Sugar Aloes sings "She's Royal" but: We ent arrive as yet

Calypsonian Sugar Aloes

As we head into Indian Arrival Day, the anniversary celebration of the People's Partnership Government led through inadvertence to this column. The surprise performance by calypsonian Sugar Aloes at the event is the only thing most people will remember. And thereafter, Aloes's appearance, choice of song and its political significance became too important to ignore.

His appearance was bittersweet. On one hand I appreciate the potential of a hardcore PNM supporter performing in celebration of two years of the PNM going into opposition. It suggests that even the centre of the parochial camps is not impenetrable and the middle ground could swell even more than the current divide causes us to believe.

But as Chalkdust would say, Aloes did not perform just so. Aloes's performance may be further evidence of the way the politics consolidates the spoils of victory in the hands of those on one side, leaving the other largely empty-handed. The question in Aloes's appearance and performance was whether we witnessed the maturity of a seasoned political commentator or a desperate act of survival for an entertainer-turned-businessman, a man in need of Partnership handouts in the absence of politically-neutral alternatives.

And if Aloes was on a Partnership platform as part of a tour to get State support for the Revue calypso tent, it is also evidence of how we have mistreated the arts, principally everything related to Carnival. Without shame the National Carnival Commission (NCC) is nowhere near the three core elements of its legislative purpose, as a result of which the so-called greatest show on earth is demonstratively indigent.

This is of course unfortunate for both Aloes and the country but not unexpected. The matter of the funding, support and survival of Aloes's Revue tent should not be in the lap of the country's Minister of Housing and the Environment. It belongs to an independent authority which manages the country's arts and its Carnival. But the way it has gone, every facet of arts, culture and creativity make the trek cap-in-hand to whoever is in power begging their way to political handouts.

Aunty Joan gone and Uncle Rudy take over.

Too much corruption: Catch me if you can

Welcome to the land of sun, sea and no consequences. As we move to acquire more prison space, not one politician or high-profile crook occupies existing jailhouse real estate. Crafty lawyers and their crooked clients have combined to permanently engage the pause button. Justice delayed is punishment denied; a fiat to the well-positioned to thief even more.

There is no shortage of evidence of how the rot set in and stayed in. It’s the same coming out of the commissions, media stories and revelations in Parliament and official reports like the latest from the Auditor General. There is little accountability, responsibility, responsible leadership and enforcement.

The tone for neglect is at the top. The law is porous and wherever it has bite it meanders disgracefully. The politicians are unreliable. The Prime Minister casually taps the still-investigated and disgraced ex-FIFA vice president to perform the duties of PM. Without question, His Excellency makes the appointment. Former president Arthur NR Robinson may be maligned but at least he risked controversy in the 18-18 scenario and his refusal of Panday’s nominees for the Senate.

Alongside the CL Financial and HCU stories of poor governance, directors and officers of incalculable ineptitude, downright theft, thuggery and bobol comes the latest Auditor General’s report of the persistent lack of accountability in the State, especially in relation to contracts of employment, salaries, contracts with suppliers and verification of assets and inventory.

Again the tone should be set at the top. Amongst the ministries failing to provide critical reports on a timely basis or at all, many are headed by senior People’s Partnership Ministers. It includes the Ministries of the Attorney General, Housing, Foreign Affairs, Public Utilities, Works, Local Government and the Office of the Prime Minister. Failure to provide these reports is contrary to law but who cares.

False advertising: Making it real

In one story last week a Law Association audit found that executives routinely signed cheques without the trouble of authentication. In another, Independent Senator Subhas Ramkhelawan called for legislation to deal with miracle healers. Both stories deal with leading professions and the risks of quacks and invalids.
In the Senate, Mr Ramkhelawan suggested that legislation to outlaw advertising of miracle cures should be brought to Parliament to deal with the problem of false advertising by conmen. What he did not say was that some of these conmen were professionals themselves, trading way beyond their qualifications, skills and competence.

There are two main points on the Senator's complaint. First the problem is not absence of legislation but the failure to enforce what exists. And second, the Senator's comments should also be directed to all professional bodies whose members offer both products and services beyond their expertise.

Ultimately, whether it's the problems facing the Medical Board, Law Association or another professional body, it involves professional standards and professionalism; consumer rights, protection and the opportunities for affordable and accessible services; the challenges and dangers of the self-regulation of professionals and the need to end elitism and create transparency within professional bodies.

Of course Ramkhelawan's complaint is well founded. Who has not encountered a self-proclaimed "dentist" providing extractions, fillings and other regulated dental services? It is not unusual for people like to this to be called "doc" in the rush, a moniker not resisted. Bush lawyers require no introduction.

And the complaint could go a little deeper into the offer for sale of "health" and "weight loss" products and programmes, sexual performance aids and "enhancers", "energy" drinks and products, and the services of fortune-telling, palm readings, obeah and exorcism.

More coalition problems: COP in a corner

Political twister is the best way to describe the Congress of the People (COP). Trapped in a UNC-dominated world, the party wishes to speak for party, People's Partnership and country, and emerge intact from the political snake-pit. Unless it gets a grip, the COP will be a collection of the pathetic.

In its latest statement the COP's political leader speaks for four different and competing interests: the COP, the People's Partnership, the Government and the people. The statement sets the bar high and declares the COP an independent political party which will articulate independent positions on policy matters.

It refers to collective responsibility, managing the coalition partners and strengthening the structures required to deliver more effectively and equitably to the population. For good measure it affirms a commitment to working for redefinition of the political and governance arrangements and declares maximum leadership by decree to be over.

Except, of course, the COP failed to get its way on the single issue of removing the Mayor of San Fernando simply because the party lacks the leverage. The COP owes its so-called "political assets" to the aforesaid maximum leadership exercised by the PM — the UNC political leader and de-facto coalition leader. The COP also owes its position in Government and Cabinet, and its Senate and board appointments to the PM. On its current trajectory, the party's political future relies on the fortunes of the UNC-led People's Partnership and if the City of San Fernando mayoral issue is any guide, the COP should make no boast of its powers of persuasion or otherwise.

What the difficulties facing the COP and the country demonstrate is that two years after its election the core remains rotten under the People's Partnership. The framework of the politics is broken, cracked by corrupt political party funding, loosened by lackeys and minions and undermined by cronyism and get-rich-quick political toddlers. Caught between this idea of a chief whip and the doctrine of collective responsibility, group-think is the political standard. But group-think led by non-thinkers is far more dangerous to democracy than all the arms and ammo floating around the country in fidgety hands.

Terminating the Privy Coucil: Surrender to silliness

UK Privy Council's Lord Justice Phillips

 Making the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) the country's final appellate court should require no justification. But the PM's statement in support of that move is more debatable than the CCJ itself.
Offered as a celebration of 50 years of independence, the PM's statement on the CCJ fails to recognise the true celebration of self-determination is not the substitution of the country's final appellate court. It will be the crafting of a constitution which upholds the values of the society, a matter which the PM happened to ignore.

After Pratt and Morgan, the former colonies were handed the challenge of defining their independence by reshaping and rewriting their constitutions. Instead they succumbed to the usual inertia, head-scratching, finger-pointing and inaction which are central to the post-independence experience. Ultimately Pratt and Morgan, the death penalty dilemma and the persistent crime are indicative of the inability to handle the tools of independence.

In selecting criminal appeals for the initial phase the PM offers the weakest justification for retaining the Privy Council for civil appeals, a move which confirms our penchant for anything half-made. Second, the substitution of an appellate court as a means of side-stepping sensible data on the futility of the death penalty is not an affirmation of independence but the surrender to silliness.

In retaining the Privy Council for civil appeals the PM has said that "it inspires confidence in foreign investors'' and its retention is conducive to an investor-friendly climate. The PM has offered no evidence of a link between the final appellate court, commercial certainty and attracting foreign investment. It is a weak argument which ignores the commercial reality that foreign investors enjoy significant legal certainty through the international arbitration clauses which are standard in commercial contracts.

When you consider the parts of the world which have attracted significant foreign investment and the political and judicial uncertainties in those places, the suggestion that judicial certainty is a critical element of foreign investment is unsupportable. Venezuela is an example of the risks foreign investors will take, especially the risk of expropriation, nationalisation and loss of shareholder value if the investment conditions are favourable. The PM should be more concerned about competitiveness and the creation of an attractive climate than with the significance of a final appellate court to investors.

On the substitution of the Privy Council, the PM has highlighted the need to "overcome the hindrances to the implementation of the death penalty arising out of various Privy Council decisions''. But the problems go deeper than the Privy Council. They are localised, spread over the post-independence period and embody a failure of political leadership.

The fact is that the Privy Council has not imposed its will on the country. It has applied its craft to the constitutions it has been handed to interpret and has come to conclusions which are no different for T&T when compared to the countries which have the cruel and inhumane provision in their constitutions.

Where news, drama, $$ flow
In contrasting circumstances the past week brought attention again to the media's role in keeping the public informed.Trinidad saw the clumsy arrest of a prime-time television personality in an industry pushing edginess and innovation. In the US, a Trinidad-born newspaper editor defended a decision to publish two photos in defiance of the Pentagon.

Both cases highlight the challenge of staying within the law, taste and decency while keeping the public informed.

In Los Angeles Davan Maharaj, the former Express journalist, explained the Los Angeles Times' decision to publish two of 18 particularly graphic photographs. Both showed that a unit of the US military's 82nd Airborne Division posed with body parts, the remains of Afghan bombers.

By comparison the local arrest was in respect of material allegedly broadcast in breach of the Sexual Offences Act (SOA). The October 2011 broadcast was in the usual sensational manner of the prime-time programme styled as a watch on crime and crime-fighting. But unlike the publication of the photos by the Times which involved an editorial judgment of the right of the public to be informed, the local broadcast is being impugned as a breach of the SOA which carries criminal liability.

According to Maharaj, the Times felt that the public interest was served by publishing a limited, but representative sample of the photos, along with a story explaining the circumstances under which they were taken. The newspaper believed the photos provided by a member of the military unit "reflected dysfunction, indiscipline and a breakdown in leadership that compromised the safety of the troops." And the newspaper believed the public had a right to be informed.

It is clear that both cases are about the modern technology-driven and profit-centred media enterprise; the push to edginess and innovation and the challenge of keeping all of it within the law, taste and decency.

Failing the little ones

There were warning signs all around little Aliyah. But trapped in her mother's random life and surrounded by indifference, her little life was too fragile to withstand the consequences.

 As a father each death brings fresh agony. I understand the trust the little ones place in adults. I appreciate the way their little fingers curl around mine, confirmation of their expectation of protection and comfort. In each death, I see the unmistakeable indifference of adults who have forgotten to care: politicians because they don't use their power and the rest of us because we do not take a personal interest in demanding better.

In the week when the deaths of Aliyah and the Freeport pensioner brought grief to many of us, I observed the antics of the country's Minister of Justice. I need not say more about the former judge's comments on the killing of a constituent. The Express, through its Sunday editorial and Senior Counsel Dana Seetahal's column, has detailed the dangers of the Minister's comments. What I found interesting is that the Minister — father, lawyer, former judge and the holder of a political portfolio with enormous responsibility for life and security — has said nothing about these other killings. Like others, this Minister of Justice, always quick to remind people of the sacrifice of his tax-free judicial package for public service, is looking after his business.

Which brings me ask what can we construct in quick time to deal with this indifference and inconsequence which has taken over? What can cure this ailment and restore our sense of personal responsibility? Various accounts of the adults in Aliyah's life suggest drunkenness, mishandling of the toddler, abuse and violence: the usual Molotov cocktail of poverty and inconsequence. In little Amy's death the forensic report told a more brutal story: ruptured liver and spleen, abrasions in her mouth and cigarette burns about her body, and physical evidence of rape and sodomy. Amy's life was like the other children who ended up murdered: violence, tears and painful physical abuse and injury.

My conclusion is that what we discarded as macocious and meddlesome, the rest of the world still calls informed and community-minded. We armed ourselves with indifference and have watched the decay and decline. And when death or incident comes along to touch us personally, we go in search of somebody to blame. Nobody wants to get involved even though a little meddling could save lives and bring justice.