Pe­ter Min­shall

I give you Gand­hi and I give you Sel­wyn, Ralph and Raoul, and I give you Wayne, all in the same breath."Many peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly ig­no­rant peo­ple, want to pun­ish you for speak­ing the truth, for be­ing cor­rect, for be­ing you. Nev­er apol­o­gise for be­ing cor­rect, or for be­ing years ahead of your time. If you're right and you know it, speak your mind. Even if you are a mi­nor­i­ty of one, the truth is still the truth." Gand­hi.

Mr Ryan, you were in­cor­rect to state that I was equat­ing Wayne with Gand­hi in my orig­i­nal use of this quo­ta­tion from the great Ma­hat­ma.I have an anath­e­ma to the de­ifi­ca­tion of any man. I my­self, from long prac­tice, have learned well how to duck the word "ge­nius" when­ev­er it's tossed at me. We all put our pants on one leg at a time. I am too well ac­quaint­ed with the ter­ror of a blank sheet of pa­per when a pen­cil is poised in my hand to make a mark up­on it. This has to do with in­tegri­ty.

Gand­hi was the breath that I gave you, his breath, his own words, which pre­cise­ly de­scribes Dr Kublals­ingh in the cur­rent state of pun­ish­ment and siege that he en­dures. Gand­hi gave you Wayne, not I. Nor did I equate Wayne with Gand­hi. Nor am I equat­ing you and your col­leagues with Gand­hi, in the same quote, re­peat­ed above, in the same breath.

You are mere­ly three of "many peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly ig­no­rant peo­ple," to whom Gand­hi refers, who would pun­ish and prey up­on Wayne, he be­ing the sin­gu­lar and lone­ly voice of one, the "mi­nor­i­ty of one" to which Gand­hi al­so refers, the voice of truth.

I am as­ton­ished at the ex­tra­or­di­nary co­in­ci­dence of the three of you in cho­rus com­ing down in metic­u­lous pick­i­ness up­on the char­ac­ter and in­tegri­ty of the soli­tary Kublals­ingh.What crime has Wayne Kublals­ingh com­mit­ted? What has he done that he should be pub­licly tried and ha­rangued and picked to pieces by three such good wise men as you? Un­less of course, you be mice, not men. What is your ob­ses­sion with him, the man, the per­son?

The man is sim­ply a mes­sen­ger. His mes­sage is that a great wrong is be­ing per­pe­trat­ed by the peo­ple's rep­re­sen­ta­tives, which in­volves the peo­ple's mon­ey, their land and homes, and their mo­bil­i­ty. I have sug­gest­ed, by ref­er­enc­ing the wise words of Gand­hi, that Kublals­ingh is right, and that he knows it, and that, as a con­se­quence, he must speak his mind. Even if he is a mi­nor­i­ty of one, the truth is still the truth.

Why don't you ex­am­ine the mes­sage, seek to ques­tion or con­firm that truth, rather than ha­rangue the mes­sen­ger? Mr Pan­tin, why are you so cred­u­lous about the claims in the paid ad­ver­tise­ment, and so scep­ti­cal of Kublals­ingh? Sure­ly your long ex­pe­ri­ence of life has taught you that it is those with pow­er, those who have mon­ey and seek more, who are more like­ly to dis­tort the truth.

A hunger strike has al­ways been, his­tor­i­cal­ly, the last re­sort of the pow­er­less. When those in pow­er hold all the cards, when the law is tooth­less and its process­es are in the in­ter­ests of the pow­er­ful, when the cause is just and the re­cours­es are few to non-ex­is­tent, on­ly then will the ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly com­mit­ted choose to starve him­self in protest.

Gen­tle­men, why isn't your at­ten­tion fo­cused on that mes­sage? Kublals­ingh's work was done with the first hunger strike. It is you who have not done your work since then.

Look at you. I've known you gen­tle­men all my life. At var­i­ous mo­ments in our his­to­ry you have been per­cep­tive, an­a­lyt­i­cal­ly as­tute, and coura­geous, on the side of truth. Mr Maraj's sum­ma­tion of the first hunger strike is deeply mov­ing. But it seems of late you have fall­en prey to our so­ci­ety's com­pul­sion to fo­cus on per­son­al­i­ty at the ex­pense of sub­stance. Now more than ever it is the sub­stance that must be ex­plored.

Yet now I might satir­i­cal­ly liken you to a trio of lit­tle old ladies knit­ting away, click­ety-clack, knit one, pearl two, peer­ing through the jalousies, eyes glis­ten­ing, beady, hun­gry, squint­ing to see what's hap­pen­ing over in the neigh­bour's yard to sali­vate and gos­sip about, while mean­time the whole town is burn­ing down be­hind you.

Well, gen­tle­men, neigh­bour Kublals­ingh has done his ut­most. It's time for you to do your bit, don't you think? Get the fire brigade out, boys. Your coun­try needs you. There are lives to be saved. Are you able? Are you mice or men?

We need you to do more and to do bet­ter. You have al­lowed your­selves to be dis­tract­ed, or per­haps it is too much trou­ble ac­tu­al­ly to re­search and in­ves­ti­gate, and so you mere­ly com­ment on what is in front of your face. You have dropped the ball. It is this in­do­lence, this arm­chair pon­tif­i­cat­ing, and this ig­no­rance, as Gand­hi right­ly states, that has land­ed us in this pret­ty mess.

Where is your sen­si­bil­i­ty about our is­land­ness? What is your opin­ion about this won­der of the world, this mi­nus­cule nine miles of trop­i­cal high­way that is cost­ing $5 bil­lion, which per sin­gle square foot is more ex­pen­sive than any square foot of road any­where else on the plan­et? We're not build­ing the Gold­en Gate Bridge or the Great Wall of Chi­na.

We're just mak­ing a lit­tle piece of high­way on an is­land. Nor are we paving it with the gold of El Do­ra­do. Shouldn't the ex­ces­sive cost of an or­di­nary high­way be ob­sess­ing you more than the ir­ri­tat­ing nui­sance of a man starv­ing him­self by the road­side? It's our mon­ey that's buy­ing the damned thing, but do we know any­thing about it? At all?

We are told that the high­way is good for us ex­act­ly as is, and that we must be well be­haved, obe­di­ent lit­tle boys and girls, be­cause Ma­ma Kam and Pa­pa Ram know what's best for us. Do they in­deed?

Well, I don't think for a mo­ment that Ma­ma and Pa­pa know bet­ter. I think they know what is best for them­selves. It is yet an­oth­er man­i­fes­ta­tion of the Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al Syn­drome, with which the three of you would be well fa­mil­iar. All pow­er at the cen­tre. Let no damned dog bark.

Patrick Man­ning prac­tised it, and this lot is more of the same, on­ly bold­er and bet­ter at it. When we elect­ed this so-called Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship we ex­pect­ed a break from that past. But the Prime Min­is­ter and her At­tor­ney Gen­er­al have be­trayed that ex­pec­ta­tion, be­trayed the ba­sics of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the peo­ple whose part­ner­ship em­pow­ered them in the first place.

We want to know how and why our mon­ey is be­ing spent. Who is mak­ing the prof­it on the $5 bil­lion? We don't see it in the plans. And Ma­ma and Pa­pa refuse to sit at the ta­ble with us and tell us.Are trans­paren­cy, truth and trust too much to ask for?Open your eyes, you three blind mice. Read­just your sights. In­stead of pick­ing Kublals­ingh apart, let's see a char­ac­ter analy­sis of Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Ram­lo­gan for a change. It would cer­tain­ly be more rel­e­vant to our well-be­ing and needs as a peo­ple.

Kam­la is the Ma­ma of Ma­m­aguy. Her re­cent sanc­ti­mo­nious state­ments and hyp­o­crit­i­cal prayers for Wayne's wel­fare were a stream of mor­bid, sen­ti­men­tal slush; mawk­ish, maudlin and va­pid in the ex­treme. She in­vokes God's guid­ance with the sac­cha­rine ease of sliced white bread sat­u­rat­ed in sweet­ened con­densed milk. So much froth and emp­ty pos­ture. Pure pro­fes­sion­al Kam­la blah.

Ram­lo­gan mean­time is the liv­ing Man­crab. It is un­be­liev­able. He used to be such a prin­ci­pled, promis­ing, bright young lawyer. He has be­come a mon­ster. The meta­mor­pho­sis is to­tal and com­plete. He now us­es the law like a blud­geon, to bul­ly and beat the small­est whis­per of op­po­si­tion or dis­sent in­to to­tal sub­mis­sion.

At Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions the oth­er night he claimed that his gods have giv­en per­mis­sion and en­cour­age­ment to man to ex­ploit the en­vi­ron­ment. Oh dear. The prob­lem is that the an­cient ven­er­at­ed Hin­du gods of In­dia may well have ad­vised that, but they were giv­ing that ad­vice in good faith to a hu­mankind that then toiled and tooled with ploughshares, with bul­locks, hors­es, mules and don­keys, and with ele­phants. Tech­nol­o­gy has changed the rules and the bal­ance of pow­er be­tween man and na­ture for­ev­er.

Man's greed, his love for mon­ey and his lust for pow­er, is now en­abled as nev­er be­fore by tech­nol­o­gy. Man­crab reigns supreme.And when King Man­crab reigns he takes Queen Kam's di­vi­sive mul­ti­cul­tur­ism and turns it in­to apartheid, Trinidad style, pit­ting South against North, sim­ply to cov­er his a--e and take your eye off the ball.

Pure wicked­ness.

Well, good gen­tle­men, or gen­tlemice, you'd bet­ter watch the ball more care­ful­ly, lest you get your tails cut.

Three blind mice,

three blind mice,

See how they run,

see how they run,

They all ran af­ter

the farmer's wife,

Who cut off their tails

with a carv­ing knife,

Did you ever see

such a thing in your life,

As three blind mice?

This lit­tle nurs­ery rhyme has come a long way since Bloody Mary. You should check it out. Amaz­ing ori­gins. Google it. You'll find that our Prime Min­is­ter would cer­tain­ly not be the first woman in his­to­ry to turn a blind eye to a good man's death, in God's name no less, were it in her in­ter­est and to her ad­van­tage.Wayne Kublals­ingh is a good man.

On the oth­er side of the street, evil and cor­rup­tion ooze out of every pore and ori­fice of the co­matose body politic of the Is­land Re­pub­lic. Prove me wrong and I'll eat my black hat and change my name to Mac­Far­lane.