Paula-Mae Weekes is the sixth and current President of Trinidad and Tobago.
She took office on March 19, 2018, and at that time, became the first female president of Trinidad and Tobago. To the people of this country, her inauguration was a joyous affair.
It sparked a feeling of hope when a time of doom and gloom dominated the news cycle.
One year on, how is she adjusting to the office and what does it all mean to her?
She sat down with CNC3 anchor Hema Ramkissoon to give an account of her first 12 months, how the role has impacted her personal life and provide insight into several national topics including our system of governance and gave tips on how to improve our education system.
Q: Now, you’re approaching, we’re at the one-year mark. I’m sure there have been lessons, even surprises. How would you describe your last year in office and of our life which has changed?
A: My last year in office has been interesting, challenging, gratifying, frustrating, sometimes all in one day. Recently, exhilarating.
You use a lot of interesting adjectives. Let’s talk about interesting, challenging and gratifying. Identify the points for me.
Interesting in that even though I thought I understood what the work of the President entailed, it turns out that my knowledge was very much incomplete and imperfect. So it has been interesting to learn of the various facets that have come up in the one year and I’m sure there are more to go. Frustrating, because there are such severe limitations as to what I am able to accomplish given the powers of the office and I am also very bothered about the lack of information and education our public has about the role of the President and you don’t always get the opportunity to explain yourself so you can be left a bit put out.
So that’s interesting. Challenging?
Well, this is a 24/7 job so unlike my previous incarnation where I worked Monday to Friday and could put things aside on a weekend, that doesn’t happen here. So that the challenge is to keep going and the challenge is that for me who has always been a pretty private person, has to now become an open book.
And the gratifying part?
The gratifying part is having met so many of our citizens to find out that so many of them are committed. They are eager to work with you, they are eager to know what they can do and especially dealing with the little children. I love when they come to visit.
You know you’ve served on the bench, and now (hold) the presidency. You’ve identified the challenging, the gratifying and the interesting parts of your job. How difficult has the adjustment been, now becoming an open book?
It has been quite difficult because now I can go nowhere unchaperoned which I find very irritating but it comes with the territory. A friend warned me when I was consulting with him about whether or not I should go forward with this presidency. He said, “bear in mind that everybody is going to want a little piece of you,” and I sort of brushed that off and it has turned out to be true and sometimes there is not that much more left in a given time-frame to give.
You know when you talk about sharing any part of you, do you maintain any privacy at all? How do you find that balance?
I have not found it and I don’t know. I’m not sure it can be found. So, for example, a simple thing; if I have to go to the dentist, people have to know. I have to be taken by about 10 men in cars and vans. There is nothing that is private and because I live at home, I have security embedded at my quarters and so not even there do I have my privacy, I have to dress properly as I walk about my own home.
We recently celebrated International Women’s Day and there was a theme, #balanceforbetter. It dominated our headlines, it was everyone’s slogan. What does balance look like from your perspective?
It looks like trying to achieve equity which is more than simple equality. I had occasion to attend a function that was held by the Defence Force and the Chief of Defence told a story about the fact that after a certain number of years of service, servicemen and women were given a wristwatch and that on the first occasion that women were part of those receiving the awards. There were six women and they went out and bought exactly the same wristwatch for all of the recipients. The women did not particularly appreciate them because they were large and masculine and it was an immediate depreciation of the fact that, yes we are all equal because we all got the watch but equity takes us a step further: that we need things to be equalised but with a sensitivity to the differences that there wouldn’t necessarily be for gender.
You know when we first started the interview, you spoke about society’s expectations of what this role is supposed to be. How do we bridge that gap? How do we inform them that there are limitations to your office?
One of my ambitions, if I may call it that, is to have a public education programme about the role and functions of the President. Because we have absolutely no dedicated budget for that purpose, it takes some time to figure out how best to do it and how it is to be funded but I think information is needed. It is needed in the schools. I think the President needs more interaction with school children, not just when they come to pay a courtesy call but by finding opportunities to speak with them and to explain to them what the President can and can’t do at an age-appropriate level and then we have general education for adults. People write to me every single day asking me to do things that I cannot do, for example, get them a house, get them a job. One gentleman wrote to me and asked me to order the Commissioner of Police to stop doing particular things and so those are things that I can’t do and people have no clue. So I think only public education is going to improve this.
In your inaugural address, you defined your role as a humble first servant with a mandate to render service with enthusiasm. How do you become an agent of change?
Have I been an agent of change? I do not honestly think that I can say so. It has not been for want of trying but at the end of the day, my ambit is really limited. People ask me all the time to make public statements on this, that and the other, not understanding that the President doesn’t speak without a context and if the context doesn’t afford one the opportunity to speak on a particular subject, it doesn’t happen and so I think there are limits to the change that the President can bring about. What I hope is to impart to the general public and if I can do it at the end of my term I think I would then qualify myself as an agent of change: the concept of duty, the concept of commitment, of civility and, last but not least, of appropriateness.
Interview continues on page A7
Q: You know constitutional change has been a cry for many, many years. A constitution is a living, breathing entity. It effectively serves the need of the people, the society and the nation as a whole. In 2019, is the Constitution serving the people of Trinidad and Tobago?
A: Our Constitution is never going to serve the people of Trinidad and Tobago without the cooperation of the people. You can have as many legislative structures as you wish. If the people are not on board, if the people are not committed to the ideals, we will get no further than we are now. So yes there can be several useful changes made to the Constitution but I don’t know if that will necessarily bring the answers or the magic that people seem to think it will. I think that we need to effect a change in the attitude of the population and that I think will only come when there is a change in the attitude of people in leadership in all spheres of endeavour.
Q: It’s interesting that you say that. In your inauguration speech, you spoke about the light that we must bring and return to the nation. You identified a few examples in your speech. Many people believe in this time our country is facing some of its darkest times. Has that light intensified? Are we capable of better?
A: Well undoubtedly we are capable of better. With respect of the light intensifying, I think everybody wants somebody else to shine this light. The light will only intensify if we all understand our responsibility to be it and share it. So I have met many other wonderful people since I have come into office, each of them shining his or her own light in an area. We just need more of that. We have to understand that we are to be the light and we are to shine it. Each individual has a responsibility.
Q: When we look at our leaders in any sphere, whether it be church, whether it be political office, whether it be a principal, are our leaders capable of leading better?
A: Well there must always be room for improvement. Yes, I think that all leaders can lead better.
Q: You know, you referenced C.S. Lewis that would suggest a deep grounding in your faith. How has your faith shaped your belief system and your leadership style?
A: All through, all the way. I grew up in the church. Of course, I had my decade of being a renegade, but the tentacles of the church go far and wide and I’m sure that my mother was praying on my head every day that I would get back to the deep commitment and show up every Sunday which has happened now. I would not have accepted the challenge that this job is without the deep faith that I have because definitely this is not a job for the faint-hearted or to be achieved by normal human endeavour. One certainly needs the Almighty to put a hand in. And as for my leadership style, I try to make sure that I walk with integrity, that I’m honest. I’m straightforward and if I may say so, for years I read the biblical passage about seasoning your words with salt and I thought that salt meant pepper and then I learnt it meant grace. So I have softened in a form, others will say they don’t see it but I am going along.
Q: You’ve served many, many years of your life in the Judiciary. In fact, I was looking at the picture on the wall there. It seems as though the Judiciary is under fire. Allegations are flying back and forth and there are lines of division amongst your former colleagues. Does this state of affairs bother you?
A: Beyond bothered. It grieves me. Unlike many of the bystanders that are just looking on, I was there for 20 years. I know personally everybody who is involved in this present thing, from the point-of-view from the Judiciary and I’m very, very saddened by the fact that right now there does not appear to be in the Judiciary, that lovely spirit of camaraderie and trust and relying on each other that I personally enjoyed when I got there. It was there once, it was very strong and it was a wonderful thing. And so the comparison is something that troubles me deeply and I really feel particularly for the young, new judges who have stepped into this imbroglio.
Q: Is it going to rise like a phoenix from the ashes?
A: One can only hope. You know they say that however far you go eventually you will reach bottom. We hope that we don’t have to reach there and after that, we can only hope that we will rise.
Q: You still teach in Sunday school. What did you learn from both experiences? What did you learn from students of the law school and from your Sunday school experiences?
A: Our Sunday school goes from ages three to fifteen but I teach the confirmation class so I’m dealing with children who are pretty much 11 to 13 and I have learned that there is tremendous potential in each child and that when we learn to see the potential in each child differently and we don’t apply the same measure of success to each child, that we really have the most wonderful seedlings for national growth.
Q: You miss the ability, teaching seems to be very close to your heart. You’ve referenced it many times in our conversations. Do you miss the ability to teach at the law school?
A: I do and also in my very short incarnation as a private entrepreneur, also taught courses in various aspects of law. I love teaching.
Q: I read a quote that was ascribed to you where you said, “For six years I taught the course, Ethics, Rights and Responsibilities in the legal profession. I was disappointed to find that a significant percentage of the students among them the scholarship winners and high achievers were lazy, dishonest and they had a sense of entitlement. They wanted maximum return for minimum effort. It was a clear failing of character that has carried over from our education- from their early interaction with the education system.” How do we even begin to address this failing system to build better characters?
A: We start in early childhood education, right? And there are some inputs that are needed there, lessons but you see, I will tell you one of my problems with the law school is that ethics was taught as a course and so it was something to learn of the principles, regurgitate them in the exam, pass, forget and move on. There was talk for many years of incorporating aspects of ethics into every course in the law school. So as you did the law of evidence, you would have some ethics in there. So that it became something that wasn’t simply and examinable subject but rather something that would infiltrate your thinking on the whole as you practised and I think that is what is needed across the board. So that ethics needs to be taught in early childhood education, in an age-appropriate form, in primary school, in secondary school because that’s how we learnt it when we were small.
Q: There was a call for mandatory service. When you talk about duty, commitment, do you think that’s going to make any difference in the type of citizens we’ve created?
A: Not without other interventions, I don’t think so.
Q: You know, in your inauguration speech you reference C.S. Lewis and Pollyanna, what book are you reading now? Or do you have time to read now?
A: Preparing for Easter by the C.S. Lewis and then I love a gory, psychological thriller so I’m reading Say You Are Sorry by Karen Rose.
Q: In terms of the principles that you’ve attached to all of your readings to all of your titles, what principles have influenced you the most?
A: I think they need to operate with scrupulous integrity. I think gratitude, patience, the one I’ve been working on for years without much headway. What else? I think faithfulness to cause and purpose. I think that’s a tall enough order. There are probably a few others that I can’t think of right away.
Q: You know you mention the Sunday school and in your initial set of interviews you spoke about the bonds with your family that exists and that work-life balance. What advice do you have for people like myself who find that the most challenging task? Is it even possible to achieve?
A: It’s difficult when you try to balance it. Undoubtedly a few noses are going to be put out of joint. For example, as I said, this job is a seven days a week but when there are Sunday engagements it means that I can’t teach Sunday school, I can’t go to church and what would have been the frame of my Sunday is totally affected. So that in trying to achieve work-life balance, I’ve taken a position now that I’ve spent 2018 observing and learning that I will not accept Sunday engagements unless I think it absolutely necessary or extremely beneficial. Lots of people have their events on a Sunday so they are not going to be pleased but work-life balance has to be struck.
Q: What advice do you have for the next generation? You talk about your time as a teacher, even still trying to teach through Sunday school. There’s a brain drain. People are disenchanted. Young people are seeking options abroad. The economic pie is shrinking. The crime situation continues to dominate. We are in dark times. Why should they stay and what do you want to tell them?
A: Trinidad and Tobago is the only place you won’t be an alien. You may be alienated but you’re not an alien. Nobody has a greater vested interest in investing here in Trinidad and Tobago than the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago and I have been concerned for some time about the fact that many of our children are almost passing through and feel no real connection to this land and so I think I told you that it was exhilarating at this time. I think I have found a vehicle. I am beginning a programme called Citizen True. We have to run a pilot of course so we will learn the lessons which we hope to roll out to persons in that eleven to thirteen age group because the professionals tell us that is the time that these lessons would best take root and I hope to find blueprint for creating committed citizens and I think that that would go a long way. So I want to tell them hold on, you belong here, you need to do the work, it’s nobody else’s duty but your own and better days will definitely have to come but we have to make them.
Q: I mentioned constitutional reform earlier and you said we can change it how many times, it comes down to our people issue. The Westminster system is by nature adversarial. There is a perception, politicians go in to win, some lose and there is a five-year cycle. How do we change that? How do we get people to see the bigger picture as opposed to a five-year win, out, voting you in, voting you out? Can that change?
A: We can change that. We can get another system. Once it’s populated by the same individuals with the same mindsets, we will have the same problems. There are many other countries with different systems, certain things might work better but at the end of the day, it is their attitude. That carries the show, not the system.
