By Stephen Kangal
April 20, 2011
The Police Service is singularly the most unique and powerful institution of the state. The establishment of that service cannot be honestly and usefully compared with and justified by the ethnic composition of the establishment of any other public and private sector institution. At the same time the entry requirements for this service is academically minimal. Brawn was accorded overriding importance at the early stage of the then Police Force. Accordingly studying law, medicine or the professions was never an alternative to being a police man.
It is unique because it is the only institution empowered legitimately to use force/violence including the carrying in public view of powerful and lethal weaponry to undertake its requisite law enforcement action. No wonder some young policemen flaunt their unexpected and sudden empowerment to the detriment of the public. The police enjoy a great deal of discretionary judgment and latitude in the legitimate use of force in the course of its duties. The police may turn a blind eye on infractions of the law or may treat with ethnic communities differently.
Police have immediate access to vehicles (mobility), man police stations located nation- wide and are authorized with the right to use of force in effecting arrest and detention. It also exercises a judicial function in issuing on the spot hefty fines for traffic violations by the ticket system. From a civilian perspective it is the most powerful arm of the state and as such cannot be allowed to be monopolized by any one ethnic group in a multicultural society. The police with a search warrant can break down your door and invade the privacy of your castle called your home. The police (SIA and Special Branch) is known to spy on you illegally and listen in (maco) on your phone conversations depriving you of your constitutional right to privacy.
There must be a functional link between the police and the policed to ensure the effectiveness of the mission to protect and serve. Consequently the geographic catchment area for recruits should be as wide as possible to facilitate intelligence gathering and to act as a deterrent to potential law-breaking in every village. The ethnic factor plays a crucial role in developing confidence building measures in the police service especially in a society that is so extremely racially polarized, where geography corresponds with ethnicity and impulsive behavioral patterns of fight or flight are ethnicity generated or determined.
A democratic government in T&T cannot in fact rule without the approval of the Police Service that can potentially take up arms against a perceived sea of troubles.
This is a silly repackaged Nizam race argument with no proof.
Kangal is claiming that Indians would be afraid of African police and an Indian government needs to see their kind in greater numbers in the police service and/or controlling the police service least the majority of Africans there take up arms against them.
Once again, I have freinds of all races, but it is very evident that the so called educated Indians of Trinidad and Tobago are fuelling a divide along an insidious part for our country; which may be driven by their own inferiority complex which they walk around with from their Mother Land. Mr. Kangal regardless of what you say and what you do in life to elevate your self you will always be seen by your Mother Land as an untouchable. Get rid of your insecurities and then maybe you will feel like a person – free yourself and your soul, instead of trying to subject another to such a mental condition (regardless of how you mask your agenda) because of your lack of confidence that was cultivated and perpetuated by your fellow ethinic group on you. WE ARE ALREADY DEALING WITH OUR OWN ISSUES AND DO NOT NEED THIS IN OUR LIVES.
I remember and cherish the years when as a youth growing in Morvant, I participated at Queen’s Hall and in its environs, in Better Village dramatic competitions. Then, I learned not only the disciplines required for serving that demanding monarch, Queen Drama, but also saw, nay experienced the effects created by competing contributions from other villages far and wide across the newly independent T&T.
The current debate on race relations reminds me of the potentials, then more often positive, of those times and dramas.
This debate, now even more participatory for its legitimate openess, offers a unique opportunity for the reasonable establishing of “better villages”: pluralistic, democratic, and just. In fact, in a world in which multi-ethnicity has sourced some of the most horrific crimes committed by and against other humans, T&T could become either a commendable example to be imitated or another damnable one to avoid. Like a pregancy, there is no partial outcome that is also wholesome.
The debate on race can thus metastasize into ethnic entities which, emerging as gated communities can morph into segregated ones. Mr. Kangal’s commentary pertains to issues of race, explicitly as these apply to the police services. Impliticly, there is the proverbial elephant in the room. Everpresent and unaddressed directly. Also, before addressing this elephant’s presence, so much larger than life it is almost invisible, addressing the issue of race is always a “touchy” issue.
It is especially so where there are occasions, real or imagined, of power becoming exclusive and excluding: political, financial, communal etc., and devolving inordinately towards and/or away from one race in settings where their social relations, while closely and unavoidably connected are at best mutually strained and suspicious as to intent.
Mr. Kangal’s commentary describes the inordinate and discretionary powers of stoppage, of arrest, of life and death had by the police in order to carry out their functions of maintaining “law and order” effectively; functions needed in all countries and which have often been much abused.
However, like a keen participant in another contested melodrama, while his applause is sincere, it is unfortunately one-handed. The melodrama, with a life all its own, courses along a path of potential tragedy. Equally tragic is that on the other competing side, the applause, in my opinion if not equally so, is also one-handed.
The debate, like every other dabate on race is about something else; for racism, like sexism is always an abuse of power. Gender and race are the platforms on which such abuses occur. The police are often the arms and legs of the state and even more of the society used in such abuses.
However, T&T in its present throes is not like the US, nor Canada, nor England. Racism and police abuse there occurr(ed) on definable issues of vulnerable groups having to compete against systemic inequities for social services in education, employment, representation etc.
T&T’s challenge, and the elephant in the room, is more akin to that of Israel today, and to a lesser extent to South Africa two decades ago. Because, in addition to the inequities found in social services, there is a religious component that, unaddressed remains the cornerstone of complaints, of estrangement, and of division.
Mr. Kangal is possibly a Hindu, possibly not. If he is not, there is still a relevant question that was posed several decades ago by a man of India, a Dalit, Dr. Ambedkar who the British from guile or prudence chose to write the constitution for an India emerging as a country, independent from British control.
Dr. Ambedkar suggested that under the caste system endemic to the Varna culture in which skin colour from white to black, relatively speaking is the basis of perceived virtue or vice, Hindu scholars, while embarassed by the racism inevitable from this religious belief and practice, as occurred with Catholic priests and scholars offended by Church abuses in the 18th century, could not challenge similar abuses. In short, unlike Catholicism, Hindu believers could not produce a Voltaire, publicly challenging religious practices, inherently abusive.
Ironically, except for others better placed and who came later, it is more than likely that Indians who are Hindus were among the despised members, the Untouchables, chosen to be among those first indentured. Today, are there another set of untouchables, another religiously despised community in T&T; Black communities and peoples, who generally unaware of their low casting in this ecclesia, are also in the unique positions of control of police powers, and in a country divided by race, and once victimized by a military coup? Can the applause be both sustained and mutually appreciative?
Mr. Kangal might or might not be best placed to consider the concluding questions: can a sincere Hindu today condemn racism and colour caste premises? Can a religion explicitly premised on colour casting for its definition of virtue be both spiritual … and ethical?
Mr. Kangal might or might not be best placed to consider the concluding questions: can a sincere Hindu today condemn racism and colour caste premises? Can a religion explicitly premised on colour casting for its definition of virtue be both spiritual … and ethical?
That is the barefacedness of the whole thing. You see for people like Kangal and his ilk, that thought that black people have any majoritarian representation in any agency of power in T&T is an anathema. They want to control all aspects of power, from commerce, to communication, to the police and army. They want this leverage because their intentions, as it relates to black people is evil.
Look at what is happening in Guyana. The minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee forced a computer tech to hack into websites that are critical of the regime. Then when the man refused to go further they kidnapped and brutalized his wife. The only way they could have accomplished that was by controlling every aspect of power in Guyana, that allow them coerce and bribe house slaves into doing their bidding. Make no mistake, People like Kangal are looking at Guyana, licking their chops and speculating about replicating what obtains there in T&T. Ain’t no difficulty figuring this out.
The best police force is a diversified police force from command to control. The force must reflect the ethnic composition of the nation. It is only then the force will be respected by all.
To Khem,
I have friends of all ethinicity.
How do we do that? Should we promote those who do not have the prerequisite for the position. Integration will come over time and that is what we are seeing becuase of the migration from the farm to other fields.
You guys are playing the sympathy card and maybe looking for an excuse to approach another government for refugee status (Playing mind games because you think you smart or better). You sound just like the Police Rep Anand, who has placed the promotion board in a awkawd position because of his statement (Does he really deserve a promotion?)
Thanks for your kind thoughts. But you must have been living in Mars for the last 7 years. My friend let me remind you that there was a wave of kidnapping against Indian people just a few years ago. As we all know when lawlessness is permitted it spreads into the fabric of society and the result was murder rate skyroketted to over 500 per year under the watch of Mr. Manning.
Addittionally, the solve ratio for murder is an abysmal under 25% that means cold blooded killers are walking the street free.
It is under these conditions that it was discovered that the primary reason for cases being shelved and not solved was indeed an ethnic imbalance in the police force. These things can and must be corrected our we will have a repeat of the PNM years in the future. Further to all of this the police force must be free from political interference. It is the better for all in T&T to have promotion by meritocracy rather than race. It is clearly those doing the promotions are only of Afro descent so you get my drift. My understanding is that officers are scoring high in the test and are not being promoted and officers scoring under 50% are being promoted instead. Let us look for the sharpest minds to find and bring criminals to justice. Let us change the composition of the incompetent nincompoops doing the promotion interviews.
Khem
You used the passive voice to state that “there was a wave of kidnapping against Indian people”. Since the TTPS has an abysmal solution rate, perhaps you can tell me who was doing the kidnapping.
Now I don’t know which hat you pulled your stats from that states officers scoring under 50% are being promoted instead of the ones scoring high. Now I understand and decipher code words very well, so I know where you are coming from.
Remember that Nizam boasted about the 10 East Indian Superintendents who were writing the exam for promotion to Senior Superintendents, and how he expected a better mix.
Well the examinination was administered by Penn State University. Here is report of the results, as posted by another Newspaper:
“Those officers who scored under sixty-five percent in the written exam failed to qualify for the next exam which is scheduled for May 2 to 6. Police sources revealed yesterday that of the Ag Senior Superintendents who wrote the exam, head of the Organised Crime, Narcotics and Firearm Bureau Simon Lendore scored the highest with 88 percent, while Solomon Koon Koon and Inez Joseph tied for second 84 percent. Glen Hackett of the Port-of-Spain CID scored 83 percent while Surajdeen Persad of Special Branch and Earla Christopher from the Administration Branch scored 82 percent respectively. Stephen Ramsubhag, head of the Northern Division secured 81 percent, while Brian Headley from GEB scored 79 percent.”
You guys think that you are bright, and every body else dumb.
If that be the case , i only see One ethnic group mainly, being charged and brought before the courts,,I see 90% of one ethnic group locked up in the prisons. I am thinking aloud is this discrimination?…your argument leads me to think that if there is equality across the board in employment in the service, there will be the same sort of representation in the jails and with the matters coming before the courts.
The status quo established by the PNM post-1956 by a practice of ethno-nationalism in the public sector that is owned by the people of T&T and subject to accountability and transparency is considered to be sacred, immutable and sacrosanct. It is like the law that is the servant of the ruling elite. Change in the ethnic representation in the Police Service as well as the introduction of a policy of multiculturalism will involve the former ruling elite having to give up some of their dominance/ patronage in the interest of fairness and meritocracy but there is an unwillingness to make the public sector accessible to all citizens based on a number of flippant and bankrupt reasoning to defend the status quo even though it is unjust and reeks of discrimination in violation of both municipal and international law. The plaintiffs are being resisted and being told to stay in their ajoupas located south of the Caroni River. The plea for equality and justice and fairness is the exclusive preserve of the urban elite.
What was the representation of Indians in the Police Force prior to Independence or under the Colonial administration. Like I said, people like you are trying cast of your cultural prejudices on to black folk. You are trying to pawn the prejudice of Indian folk not wanting their sons and daughters to enroll in occupational areas where they would have to share eating and living quarters with black folks, on to black folk. It is disingenuous, but fits the pattern of the discource that emanate from fractured intellectualism.
Black folk in T&T are beginning to understand the odious deceitful pattern that inundate the thinking of you indianist. They will no longer be guilt tripped into satisfying your craving to remake T&T into a form of 18th century India with them as the dalits and you as the Brahmins. Your strategy is tired, transparent, and will not work.
About the best thing that could have happened to T&T and the Caribbean, was Nizam opening his mouth and allowing the centuries of enculterated racism flow outward, and a symbiotic emanation from his kith and kin. The genie is out of the bag. Black folk in the Caribbean must come to grips with the reality that there is a new kid on the block aspiring to assume the role of the slave master. That these new aspirants are crude and backward in their rationalization for demanding this role makes them even more dangerous than the threat we faced back in the day.
“Black folk in T&T are beginning to understand the odious deceitful pattern that inundate the thinking of you indianist”.
You don’t speak for any black folk but yourself. I think that the past informs the future. The kidnappings, murder and low crime solve ratio requires us to re-examine institutions and to make them functionally efficient. This is not a difficult process, we are talking about a few thousand people to achieve equity and to ensure that people are better treated and given the respect they deserve. We all pay taxes and there tax funded systems should reflect the nation.
It would be instructive to research the history and belief system that forms the basis for the Indian Narrative in places like T&T, Guyana, Fiji, and any society with significant African and Indian populations. That the pattern is consistent without variation throughout these places offers preponderant evidence of the inherent anti-black psyche that influence and condition this narrative. They get away with it because we are too squeamish to analyze it within a historical context.
The Indian narrative in T&T is tailored to suggest that the segment of the Population that arrived in T&T with centuries of learned behaviours and attitudes about race and color is not racist, but another segment absent that kind of history, and who have historically, and for centuries been the victims of this kind of prejudice from every other group in this world, are the ones who introduced this neanderthal view of the world to our sacred land. We must not let those who use this ethnic ego masturbatory strategy to get away with it.
We do not have to hate people in order to challenge their disguised anti-black antipathy with evidence that there is a larger bean in their eyes than there is in ours, and if they wish to examine prejudice in T%T it must start with how it got here. For too long we have been allowing the Khems, the Kangals, the Sat Maharajs, to place us on guilt trips with their warped and one sided analysis on why there is black dominance in certain public service areas. It is an insidious gambit designed to obfuscate the anti-African prejudice that caused many Indian parents to dissuade their kids from enrolling in occupational areas in T&T that enforce communal lodging and boarding. The question is, how come they were not enrolling in those areas when a colonial regime was in power?
http://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?p=dalits+the+black+untouchables+of+india
Keith said “It is an insidious gambit designed to obfuscate the anti-African prejudice that caused many Indian parents to dissuade their kids from enrolling in occupational areas in T&T that enforce communal lodging and boarding”
Keith my neighbour applied to go to Chatam youth camp some years ago. He went there along with a few Indians. They had long distance running race and various competitions. He came first in running race. The black kids who were there could not understand how a lil indian boy could beat them. They gang up against him and he put a trashing on a few of them. A soldier grab him and few Indians put them in room and said to them “all yuh indians…..”. He left the camp after that encounter. The institutions you are speaking about was bias towards other ethnicities. That is why Indo parents were hesitant to send their children to these camps. By the way the young man was a well condition athlete with a black belt under his name.
Fuh ah “black belt” he still get his ass cut? He should’nt be a Policeman he will ONLY take bribes.
Khem yuh is ah good liar! I was in Q.R.C cadets and it had a few Indians one was even an NCO, I don’t recall ANY afros making a fuss about that.
Keith, I agree with you that Nazim, in his brazen and unabridged accusations and demands has done an enourmous amount of good for Black consciousness, and done it even better for doing it inadvertently.
In almost no other historical context except that of Columbus first meeting the Ciboney hass there been so much of a superior complex been foisted on a relatively unsuspecting indigenous community.
As a boy, many were the times we were called “rawn” without taking offense because, not knowing the true meaning of the despicable term, we took it to simply be a term applicable to Indians and not to ourselves.
Many of us beat drums during Hosay, and placidly accepted Diwali without even knowing nor understanding the wide racial skin colour context this story of the Ramayana implied.
Neither did we question the legitimacy of Indians having such cultural iconography in our midst without attributing any cultural anomalies to ourselves.
Many were the times our parents wrote letters on their behalf because they weren’t sufficiently skilled to do so for themselves.
Also, among the first teachsrs, dedicated teachers of Indian school children because they like us couldn’t enter QRC, Saints and other race and class-segregated secondary schools, were Black principals like Mr. Holder of Progressive, Mr. Murray of Osmond High School, Immanuels in Barataria, Ideal in POS all of whom took in all students and taught them regardless of race.
At no period in the life of Black Trinis did Indians ever do, or have to return the favour.
Also, how many Indians are alive today because Black mothers nursed Indian new-born babies after their mothers died? When have Indian mothers done likewise for Black babies?
Today, the children and grandchildren of these survivors now consider Black people as anathema.
They get away with that because too many Black people still live in an Alice In Wonderland world of one-sided race relations, prepared to give a lot and take in return, as much abuse as can be dished out, and without any need for subtlety.
This situation has already been resolved by Indians. They will take the whole hog and insist in also being compensated.
It is still to be resolved by Black people and if history is a guide, and Guyana, Fiji, Uganda, East Africa, South Africa, India and other places where Black people have been indigenous, Black people in T&T must either break the mold, or fall prey to a past of servitude and marginalisation.
http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/caste.html
Black people, is your skin white or black or brown Khem? You guys live in a false sense of being, the practices that were used by your own to make you feel inferior, lesser or divide your sick society, you are trying to now subject on Africans – You will never prevail as we are resilient and know who we are – A child of The Almighty. Not until you realize that you are black or brown will you be free, where in the world will you go and they do not call you an Indian or black – emancipate yourself from your own as they made you a servant of their deception – Poor You
The kidnappings in Trinidad was driven by your own against all those who were laundering money or part of Dole’s empire, why else were you so hasty to get rid of him. You people are so pathetic. Hopefully one day you will see yourself for what you are, beside the straight hair you are black or brown or do not belong my friend!!!!!!!
Dready wrote “The kidnappings in Trinidad was driven by your own against all those who were laundering money or part of Dole’s empire, why else were you so hasty to get rid of him.”
Dready you have to stay off the herbs bro. You obviously have too much of that stuff. If you remember clearly Dready, Dole was exceuted during the time the UNC was in government.
Kidnappings started under Papa Manning. When he said “historical imbalances” must be corrected. Code word to steal from Indians. People like you like to write a set of stupidness and waste time in your diatribe rant.
Keith my neighbour applied to go to Chatam youth camp some years ago. He went there along with a few Indians. They had long distance running race and various competitions. He came first in running race. The black kids who were there could not understand how a lil indian boy could beat them. They gang up against him and he put a trashing on a few of them. A soldier grab him and few Indians put them in room and said to them “all yuh indians…..”. He left the camp after that encounter. The institutions you are speaking about was bias towards other ethnicities. That is why Indo parents were hesitant to send their children to these camps. By the way the young man was a well condition athlete with a black belt under his name
Please, I have heard this anectdote, albeit with some variation, in every theatre where this kind of discussion takes place. Really!! I could relate a story about a letter shown to me by an Indian Collegue while under the influence of alcohol and berating us about his Indian superiority and our permanent inferiority as an ethnic species. The letter was from his sister, and it included among other disparaging remarks about black people, “how are the black dogs? Do you still have to sleep and mess with them”? ( Referring to our communial sleeping and messing arrangements). “I could not do that”. I posted a BBC link sometime back where Guyanese Indians were describing their fellow African Guyanese in the same context.
Like I said, it is deliberate strategy being employed to obfuscate cultural practises and beliefs by many Indians in societies they inhabit with Africans. The aim is to control and dominate, and to do that they have to invoke these Freudian displacement mechanisms in order to rationalize their antipathy for anything black.
I will argue and present historical evidence that racism is a product of culturally inherited belief systems that one group is superior to another merely because of the indident of birth. The groups in this world with these cultural historical psychological baggages are the ones responsible for infusing racial prejudice into the societies they immigrate to or conquer. The traite is certainly not group enfolding. That is to say, it does not represent the attidues of everyone in those groups, and Barak Obama’s election to the Presidency of the US is one example of this. However, it is always more prevalent among those in the political sphere, and their punditting sycophants who use it as vehicle to achieve that holy grail of gratification. Of final social stratification that define status according to the their interpretation of their scriptures, their historical cultural measurements of human worth.
The Tea Party rising is not only occuring in the US. It actually began in the Caribbean where brown Donald Trumps and Glen Becks scream about fairness and discrimination from a position where there group dominate more spheres of the power and economic structures than the targets of their antipathy. But like I said, the battle lines have been drawn.
I do not agree that the race talk should stop. That only allows it remain a social affliction, like a festering sore, seeping puss and inflamation into the society. It needs to be ventilated, analyzed, examined, with no sacred cows being protected from such examination. Where did the race issue originate in T&T? Where the hell did it come into our world, and how does t factor into our thinking and perceptions? What are our belief systems, and how do they impact on our views of each other? Locking the stable now after Nizam has opened the gate is stupid. Let us examine ethnic dominance at every level,and if balancing is recommended, then let their mechanisms to invoke balance at every sphere of economic opportunity.
Williams said “I do not agree that the race talk should stop. That only allows it remain a social affliction, like a festering sore, seeping puss and inflamation into the society. It needs to be ventilated, analyzed, examined, with no sacred cows being protected from such examination. Where did the race issue originate in T&T..”
Point taken but does the nation have the level of maturity to discuss these things without the needless emotional baggage it carries with it? For instance I said balancing the police force is good for the future of the nation. Without an examination of my suggestion I was call racist. I really don’t see what it have to do with racism. In study after study pluralistic societies have to follow a pathway of inclusion to avoid situation such as Kosovo, Rwanda, Shri Lanka, Fiji or Guyana. Once one group dominates the other group feels alienated and excluded from the mainstream of society.
I was talking to a Shri Lankan friend and I said to him for twenty years you fought a war against the Sinalese. You both look the same just different language and religion. He looked at me and said one reason for that war “lack of equal treatment”. The British left and the Sinalese took over the government and began a program of systematic exclusion of Tamils (sounds familiar). Instead of sitting back they took weapons and engage in a blood bath that lasted over 20 years. Why did the Sinhalese government at the time not put in place a policy of inclusion?
People simply want to be respected and told to go sit at the back of the bus…
If you talk to a Sinhalese they would tell you that the Dutch elevated the Tamil minority to key posts and positions in government; same thing done by the Belgians in the Congo; elevating the Tutsis into the key positions and leaving the majority Hutus out. This created genocides in several countries after the colonizers departed. Who in T&T are the neglected and marginalised?
Dear Khem,
Why do you think the UNC was quick to kill him? Because of the hold or information he had on the Indian community. And after he was murdered UNC lost elections.
You are not very bright or blinded by your misconception of who you are – A person institutionalised by religion who cannot think for themself because of where you fall in the Indian Spectrum. You like Nizam talking out of time, when you are just suppose to take instructions. Emancipate yourself Friend!!!!!!!!!!!!
Simple reason to get rid of Nizam. Fix trinis had petition out on him. His contact and behaviour with the police was an outstanding issue. It is just that his utterances in Parliament simply provided fuel to the fire already burning. He was misquoted by the newspaper and given the short end of stick in the Express headlines. So he became the safricial lamb…
Dear All,
I apologize for the ranting and attack against another race, as they are not all bad. I am not of this mettle and will discontinue as this type of discourse can only poison the soul and mind, as well as perpetuate hatred
I will not let a few destroy my love for MY NATION of TRINIDAD and TOBAGO = You will fade away shortly!!
Dready, you have come by your sentiments legitimately.
TMan
April 23, 2011 at 1:42 pm
The people of T&T are handling this race debate much better than the political figures.
If letters to the editor, calls to talk shows, and listening to the man on the street are used as measures,then one should conclude that the people of T&T are handling this debate in a mature, literate and tolerant manner.
The races are already living in harmony and people fully understand the historical significance of the composition of the Police force.In addition, people are willing to address imbalances in an orderly and reasonable matter.
Let us beware of politicians who are very willing to use this race issue to shore up their narrow support base.
Most foreign police forces monitor the ethnic balace in their forces to reflect the composition of the communities which they serve.As a matter of fact, they periodically publish these statistics and often target certain ethnicities and genders for recruitment, using explicit ads.
Commissioner Gibbs should be fully aware of this, since the RCMP is an excellent example of a force which has institutionalized this practice of counting heads.
History and culture have been the main agents responsible for the composition of the T&T police force and Army.As certain ethnicities become more acculturalized in T&T,the expectation is that they will want to participate fully in the society and its institutions. Nothing is wrong with that.
Reply
Point taken but does the nation have the level of maturity to discuss these things without the needless emotional baggage it carries with it? For instance I said balancing the police force is good for the future of the nation. Without an examination of my suggestion I was call racist. I really don’t see what it have to do with racism. In study after study pluralistic societies have to follow a pathway of inclusion to avoid situation such as Kosovo, Rwanda, Shri Lanka, Fiji or Guyana. Once one group dominates the other group feels alienated and excluded from the mainstream of society.
Of course it is a prejudiced statement, and the fact that you cannot recognize that corroborates what I have been saying all along. That the prejudice that informs your narrative is so concretized that nuances in situations others with objectivity can discenr flies over your head, or is unable to penetrate that ethnic prism of privilege through which you espy the T&T.
The Public Service is not the only imbalanced economic niche in T&T. You and Nizam and the other ethnic triumphalists are in effect arguing that the only economic niche that needs an infusion of balance is the one where Africans are predominant. Ergo, allow Indians to maintain their dominance in other economic niches while depleting the one where Africans are predominant.
All spheres of employment in T&T happen nto be economic niches through which segments of the population rise into the middle class, provide for their families, earn a livlihood. The numbers in those areas are elective, a matter of choice. The percentage of Indians in the public service was not greater under colonial rule than it is today.
Like I said, it is no coincidence that this pattern of thinking happen to coincide with what comes out of Guyana. But I blame my fellow Africans for it. We tend to sit by and allow people to get away with cockanamy logic weighted on one side without calling them on it and interpreting it for what it is. So this idea that the only imbalanced occupational sphere that is damaging to T&T happen to be those in which Africans are a majority, and where most of them earn their livlihoods has to be sen for what it is. A deceitful aqnd odious attempt to expand the econmic and social power of Indians, while depleting that of Africans. Give me a break!!
You guys need to stop believing the myth and stereotype you share with the slave masters that we lack the ability think and see through the maze of deceit that inundate your postulations. The truth is we are too damn diplomatic and tolerant of this crap, and it is time that we draw a clear and defined line.
I would implore African Trinis, and indeed Africans in this Caribbean and South American Region to become acutely conscious of the snake like slithering reasoning that informs this narrative we see emananating from some Indians. We need to examine them and understand them for what they imply.
It is akin to two kids going into their parents farm to gather fruits. One selects 10 oranges and 4 apples, while the other selects 10 apples and 4 oranges. When they reach home and the parents examine what they have they decided that one kid had too many of one fruit and it needs to balanced out. However the method of balance they recommend is to take to take 6 of the oranges from the kid who had a majority of that fruit and give to the other more favoured kid, thereby creating a greater imbalance with the favoured kid ending up with 20 fruits and the less favoured with 8.
Thou mayest attempt to conceal thy deceit by cunning art, but open eyes and simple examination easily discern the odious pattern of thy reasoning. Bantu Stephen Biko opined that The basic tenet of black consciousness is that the black man must reject all value systems that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic human dignity.. African Trinidadians must consciously reject this narrative that seeks to impose a value system in T&T that will stratify him into Dalit status in a nation where the blood sweat and tears of his enslaved ancestors is still moist on the ground.
well said my brother in whom i am pleased
There is a sense of desperate urgency eminating from people like Keith, Kian et all on this website, which is not representative of the reality on the ground in T&T.
Those who live, breathe and interact in T&T do not share the same nostalgic, desperate and unreasonable loss which these bloggers seem to lament endlessly.
The situation in T&T is not as critical and hopeless as these race merchants would like you to believe.
People interact, live, party, and carry on with their lives with a sense of confidence and security in the future of T&T.
Sure, there is a certain sector of Port Of Spain PNMites who are disappointed and feeling disenfranchised, but the Party is rebuilding.
T&T is a thriving democracy.This is not going to change in the near future.In spite of the desperate attempts of “journalists” like Raffique to bring themselves back into the spotlight with ramblings of the full circle of racism, T&T and its people are managing quite well.
The Media of T&T are in the business of selling. They sensationalise. They exaggerate. They create with the intention of inventing controversy. Their headlines are often inflammatory,misleading.They imitate institutions lke Fox News.
But in spit of all this,the reality is that the people will not be fooled or misguided. This is a reality which is not understood by expats who spend a disordinate amount of time blogging on sites like this one without of a full understanding of what is actually happening in T&T.
Ther are also a number of “intellectual” contributors who have their own axe to grind. They are Afrocentrists or Indocentrists who continue to push a theoretical agenda which is far removed from reality. Their “Dalit” and other textbook theories reflect a complete and total misunderstanding of life in T&T.