Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

“Don’t rise to the Prime Min­is­ter’s race-bait­ing talk!”

This was the ap­peal from Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les, par­tic­u­lar­ly to PNM mem­bers, as he took is­sue with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­cent re­peat­ed ac­cu­sa­tions of “PNM c****e ha­tred.”

In her lat­est com­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said af­ter fac­ing pub­lic out­rage for block­ing the in­stal­la­tion of the po­lice post at the Ed­die Hart Grounds, peo­ple should pre­pare for a week­end “... of all ver­sions of PNM c****e ha­tred.”

Re­spond­ing to this, Gon­za­les said, “The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter must be a sym­bol of na­tion­al uni­ty. It must ap­peal to the bet­ter in­stincts of our cit­i­zens, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing mo­ments of po­lit­i­cal ten­sion. The im­mense au­thor­i­ty of that of­fice must nev­er be used to in­flame racial ten­sions, at­tack sec­tions of the pop­u­la­tion per­ceived as un­sup­port­ive of the gov­ern­ing par­ty, or en­cour­age cit­i­zens to turn against one an­oth­er.”

Not­ing that the na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion is be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly di­vi­sive, Gon­za­les re­ject­ed racial pol­i­tics, say­ing, “Arch­bish­op Desmond Tu­tu once de­scribed T&T in the spir­it of a ‘rain­bow coun­try’—a de­scrip­tion that apt­ly re­flects the mul­ti-eth­nic, mul­ti-cul­tur­al and mul­ti-re­li­gious char­ac­ter of our na­tion. A peo­ple of dif­fer­ent races, re­li­gions, cul­tures and po­lit­i­cal per­sua­sions, yet we share one coun­try and one des­tiny. The PNM has al­ways un­der­stood that T&T’s strength lies in this di­ver­si­ty.

“Re­gard­less of our po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ences, these char­ac­ter­is­tics must nev­er be dis­turbed or ex­ploit­ed for po­lit­i­cal ad­van­tage—es­pe­cial­ly by those en­trust­ed with pub­lic of­fice.”

Gon­za­les said the PNM sought to build a na­tion­al move­ment that tran­scends race, re­li­gion, class and ge­og­ra­phy, where every cit­i­zen, re­gard­less of an­ces­try or back­ground, has an equal stake in T&T.

Not­ing how the word “c****e” came in­to play re­cent­ly—fol­low­ing which the PM used it—Gon­za­les said it was deeply trou­bling that re­cent at­tempts were made to at­tribute to the PNM, al­leged racial slurs and state­ments aris­ing from a pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion be­tween two pri­vate cit­i­zens.

“What­ev­er views may have been ex­pressed by pri­vate in­di­vid­u­als are theirs to an­swer for,” he added.

Gon­za­les said the Prime Min­is­ter has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to all peo­ple, in­clud­ing those who didn’t vote for the Gov­ern­ment and those who sup­port the Op­po­si­tion. “Pub­lic of­fice must nev­er be­come an in­stru­ment for set­tling po­lit­i­cal scores, vil­i­fy­ing po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents or in­cit­ing sup­port­ers against fel­low cit­i­zens be­cause of their race, eth­nic­i­ty, po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion or per­ceived loy­al­ties,” he said.

“When racial ten­sions are height­ened, na­tion­al lead­er­ship must low­er the tem­per­a­ture, not in­flame it; heal di­vi­sions, not ex­ploit them. No tem­po­rary po­lit­i­cal ad­van­tage can jus­ti­fy per­ma­nent dam­age to T&T’s so­cial fab­ric.”

Say­ing the PNM will not re­spond by de­scend­ing in­to race pol­i­tics, Gon­za­les added, “I there­fore speak di­rect­ly to every PNM mem­ber and sup­port­er: do not take the bait. Do not re­spond to racial provo­ca­tion with racial provo­ca­tion. Do not en­gage in racial at­tacks against UNC mem­bers or sup­port­ers, whether on­line, on so­cial me­dia, at po­lit­i­cal meet­ings or any­where else.

“I par­tic­u­lar­ly ap­peal to our young peo­ple and those ac­tive on so­cial me­dia: do not al­low your­selves to be­come in­stru­ments of racial di­vi­sion. A com­ment writ­ten in anger takes sec­onds to post but can cause dam­age far be­yond the po­lit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sy of the mo­ment.

“Race must nev­er be­come a po­lit­i­cal weapon. Once racial hos­til­i­ty is un­leashed in a small di­verse so­ci­ety such as ours, no po­lit­i­cal par­ty can con­trol where it ends ... This is there­fore a mo­ment for ma­tu­ri­ty and re­spon­si­ble lead­er­ship.

“Where oth­ers seek di­vi­sion, let us demon­strate uni­ty. Where oth­ers re­sort to racial in­sults, let us re­spond with dig­ni­ty. Where mis­in­for­ma­tion is spread about our move­ment, let us an­swer with facts. Where at­tempts are made to di­vide T&T along racial lines, let us stand firm­ly on the side of na­tion­al uni­ty.”

Gon­za­les called up­on all par­ties, re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions, busi­ness cham­bers, trade unions, civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions, cul­tur­al and com­mu­ni­ty groups, and re­spon­si­ble cit­i­zens to stand to­geth­er in na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty for T&T’s peace, sta­bil­i­ty and pros­per­i­ty.

“There must be re­spon­si­ble voic­es pre­pared to say: Enough re­gard­ing racial sus­pi­cion and hos­til­i­ty, at­tempts to di­vide com­mu­ni­ties for po­lit­i­cal ad­van­tage and treat­ing cit­i­zens as en­e­mies be­cause of the par­ty they sup­port or their race.”

Gon­za­les said me­dia per­son­nel and com­men­ta­tors have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to di­rect­ly con­front and iden­ti­fy the racial im­pli­ca­tions of state­ments at­trib­uted to the Prime Min­is­ter.

“If a PNM leader en­gages in racial rhetoric, hold that leader ac­count­able. If a UNC leader does so, hold that leader equal­ly ac­count­able,” he said.

There was no re­ply from Per­sad Bisses­sar to Guardian Me­dia’s query on Gon­za­les’s com­ments.