Tony DeyalMAHATMA GANDHI, the Indian statesman and political leader who led India's struggle for independence with campaigns of civil disobedience or passive resistance against the British, was giving a lecture to a select gathering of very rich men (maharajahs). He exhorted them to give up their money and possessions and take up a life of poverty and simplicity.
One by one his distinguished audience left quietly, almost surreptitiously, until there was nobody left except (as Gandhi later said), "God, the chairman and myself." After another few minutes the chairman himself melted away.
"Poor fellow," observed Gandhi, "he must have been very uncomfortable in that strange company."
A lot of Trinidadians are also uncomfortable these days, mainly because of the political deadlock and the most recent call for a campaign of civil disobedience by the Political Leader of the United National Congress, Basdeo (Bas) Panday.
The disobedience part is something with which we are quite familiar and in which we have developed considerable expertise, enough to export, judging by the number of deportees that return daily for refresher courses. Most of our new houses are built, and most existing houses are modified, without the permission of the authorities. We have a record number of people, squatters, who grabbed huge chunks of state and private lands and, as a reward for their disregard of property rights, now have title for lands obtained by theft. We break red lights, use private vehicles for public conveyance at a fee (and at the risk of life and life insurance), cheat on income taxes, and generally break all the laws of the land with impunity. Drug usage is up.
In our schools, discipline is declining and all forms of disobedience, including armed assault and murder, are increasing. On the roads, the rate of injuries and deaths is extremely high. The one thing that we don't have to worry too much about is crime in the streets. Our criminals make house calls. The Emergency Police (E999) service has a three-week waiting list. While entry into any other profession requires certification and contacts, crime is an equal opportunity employer. Its waiting list, swollen by the number of young people without jobs, opportunities or hope, is even longer than that of the E999 and getting even longer every year.
Where we have a problem is in the "civil" part of the "civil disobedience". In fact, as far as Trinidad is concerned, the phrase "civil disobedience" is an oxymoron even more illustrative of opposites than "living death", "police service", "military intelligence", "jumbo shrimp" and "truthful politician". Incivility, like disobedience, is up and soaring to higher heights. The driver who cuts-in sharply causing you to have to brake, swerve, stop or run-off-the-road is not content unless he, or she, complements the misdeed with language relating to your ancestry, maternal organ for the propagation of the species or the act of propagation itself. Some go beyond verbal intimidation and actually injure or kill. Not for us, silent vigils and sit-down strikes. We must sing, shout and threaten, call names and curse. Language is a much used instrument of assault and insult in this country of departing manners, courtesy and civility.
LLOYD BEST
Some of it is bravado, also an integral part of our national personality. During the "revolution" of 1970, I was chairman of Canada Hall in the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad. Following the declaration of a State of Emergency, the highly-respected economist and lecturer, Lloyd Best, summoned a meeting on campus, attended by several people interested in Lloyd's views which, while always illuminating, are also generally entertaining. Brinsley Samaroo, later a Government Minister, was there. So, too, Patrick Emmanuel, Syl Lowhar and Dr. Bill Riviere, soon to be imprisoned without any explanation. I think Augustus Ramrekharsingh, later a PNM Minister, and Dennis Solomon were also there.
(Lloyd has since taken offence to my calling him a "gadfly" of local politics. But in my world of "and" instead of "either-or", Lloyd is both a gadfly, stinging us into action, and our unofficial conscience. He is Jiminy Cricket as well as Paul Revere).
Lloyd proposed, and we agreed, that we would together form and become "The Non-Violent Committee for the Defence of Democratic Freedoms." Lloyd used to drive a Volkswagen in those days and, mounted on the top of the car, were two horn-speakers that he used for his political activities. Typical of Lloyd, even though the use of such speakers was prohibited during the emergency, he left them on the car as much for provocation as protest.
So there we were, gathered in conference, waiting for our leader who was uncharacteristically late. There being no classes in progress, we were in a classroom on the ground floor that we had commandeered. Suddenly, we heard the fierce screeching of brakes and grinding of gravel beneath furiously turning wheels. Lloyd shot out of the car into the meeting. He explained angrily that he had been detained by the Head of Security with questions about the loudspeakers. Raising his voice, he said determinedly, "The next time he try that I will cuff him down." It is not that Lloyd either meant it or would have done it. It is just the way we are in Trini-land.
The fact that we are facing laws that we created, or to which we tacitly agreed, for the conduct of our affairs is not the point. Or that the Manning Government is not a foreign power imposed on us through the use of force. The core of our problem is that each of us is an oxymoron that makes civil disobedience impossible.
Tony Deyal was last seen staring at a man driving a Honda who broke a red light. It was a case of Civic disobedience.
