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The highest and the lowest
Posted: Sunday, May 12, 2002
By Donna Yawching
IT'S interesting that Patrick Manning, who has made known his reluctance to talk to the media outside of pre-arranged press conferences, stands on no such ceremony when it comes to police stations. Our Prime Minister, apparently, not only saw fit to call a police station to “enquire” about a particular suspect, but is now hinting that he’ll take legal action against this newspaper for reporting his impropriety.
It’s hard to figure out whether what we’re seeing here is a genuine case of naïveté, or the ultimate in doctor politics—“When I talk, no damn dog bark.” Did Mr. Manning really think that a prime minister calling a police station about a suspected felon would pass unnoticed, and better yet, unreported? Particularly when he took pains to identify himself as PM? This is disingenuous beyond belief. He might just as well have pulled up to the station in his Mercedes to stand bail for the suspect — and then wondered why the place was swarming with press photographers.
Or was it that Mr Manning knew perfectly well that his action would cause a stir, but didn’t give a damn? Has the man become so engulfed in his own delusions of grandeur that he sees nothing untoward in his phone call to the Marabella Police Station at six o’clock in the morning?
Either answer is frightening. If our high officials feel they can so casually intervene in piddling little matters such as this, what can we expect when the stakes are high: in cases having to do with corruption, influence peddling, professional misbehaviour,? The phone calls might not be quite so overt; but clearly, they would be equally purposeful.
Mr Manning’s stated reason for making his questionable call (some nonsense about taking “disciplinary action as an employer”) is already at variance with the facts, since it would seem that the suspect, his former driver, was no longer employed by the PM and was in fact running a north-south taxi. (Unless, of course, Mr. Manning is secretly a taxi owner, and the man is “pulling bull” on his behalf!) Moreover, the PM claims—and the police service is scrambling to back him up, despite earlier information to the contrary— that the man had already been released when he called.
Whichever version we choose to believe, the question remains: why call at all, if the intent was not somehow to influence due process? What was Mr Manning’s underlying intention, and why did this man merit such special consideration? Surely the PM didn’t phone the police station just to say “Hi” to his old buddy. Whatever the actual sequence of events, the very fact of him calling is disquieting. It suggests that as far as our Prime Minister is concerned—the same PM who is so quick to decry the sleaze of the previous administration—anyone who belongs to his little blessed circle transcends the constraints of the law. Not very encouraging, is it?
Of course, Basdeo Panday is squeezing all possible mileage out of this faux pas, and calling (predictably) for Mr. Manning to resign. I’m surprised he hasn’t yet mentioned Dhanraj Singh, who certainly hasn’t been the beneficiary of any concerned phone calls, even when his pals were in power. Still, Panday should probably check his own windows before throwing stones: I seem to remember hearing, six years ago, of a certain Prime Minister who was making himself quite a nuisance, calling a certain newspaper to rail against a certain editor whom he believed to be hostile to his government. That, in the wider world, is probably not considered kosher either.
So much for the Highest of the Land. Now to the lowest: the street vendors, and their continuing fight with the authorities. On this one, my sympathies are largely with the vendors. Not all the time, and not everywhere: there are times and places where too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing. For example, the clearing of the Croiseé, one of the busiest intersections in the country, was a long-overdue move.
But I am totally against the harassing of vendors on Charlotte St., for all sorts of reasons. As the vendors point out, no-one is going to help them feed their children. Sticking them in yet another tacky mall is counter-productive: no-one ever goes inside. A vendor’s livelihood comes from impulse buying: out of sight is out of mind.
In this society of non-existent safety nets, a person who cannot earn an honest living earns a dishonest one: stealing, pimping, selling drugs. Don’t we already have enough of that, without forcing more people into desperate lifestyles? The end result is inevitably more bandits, more overcrowded prisons, more resentment.
And without the vendors, Charlotte St. will die—a slow death, like the rest of downtown. No matter what anyone says—DOMA, the mayor, the Police Commissioner—Charlotte St. is the vendors: a natural, bustling street market with its own unique vibrancy. You see things there that you’ll see nowhere else in Port of Spain: happy and sad, bizarre and beautiful.
I once saw a demented woman trying to sell her baby; and a man goading an immense macajuel in a box. In both cases, crowds gathered, people interacted: a community, albeit briefly, occurred. Personally, I always choose to walk down Charlotte St., as opposed to Henry or Frederick; and it’s not because of the tacky wholesale stores.
The problem with us is, we don’t know a resource when we see one. All over the world, street markets are a surefire tourist attraction. What we should be doing is diverting all traffic off Charlotte St., cleaning it up, paving it, planting flower-boxes and installing benches and ice cream kiosks.
Let the city concentrate on the hygiene issues, let the police concentrate on security; and let the vendors concentrate on selling. Dedicate Charlotte St purely to the people, and watch the rewards roll in.
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