The Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC) has con­demned com­ments made by Laven­tille West MP Ka­reem Mar­celle dur­ing a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) pub­lic meet­ing in his con­stituen­cy last Thurs­day, de­scrib­ing the re­marks as di­vi­sive and harm­ful to na­tion­al uni­ty.

In a state­ment, NJAC said Mar­celle’s com­ments could on­ly serve to sow di­vi­sion and dis­cord be­tween the coun­try’s two ma­jor racial groups and per­pet­u­ate what it de­scribed as the colo­nial lega­cy of di­vide and rule. The or­gan­i­sa­tion said such rhetoric be­longed to the pol­i­tics of the 1950s and 1960s and had no place in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mod­ern po­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment.

NJAC’s re­sponse fol­lows re­marks made by Mar­celle at a PNM meet­ing at the Laven­tille Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, where he ac­cused the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) of be­ing hos­tile to­wards Afro-Trinida­di­ans and com­mu­ni­ties that have tra­di­tion­al­ly sup­port­ed the PNM. Speak­ing to sup­port­ers, Mar­celle al­leged that the gov­ern­ing par­ty had dis­re­gard­ed African com­mu­ni­ties and PNM sup­port­ers.

“They hate African peo­ple, they hate black peo­ple, they hate peo­ple from Beetham, they hate peo­ple from Sea Lots, they hate peo­ple from Mal­oney, they hate peo­ple from La Hor­quet­ta, they hate peo­ple from Train Line, they hate peo­ple from Ari­ma, they hate peo­ple from Care­nage, they hate we,” he said.

The com­ments sparked crit­i­cism on so­cial me­dia. But Mar­celle re­ject­ed claims that he had made an­ti-In­di­an state­ments and main­tained that his com­ments were di­rect­ed at the UNC. But NJAC said that at a time when cit­i­zens were seek­ing so­lu­tions to press­ing na­tion­al is­sues, in­clud­ing crime, eco­nom­ic hard­ship and so­cial in­equal­i­ty, re­sort­ing to trib­al­ly charged nar­ra­tives was a re­gres­sive and dan­ger­ous course of ac­tion.

NJAC said it had spent decades ad­vo­cat­ing for na­tion­al uni­ty and the elim­i­na­tion of racial po­lar­i­sa­tion, main­tain­ing that the coun­try’s progress de­pend­ed on har­mo­ny and mu­tu­al re­spect among all eth­nic groups.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion called on the po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM to con­demn the re­marks and pro­vide guid­ance to Mar­celle. It al­so urged po­lit­i­cal lead­ers and com­men­ta­tors to demon­strate greater ma­tu­ri­ty, so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and deco­rum in their pub­lic state­ments. - Chester Sam­bra­no