A letter from a legendary writer - Merle Hodge on the PNM's rally

Every Trinbagonian child has had an encounter with the work of Merle Hodge. Her notorious book Crick, Crack Monkey is a permanent fixture in the childhood memories of people throughout our country. We were extremely happy to find a letter from Merle in the recent newspapers. Her letter brought tears of relief to our eyes. We no longer needed to write our commentary about the ridiculous behaviour of the PNM leaders on September 12th 2008 during the Motion of No Confidence against Prime Minister Patrick Manning, or our grief at the way the PNM continues to use and abuse those poor destitute Cepep and URP workers for their demented political whims. She eloquently said everything we wanted to convey, and so here is the letter by our legendary writer Merle Hodge. She truly is one of Trinidad's great thinkers, one of our great leaders.

Govt cannot be trusted after Friday’s PNM rally

.

How can we ever again trust anything that comes out of the mouths of those who govern us? What confidence can we now place in their utterances? 

For days we had government ministers and high public officials looking us in the eye and denying that there was a mass event planned for Woodford Square, Port-of-Spain, on September 12. 

One minister swore blind that it was a “spontaneous” response from PNM supporters, angry that their leader was under attack. It was the same minister who swore blind for weeks that there was no dengue outbreak. 

How edifying this has been for our young people, especially the members of the PNM Youth League who might have been directly involved in the mobilisation taking place for three weeks before the event—the printing and distribution of jerseys, flags and banners; the expensive structures going up in Woodford Square; then on the day, the Prime Minister stepping out of the Parliament, wearing a Bible, to hype up the non-existent rally.

 How inspired our children must be when they match up all of this with the bare-faced denials of significant public figures.

 Officials in charge of giving permission for mass public demonstrations, and for the use of Woodford Square, could not remember any application for a PNM rally to be held in the square that day.

 So now any group can spontaneously do its thing in the square, on any day of the year, including Fridays when Parliament is sitting, without asking anybody’s permission. If the ruling party could break the law, who is we?

 Then the Cepep and URP workers who, innocently, in front of television cameras, spoke the truth—that they had been ordered to come to the square, and would be paid for the day.

 No wonder the Government is not interested in any ideas about developing sustainable employment.

Unstable, off-and-on employment, doled out as patronage, allows you to keep people on a short tether, beholden to you for their precarious livelihood.

Then you can call them up whenever you need a show of force to deal with those who don’t agree with you. This is the way to build a private army of potential Tonton (and Tantan) Macoutes.

 Nobody won in that vote of confidence exercise.

 The opposition lost, as it fully expected to, inside the Parliament.

 Across the road, with the spectacle in the square after days of strong denial, the ruling party lost the respect of even more citizens, including some PNM supporters.

 But the biggest loser is the country. The “little rivers” spoken of by ANR Robinson have become a mighty dirty flood, and we are drowning in it, sinking lower and lower.

 Merle Hodge, St Augustine