Dr. In­di­ra Ram­per­sad

The na­tion looked on in­cred­u­lous­ly when in mid-April 2010, the Cap­tain of the MV PNM an­nounced his de­ci­sion to nav­i­gate his ship in a dan­ger­ous voy­age to bat­tle in the High Seas. The news came amidst one of the worst droughts in the his­to­ry of the TT Na­tion­al. But though wa­ter was scarce, the seas were stormy and the winds of change com­bined with a pow­er­ful un­der­cur­rent known as Man­ningis­tis, were drag­ging the ship un­der.

Man­nin­gi­tis

Af­ter the last bat­tle on No­vem­ber 5th 2007, the Cap­tain was giv­en the man­date for the sec­ond time to steer the TT Na­tion­al. But since then, Man­nin­gi­tis, a con­ta­gious dis­ease, be­gan to spread like an oil spill through­out the High Seas. It man­i­fest­ed it­self in many forms as the Cap­tain be­came over-con­fi­dent when he dealt a crush­ing 26 to 15 blow to the Ad­mi­ral who want­ed to ride out in­to the sun­set in blaze a glo­ry. The Cap­tain of the TT PNM seemed to be los­ing his bear­ings when he left his bar­ber in the midst of a trim to chas­tise a ra­dio an­nounc­er for crit­i­ciz­ing his cap­tain­cy. Dis­en­chant­ment be­gan to mount amongst the fish­es swim­ming in the High Seas. Even the faith­ful aboard the MV PNM com­plained about his ar­ro­gance and au­thor­i­tar­i­an­ism.

But the Cap­tain ig­nored the many com­plaints. He con­tin­ued on his ram­page of squan­der­ma­nia and over­spend­ing as the TT Na­tion­al was con­vert­ed in­to a lux­u­ry cruise ship. He host­ed two in­ter­na­tion­al Sum­mits in one year, re­fur­bished his pala­tial cab­in at ex­or­bi­tant costs, con­struct­ed a daz­zling Per­form­ing Arts Cen­ter, hoist­ed a two mil­lion dol­lar sail, is al­leged­ly linked to the erec­tion of a 30 mil­lion dol­lar Taber­na­cle at the heights of Gua­napo and hired a prophet­ess with a diplo­mat­ic pass­port. Ap­par­ent­ly, the Cap­tain har­bours a long-held dream of an­chor­ing at the pul­pit of the Light­house to de­liv­er ser­mons to the sea urchins with his prophet­ess at his side.

The Cap­tain some­times docked in Cu­ba to mend his bro­ken heart even while he was ac­cused of bro­ker­ing a sweet-Hart deal with his purs­er. Amidst the stench of cor­rup­tion, the Cap­tain sto­ical­ly de­fend­ed his purs­er. When one muti­nous sailor fi­nal­ly mus­tered the courage to pub­licly con­front him, the sailor was un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly thrown over­board. The Cap­tain did not give a Pen­ny about the peo­ple's choice for his crew but was forced to re­turn the muti­nous sailor for fear of the in­com­ing tidal wave. In a des­per­ate at­tempt to res­cue the cap­tain and his sink­ing ship, the muti­nous sailor donned his life jack­et just as his ship berth at Port Four Roads, Diego Mar­tin and mount­ed the deck with an al­le­go­ry of his role as a PNM sailor in a PNM ship.

The fish­es in the High Seas con­tin­ued to com­plain and even the Cap­tain's own sailors were un­hap­py with the es­ca­lat­ing crime, cor­rup­tion and the dread­ed prop­er­ty tax. The fish­es were des­per­ate for a cure for the chron­ic Man­nigi­tis which en­gulfed the TT Na­tion­al, threat­en­ing to drown all ma­rine life in the High Seas. But the Cap­tain again ig­nored the com­plaints. Even af­ter the bat­tle-lines were drawn two and a half years ear­ly, the Cap­tain ig­nored his com­pass mis­cal­cu­lat­ing the depth of the dis­en­chant­ment in the High Seas.

Kam­la­ma­nia

No one un­der­stood why the cap­tain sound­ed the bat­tle cry when the MV PNM was so un­steady and adrift in the tur­bu­lent ocean. His ac­tions de­fied log­ic, more so when it be­came clear that the ship was sink­ing be­cause an­oth­er un­der­cur­rent was pro­pelling the tidal wave. It first man­i­fest­ed it­self as a megath­rust earth­quake mea­sur­ing 13.5 on the Richter scale on Jan­u­ary 24th, forc­ing the old Ad­mi­ral to ride out in­to the sun­set with nei­ther sea horse nor boots. Mis­cal­cu­lat­ing the po­ten­tial of the MV UNC to mo­bi­lize, the Cap­tain of the MV PNM hoped to catch the op­po­si­tion sailors with their pants down. But he was wrong.

In no time, they would build a new fleet called the MV Part­ner­ship bring­ing to­geth­er the MV UNC, MV COP, MV TOP and the MV MSJ. The TT Part­ner­ship was pro­pelled by a pow­er­ful un­der­cur­rent called Kam­la­ma­nia and was steered by a charm­ing sea li­oness, wide­ly per­ceived by the dis­en­chant­ed fish­es as a mag­net for change. This un­der­cur­rent gen­er­at­ed ed­i­fy­ing rip­ples around the tur­bu­lent ocean pro­duc­ing a Tsuna­mi which the sea li­oness dex­ter­ous­ly ma­neu­vered. Through­out the bat­tle, the po­tent un­der­cur­rents of Man­nin­gi­tis and Kam­la­ma­nia si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly pro­pelled the MV Part­ner­ship for­ward and pulled the MV PNM back­ward.

The Cap­tain of the MV PNM played the trib­al card and con­tin­ued to blun­der with deroga­to­ry ref­er­ence to the Chief Ser­vant's Dashi­ki and the sea li­oness's in­com­pe­tence. He re­fused to pub­licly de­bate the sea li­oness, de­mand­ed air time at the height of the war, and pro­posed a brand new toll tax for the dis­grun­tled fish­es. The sea li­oness grabbed all this ar­ma­ment, and as she mount­ed the deck in the heat of the bat­tle, shoals of fish­es sur­round­ed her, en­thralled by her dig­ni­fied cam­paign, fem­i­nine charm, charis­ma and mes­sage of change. The turn­ing tides were clear­ly in her favour. The nov­el idea of a fe­male sea li­oness first flog­ging an old Ad­mi­ral and then con­fronting an ar­ro­gant Cap­tain was fas­ci­nat­ing to many fish­es, male and fe­male alike.

Es­pous­ing a par­tic­i­pa­to­ry, con­cil­ia­to­ry and bot­toms-up ap­proach to good cap­tain­cy, com­bined with her moth­er­ly/sis­ter­ly de­meanour, fish­es of all creed and colours were caught - hook, line and sinker. And so, as the con­ta­gion of Man­nin­gi­tis spread, the un­der­cur­rent of Kam­la­ma­nia in­ten­si­fied. In the cli­mat­ic mo­ments of the bat­tle, the TT PNM ran aground when ev­i­dence sur­faced about a link be­tween the Cap­tain, his purs­er, the Taber­na­cle and Ude­cott which the Cap­tain ca­su­al­ly dis­missed with the re­mark that PM in con­struc­tion could re­fer to Project Man­ag­er. At the same time, the con­fus­ing am­biva­lence of the muti­nous sailor at Port Four Roads, served as a loose can­non which ac­tu­al­ly did punch a hole in the ship's hull.

The bat­tle cul­mi­nat­ed on May 24th 2010 when the MV Part­ner­ship ran the MV PNM in­to a jagged reef re­sult­ing in a crush­ing blow mea­sur­ing 29 to 12 on the nau­ti­cal chart. The Part­ner­ship fleet wrest­ed 14 of the MV PNM's most prized bat­tle­ships. Had the Cap­tain giv­en a Pen­ny when he dis­trib­uted the bat­tle­ships he could have saved some like Ari­ma, To­ba­go West and To­co/San­gre Grande which were bare­ly lost to the MV Part­ner­ship by 371, 882, and 206 votes re­spec­tive­ly. Short­ly there­after, mutiny erupt­ed in the MV PNM and the Cap­tain was mobbed and over­thrown. Like a fish out of wa­ter, he mi­grat­ed to south­ern shores while the dis­si­dent sailor was in­stalled as the new Cap­tain.

The sea li­oness was crowned Queen of the High Seas as she caught most of the fish­es which opt­ed to board the MV Part­ner­ship. Now she and her crew face the mon­u­men­tal chal­lenge of deal­ing with shoals of preda­to­ry sharks and snap­pers who stub­born­ly sur­round the ship, threat­en­ing to swal­low it. Un­der the vig­i­lant lens of many periscopes as they nav­i­gate the chop­py wa­ters in the TT Na­tion­al, they should be con­stant­ly re­mind­ed that the tu­mul­tuous voy­age is far from over.

His­tor­i­cal Con­junc­ture

The re­sults of the 2010 elec­tions was a his­tor­i­cal con­junc­ture gen­er­at­ing its own ed­i­fy­ing rip­ples as large seg­ments of the elec­torate re­spond to the so­cial, po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic needs of the times. This is very sim­i­lar to what hap­pened with the NAR in 1986, an­oth­er his­tor­i­cal junc­ture in the ever evolv­ing pol­i­tics of Trinidad and To­ba­go. But change is con­stant. We would re­call the re­turn to trib­al­ism in the 1991, 1995 and 2007 gen­er­al elec­tions. In 2010, the MV PNM ran aground be­cause the ar­ro­gant Cap­tain ig­nored his com­pass and lost his bear­ings. But we should not for­get that 285,354 sup­port­ers weath­ered the storm and re­mained loy­al to the crew. We need to ask why.

Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad is a Lec­tur­er in Po­lit­i­cal Sci­ence/In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions at the De­part­ment of Be­hav­iour­al Sci­ences, UWI, St Au­gus­tine, Trinidad.