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“[…] We are dealing with a very insecure administration here. Lloyd Best would always point out that these administrations come into office pre-collapsed.
“[…] Faced with the just demands for food, clothes and shelter, for bread, peace and justice, the ruling class and its representatives in government have opted for force. There is an overwhelming police/soldier presence in our society buttressed by a rolling state of emergency akin to the one PNM ran for nine months in 1971…”
The following Letter to the Editor on societal issues facing Trinidad and Tobago’s Labour movement was submitted to Wired868 by Rae Samuel:
There is an Arab fable that the older generation read. One very cold night in the desert—yes, it gets very cold in the desert at night—a camel sought shelter in a nearby tent.
He stuck his head in and asked the Arab if he could warm his head and neck. The Arab agreed.
As the night grew colder the camel asked to be allowed further in. The Arab said it was okay. Eventually the camel pleaded his way in so he was fully inside.
Daylight came and the Arab assumed the camel would leave. But he did not budge an inch. It slowly dawned on the Arab that the camel had absolutely no intention of ever going back to the desert.
The Labour movement is full of camels (or ex-camels), who have abandoned the herd. They sit in Cabinet, on boards, on advisory committees. They are most present at ceremonies, functions and launches. They have surrounded themselves with all the trappings of office.
As Malcolm X said, they defend the master/mistress more than the plantation owner does him/herself.
None of this is new. Before the present crop there were the Vernon Gleans, Carl Tulls, St Elmo Gopauls, and James Manswells, who were made Senators by the PNM.
They were swept from office by the militant progressive Labour movement of the period—a fate that awaits this present crop who are fewer in number and do not have as strong a base.
May I remind everyone that Tubal “Buzz” Butler had to go past Captain AA Cipriani, George Weekes had to topple John Rojas, teachers and public servants pushed out Manswell, Gopaul and Father Gerard Farfan, and Lyle Townsend and company sent Tull on his way.
Labour Day showed us in a dramatic way what courage and determination can do. A 25-year-old female activist dared to take up the banner at the shrine of the working class and remind all of us who we are and what our duty is.
Her political awareness and analytical ability are so sound. I enquired if she was a student of her history and she said that she simply read a lot.
History has a strange way of choosing its midwives. She has begun to mount a fightback that the mass movement is bound to follow if all is not to be lost.
There is a duty to reach out to protect and support Alyssa Phillip. Since when is it illegal to march and display banners on Labour Day at Avocat junction?
Four maxi taxis carrying workers were stopped and searched. It is said that they were asked where they were going.
Where would workers on the South Trunk Road be going on Labour Day? Vessigny beach? Borough day?
We are dealing with a very insecure administration here. Lloyd Best would always point out that these administrations come into office pre-collapsed.
Historically, an oil or energy boom would enable them to soldier along. Times have changed and those options are no longer available. The economic model of neo-colonialism has completely failed us.
Faced with the just demands for food, clothes and shelter, for bread, peace and justice, the ruling class and its representatives in government have opted for force.
There is an overwhelming police/soldier presence in our society buttressed by a rolling state of emergency akin to the one PNM ran for nine months in 1971.
Our Cuban comrades, completely left out of Labour Day by the Camels, have a beautiful slogan: “You cannot kill ideas.”
(via National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago.)
It was given to them by Pedro Sarria, an Afro Cuban soldier who saved Fidel Castro’s life three times in one evening. (Go read Fidel and Religion.)
The current administration has given law enforcement the task of solving a social problem with guns, tasers, handcuffs and prisons—not for the first time in our history.
It has never worked and will not now.
The task at hand is to begin to build new political organisations that transcend electoral Bim and Bam politics, that operate in our everyday lives—not every five years.
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