­es­sary per­son­nel, so it can serve the na­tion ef­fec­tive­ly.

The for­mer par­lia­men­tar­i­an says it is not too late to con­sid­er a new build­ing to house the Par­lia­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go—when ex­pan­sion be­comes nec­es­sary—even as it is be­ing re­turned to its sym­bol­ic or an­ces­tral home.

“If we are to go for­ward, we have to mod­ernise our Par­lia­ment and it would mean greater space, greater ca­pac­i­ty—tech­no­log­i­cal and per­son­nel and so on,” he main­tains. “I have se­ri­ous doubts about the ad­e­qua­cy of the present premis­es for a mod­ern Par­lia­ment, to which we must evolve even­tu­al­ly. We can­not es­cape it. The Par­lia­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go has to evolve.”

Ralph Maraj as­serts the na­tion needs its sym­bols and mark­ers of his­to­ry to ground it.

He al­so ar­gues that Trinidad and To­ba­go must find ways to mod­ernise po­lit­i­cal­ly, in or­der to keep pace with the de­mands of the rapid­ly evolv­ing mod­ern world.