Monkeys on our backs

Wayne Kublalsingh

SHE NEEDS to get the monkey off her back. This was former prime minister and UNC leader Basdeo Panday commenting on why his successor Kamla Persad-Bissessar might not have been able to fulfil her prime ministerial functions. She carries a monkey on her back, he explained quizzically. Some people place monkeys on their backs, some have monkeys placed on their backs and some, on account of inherited traits, are born with monkeys on their backs.

Often, as I wander our streets, most often in the south and central sides of our island, trading witticisms, my specialty, I hear a citizen accuse: "You real quiet." Or, "How come you not protesting again?" Or, "I don’t see you on TV again." Or, "You not hunger-striking again?" All this sarcasm, irony and bitterly pointed attacks derive from a monkey that has been placed on my back. That I am against the UNC and not against the PNM.

I find myself being unhappy for these comments. I feel unlucky to have half a diaspora savouring salt prunes in their mouths on meeting our activists and their families. Against the grain, the proof of history. Especially the malicious hunger-strike comments, an event that caused immense suffering for our activists, our supporters. The record shows that all the projects which I challenged, with and upon the invitation of the people, were PNM projects. No UNC or PP projects.

Over the last 20 years I, alongside our communities, challenged 12 PNM projects: The closure of Caroni (1975) Ltd, for which I wrote The National Transformation Plan, UWI position paper, arguing that the formidable Caroni assets, including 77,000 acres of land, be used to lever a new economy for the 21st century. The Chatham/Cap-de-Ville Alcoa, where I formed the "War on Smelter" camp, which became the base for the most fiery activists I have ever encountered, and resided for the duration of the struggle. The Alutrint smelter, where defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory, following lengthy community agitation, my 40-day daytime fast outside the EMA, and my pioneering of legal action.

Then, on came the industrial island off Otaheite, the NGC port at Claxton Bay, the Essar Steel mill at Pranz Gardens, the Carisal chemical plant at Savonetta. All PNM projects. The latter was withdrawn after concerted activism on the ground, and our meeting the IDB at which we argued that it be defunded. The Government stubbornly refused to relocate it to Pt Lisas proper. PM Persad-Bissessar, who had inherited this master gas PNM project, had vowed in our meeting with her to continue it.

And the Debe to Mon Desir highway. This was a PNM project which the PP Government inherited, which some of its leaders lobbied against in opposition, and sallied on with when in power. Our case was to reroute this mega-highway from the flood-prone Oropouche Lagoon, build connector roads, bypass roads through the area, rather than a highway embankment using 1.4 million tons of landfill.

Then, my advocacy for the Arima market vendors. And my representations to the President, the Attorney General’s Office, the DPP, the Commissioner of Prisons and MPs from both the PNM and UNC, were done in PNM time, not UNC or PP. I challenged the PNM Government’s plan to build 12 eight-storey housing blocks on the St Augustine Nurseries.

There is no Debe to Mon Desir highway; the State is yet to complete one mile of this highway from Fyzabad to Mon Desir. Nor has any of the PNM projects I challenged been built. The Caroni land matter remains an issue to be taken up by any develop-minded dispensation, although all of its former assets have significantly declined. I suspect that the PNM leadership regards me as a monkey on its back.

On this great matter of monkeys, I bear true witness and testimony to the fact that the PNM and the UNC are monkeys on their supporter’s backs.

I have seen that no matter how horrible the above projects, how detrimental to the public interest, the Treasury and to real economic development, in instances where the project is a PNM one, the PNM supporters rally behind it.

In instances where the UNC supporters believe it is a UNC project, no matter how good, bad, or ugly, they rally like mad behind it. What matters is not development benefit or loss, or the merits of the project, but the party, the well-being of the party. The party is the thing. For good or worse. For tragedy or more tragedy. Thus, the challenger of a project under the PNM becomes a PNM enemy, and the challenger under a UNC, a UNC enemy.

The pressing tragedies of our time are: (i) the breakdown of law and order, unleashing criminals everywhere, from among all the percentages, malevolent and malicious characters, to take advantage of citizens. (ii) Hellinacoconut-shell traffic and the overfunding of the highway builders to the detriment of the local road networks. (iii) A loose-cannon approach to economic planning, and development failure on all fronts. And, (iv) extreme weather events – heat, heavy precipitation, flooding, soil liquefaction, landslides.

Our people are toting two massive monkeys on our backs. Riding us like rodeo. Our challenge is to lift these monkeys off our backs. And, ultimately, to lift the burdens of governance from government’s back and place them on our shoulders.