Posting this notice circulated this morning on Facebook by the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT, when are you going to get yourselves a proper, public-facing web site?). A copy of the document in question can be viewed here. I urge others to publicise this matter widely:

"Wesley Gibbings, president of the ACM [Association of Caribbean Media Workers], says:

This is to advise of the imminent introduction of a Model Professional Services Bill to Caricom member states which calls for, among other things, the registration and licensing of media workers.

The bill is meant to 'regularise' and harmonise standards among professionals in a wide range of categories under the ambit of the CSME.

The subject was raised at a CSME workshop in St Lucia on October 12 by Caricom officials.

I have already advised that this matter is not subject to negotiation. It is a well-established fact that the licensing of journalists constitutes an outright threat to freedom of the press and other rights. There is also a growing body of international judicial precedents which determines its unlawful nature.

We will be mobilising international support for the campaign."

As many of you know, I work for Global Voices, so I have a vested interest in following the instructions that Solana posted here. But I also believe passionately in the work being done by Global Voices Advocacy (GVA), the section of our organisation that seeks to defend free speech online.

While Trinidad and Tobago’s press freedom record pales in comparison with that of many of the countries which feature regularly in GVA’s pages, recent events in this country suggest that we shouldn’t be taking this freedom for granted. In November of last year, the Hon. Patrick Manning, prime minister of this nation, paid a visit to a radio station that resulted in the suspension of two commentators who had said things on air he didn’t like. And yesterday the news broke that Kevin Baldeosingh, a columnist at the Newsday, one of the country’s three dailies, was dismissed from his job at the paper, allegedly on account of a letter, published in the Trinidad Express on May 7, in which he exposed a Catholic priest as a plagiarist. A Catholic priest, moreover, who had just been appointed by the President to lead the Trinidad and Tobago’s Integrity Commission.

That the priest in question admitted his sins and stepped down (recalling, in the process, that the church’s Canon Law would have prohibited him from accepting the position anyway) thereby validating Baldeosingh’s claims, appears to be immaterial to the powers (Newsday alone? Newsday egged on by other parties? Who?) who are now attempting to silence him. The more important point, however, is that Baldeosingh was dismissed from his job for doing—regardless of where he happened to be doing it—what journalists are supposed to do, i.e. investigate a matter of public interest and present the information to the public. I imagine that Baldeosingh would have preferred to publish the information in his own paper and earn money in the process, rather than in a rival publication’s Letters to the Editor section; I also imagine that there must be a good reason he did not do so.

There are numerous writings on freedom of expressions from which I could insert an excerpt here, but I’ll quote from the one I happen to be engaged with at the moment—Burn This Book: PEN Writers Speak Out on the Power of the Word, portions of which I’ve been receiving in installments from the ingenious DailyLit, yet another one of my daily obstacles to personal productivity that nevertheless enrich my life. This is from the essay by Toni Morrison, who is also the book’s editor, though the emphasis is mine:

We all know nations that can be identified by the flight of writers from their shores. These are regimes whose fear of unmonitored writing is justified because truth is trouble. It is trouble for the warmonger, the torturer, the corporate thief, the political hack, the corrupt justice system, and for a comatose public. Unpersecuted, unjailed, unharassed writers are trouble for the ignorant bully, the sly racist, and the predators feeding off the world’s resources. The alarm, the disquiet, writers raise is instructive because it is open and vulnerable, because if unpoliced it is threatening. Therefore the historical suppression of writers is the earliest harbinger of the steady peeling away of additional rights and liberties that will follow.

And now for the obligatory line, as per Solana’s post: I vote for Global Voices Advocacy, because freedom of expression, online and elsewhere, is a right that we often value insufficiently until it’s taken away from us.

Write your own post supporting Global Voices Advocacy (or your charity of choice) by following the instructions at http://www.zemanta.com/bloggingforacause/.

This blog post is part of Zemanta’s “Blogging For a Cause” (http://www.zemanta.com/bloggingforacause/) campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about. 
 

“So long as we can call (sic) get fired, Radio will never be free.”

So went the anonymous e-mail message I received last night. Did the sender of this message so desperately need to vent his/her feelings about Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s visit to radio station 94.1 FM that any Trinidad and Tobago-identified entity with the word “radio” in its name sufficed as a target? Or could it be that he/she thinks CFR is a radio station? Or perhaps a warning that I should expect a visit from the PM some time soon?

I’m also wondering what, apart from temporary stress-relief, this person expected to achieve by sending me the message, and, moreover, in a manner (ie via anonymous remailer) that did not permit me to respond, or, even better, enter into dialogue with him/her. Unless he knew I would write this blog post, which, given my recent record, would be way against the odds.

But I agree that the day a Prime Minister pays a visit to a media company that results–either directly or indirectly–in two people being suspended from their jobs, is a sombre day indeed for those who work in what has come to be known as the mainstream media. And when that same Prime Minister declares, in a post-Cabinet news conference, that he was well within his rights to visit the radio station, denies any connection between his visit to the station and the suspension of the employees, announces his intention to sue the TNT Mirror for their report on the incident, asserts his right to “sue any media house whose reporting aggrieves him” and to “visit any offending media house ‘as the spirit moves [him]‘”, who can blame the citizens of the country for feeling that freedom of expression–indeed, democracy–in Trinidad and Tobago is under serious threat?

For those unfamiliar with the details of the radio station visit, here’s the version of the story circulated by the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT):

MATT received reports of an incident involving Prime Minister Patrick Manning at the Abercromby Street, Port of Spain, offices of Power 102 and 94.1 FM.

The association contacted the station’s Vice-President of Operations O’Brien Haynes, who confirmed the Prime Minister had visited the station on October 25 to express his displeasure at the contents of the station’s 12:25 pm newscast. He described the Prime Minister’s demeanour as calm and cool.

Mr Haynes said the Prime Minister expressed concerns about crosstalk during the newscast on statements he made at Thick Village with regard to the increase in the price of premium gas and drivers converting from diesel to CNG.

The Vice-President said after an internal investigation it was agreed by management at the station that a newscaster and presenter were in breach of programming protocol. Mr Haynes added the employees were suspended.

Perhaps even more offensive than his threats are Mr. Manning’s efforts to shroud the clearly personal reasons for his beef with the media in the sheep’s clothing of officialdom. “Too many of the commentators either in the newspapers or on the radio do not respect our institutions,” he is reported as saying. “It is a question of being disrespectful to institutions and authority and pursuing a course of action that can cause the image of these institutions and individuals to be tarnished in the minds of those in whose interest they are set up to serve. And therefore they can become completely ineffective.”

Which I take to mean that our “institutions” are so feeble as to be rendered ineffective by the fact that the public thinks they’re not doing their job. And of course the reason the public thinks this they’re not doing their job is solely because the media tells them so, not because members of the public have dealings with these institutions and draw conclusions themselves. In addition to the impending suspension of our right to freedom of expression, should I also be bracing myself for the announcement that thoughtcrime has been added to the list of criminal offenses? Now there’s something that would aggrieve me.

People finding themselves in Mr. Manning’s situation are also fond of falling back on the old line about rights not being absolute. “They exist,” he said yesterday, “to the extent that they don’t encroach upon the rights of others, and if my rights are trampled in that process then I too have redress under the law.” Today MATT issued the following press release in response to the comments made by the Prime Minister in yesterday’s post-cabinet meeting, reminding us what those rights are:

Freedom of speech is enshrined in Section 4 of the Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago. The Media Association takes this opportunity to remind its members and all members of the population that we have a responsibility and right to comment on the actions of public officials and issues of national importance.

While we agree Mr. Patrick Manning has the same rights as any other citizen, a prime minister has greater power, which should be exercised in the public interest, with due care and responsibility.

MATT notes it is not the first time, nor will it be the last time, a prime minister has taken issue with a media house. Mr. Manning has every right to consult his lawyers whenever he feels aggrieved.

The association notes that in the Privy Council’s 1936 ruling in the Ambard case, Lord Atkin said, “The path of criticism is an open way: the wrongheaded are permitted to err therein.”

With regard to the Prime Minister’s statement that “expecting redress from the media is asking too much,” MATT begs to differ. Individual media houses have mechanisms for dealing with such matters and members of the public are also free to ask the Media Complaints Council to intervene if they are not satisfied.

MATT maintains its position that the Prime Minister’s visit to 94.1fm was inappropriate and unnecessary.

Well done, MATT. But let us keep talking about this. Let us not take this sitting down. Let the media also harness its power to help the citizens of this 46 year-old quasi-democracy internalise the idea that the right to free speech is as precious as the right to wine, and that it is in fact a “gateway” right to other critical rights.

Mr. Manning is also free to visit Caribbean Free Radio at any time the spirit moves him.

As every news story about the world’s fascination with the 2008 US election race has reminded us, US politics have an effect that reaches far beyond that country’s borders. That’s something, however, of which we in the Caribbean region—where remittances from the US-based diaspora form a significant percentage of several territories’ GDP and skyrocketing crime rates are attributed (partly) to deportees from US prisons—need few reminders.

One web site I’ve been checking regularly for information on this year’s US election race is Voices without Votes. I checked in at the site after After Barack Obama announced his choice of Joe Biden as a running mate and also after Michelle Obama’s speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Today and tomorrow, I’ll be keeping an eye on Voices without Votes to get the buzz on the speeches by Hillary and Bill Clinton, and next week I’ll be following the commentary there about the Republican National Convention. And yes, I, too, was wondering what had got into reggaeton star Daddy Yankee, so was interested to hear what his compatriots thought about his endorsement of John McCain.

Commissioned by Thomson Reuters, one of Global Voices‘ long-standing sponsors, and run by a team of Global Voices contributors and friends headed by Bahraini Amira Al-Hussaini, Voices without Votes tracks what bloggers the world over (including the Caribbean) are saying about this election race that has so transfixed the world, providing a critical counterpoint to the reporting in the mainstream media.

Visit Voices without Votes at http://voiceswithoutvotes.org/.

From an allAfrica.com article challenging the “tribe-centric” analysis of the current situation in Kenya (link via Ethan):

". . . many analysts have long argued that "tribe" is particularly pernicious in diverting attention from the structural and immediate causes of violence by attributing it to supposedly immutable and irrational divisions."

Just as the term “gang-related” seems to be doing in discussions about crime in Trinidad?

Technorati Tags: trinidad, caribbean, crime

So the new cabinet has been announced (congrats to Campaign41 for getting the information online in record time, ie yesterday afternoon). A few of the appointments make me downright queasy and I have to admit that I’m tired of men like Manning boasting about how many appointments he’s given to women, as though this is some kind of magnanimous act (and especially when one of the women is his wife).

Finding myself agreeing with the activist quoted this morning in the Express, who said that, with the exception of Attorney General Bridget Annisette George (whom I cannot say I know much about), “none of them have shown any sympathy, empathy, indication or understanding of what is required or expected of women in those positions. . . . The fact that the Prime Minister chose them is a strike against them.”

I’m willing to wait and see whether some of the appointees — female and otherwise — of whom I have such low expectations surprise me and learn the meaning of the term “gender policy” and why such might be necessary in a country where issues like reproductive rights remain at the bottom of the agenda. But I ain’t holding my breath.

Technorati Tags: trinidadandtobago, trinidad, caribbean, politics, government

A person I know called a while ago to enquire about the mood in the neighbourhood following the results of yesterday’s election. I told him it was hard to tell, as this isn’t the kind of area where you necessarily know what’s going on behind closed doors. We went on to discuss why Prime Minister Manning is choosing to break with tradition and hold the swearing-in session in Woodford Square instead of the President’s House.

Apart from rather obvious desire to co-opt the Square’s historic allure, even if the President’s House remains unfit for ceremonial purposes, we wondered, why not hold the event in the new Diplomatic Centre, where the National Awards were held back in August? Could there be something in the Diplomatic Centre the Honourable Prime Minister doesn’t wish us to see? “You mean like a throne?” said my acquaintance.

It’s people like this who have this country in such a state.

It turns out that 12pm was the perfect time to go and cast one’s vote at polling station 0136 (known as the Diego Martin Junior Secondary School when it’s not election day). A parking spot awaited me in the schoolyard, in the shade of a mango tree, and apart from a handful of voters and a number of my COP activist neighbours roving the dingy corridors and walkways in between shifts as polling agents, the place was deserted. After visiting a main classroom where an Elections and Boundaries Commission officer checked to make sure my name was on the list, I was directed to the room for voters with surnames beginning with L-Z, where where voters with and without ID cards were separated into lines demarcated by strips of red and green paper stuck on the floor.

A certified “without” (I deliberately misplaced my ID card some years ago, largely on account of the horrifying photo), I took the red line. Once there, I proffered my passport and the polling card I’d received in the mail. The officer consulted the electoral list and drew a red line through my name, then rifled through a massive ledger and found a blue card with my registration info and a copy of the dreadful photo (now thankfully faded) from my lost ID card stuck to it. (I hope a copy of information in this ledger is stored on a computer somewhere.) Then the officer made me swear that I wasn’t lying about being unable to produce an ID card and that I hadn’t sold it, after which I had to sign a note confirming same. Then my name and consecutive number (198, for the record) were announced, mainly for the benefit of the two polling agents present (one of whom was probably COP and the other PNM–the UNC Alliance probably not bothering to waste further resources in this constituency), whose task is to try and figure out who I’m likely to be voting for.

Then I moved on to the voting officer, who signed and handed me my ballot paper and showed me how to fold it and to use the “X” stamp. Then I went behind a screen propped up on a school desk, considered briefly whether to inaugurate Jeremy’s proposed plan for proportional representation by putting a percentage instead of an “X” next to the name of my candidate of choice, but decided on the “X” instead. Then I inserted my ballot through a slot into a padlocked metal box, dipped my finger into a pot of red ink, wiped off the excess, and left the room. So I’ve exercised my constitutional right, as the people like to say.

All morning the words to Bally’s “Party Time“, one of the undisputed hits of the 1986 election season, have been ringing in my head; belatedly, I know, as yesterday marked the end of the mindless and particularly Trinidadian brand of campaigning that Bally parodies in his calypso and which seems to have been taken to unprecedented heights this year. And of course I’m remembering 1986, the first and only time I ever felt deeply involved in an election campaign, not to mention hopeful about the outcome. That year my neighbourhood threw their support, predictably, behind the NAR, and I, not long back from university abroad, joined in. I spent most of that election day either at the polling station (I was a polling agent) or at the house up the street which had been designated NAR activist headquarters, getting high on the buzz.

The NAR won 33 out of 36 seats, of course, and swept into power on a tremendous tide of goodwill. Who knew then that, a mere three and a half years later, I’d be sitting in traffic on a highway in northern California (having left Trinidad only five days earlier) and hear an announcement over National Public Radio about a coup in Trinidad and Tobago. A journalist friend of mine says that when she hears the calypso “Vote Dem Out”, the campaign song that rocked the worlds of NAR supporters in 1986, chills still run up her spine–though not for quite the same reasons they did in 1986.

I envy my COP activist neighbours, some of whom were key figures in the NAR frenzy of 21 years ago, their commitment and passion and the sense of hope they’ve clearly been able to muster about the outcome of this year’s election. But try as I might, I can’t share in it.

Tonight I’ll be getting together with a few friends here at home to watch the election results. We’ll order some food, and Jonty is poised to grab a few bottles of wine once the polls close and the prohibition against the sale of alcohol during polling time is lifted. Nikipedia says he may blog, but we (or rather I) have warned him that relative sociability is one of the requirements for being a part of this lime. We probably won’t make it a very late night. J9 has to be up early for a shoot tomorrow, and in any case we’ll probably all drink more than we should. Then wake up tomorrow and face the music.

After repeated requests for an interview, I finally got the author of The Secret Blog of Patrick Manning to agree to talk to me via IM in the wee hours of this morning. The transcript of our chat is below, lightly edited, with typos corrected and relevant links inserted. I’m none the wiser as to who this person is, but s/he types like the wind and is evidently a night owl.

GP: I’ll start with the question you’re least likely to answer. Who are you?

PM: I’m Patrick Manning, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.

GP: OK. Let’s try it from a different angle. Are you a journalist? A columnist?

PM: I am Manning.

GP: Some people think you’re a member of the COP.
(more…)

All of this is enough to make me think that the population is really politically savvy and educated despite the lack of structured civics education in our school system. What I worry about is whether the online community, with ready access to computers and the Internet, are an accurate representation of the general population. What about the political opinions of those on the other side of the digital divide? And it may be that the Internet is just the latest forum for Trinis to do what they do best, talk. How much this translates into action is another question. Like a friend of mine, wary of all the online talk that has been taking place, recently wrote: “While we, 'the future', sit and occupy our time amusing ourselves with all these…discussions, the true leaders in the real world are doing as they please.”

Blogger Shivonne du Barry, expressing some healthy skepticism about the “alternative spins” on Trinidad and Tobago politics being provided by blogs and social networking sites. And now it’s my turn to play devil’s advocate, and a highly optimistic one at that!

Juxtapose the 12% internet penetration rate and Danah Boyd’s infamous findings about Facebook and class (assuming they apply to Trinidad and Tobago) and you conclude that Shivonne’s concerns are well taken, as of course they are – they’re the concerns perennially expressed in discussions about the role/value of the the internet in “developing” societies. But they also assume that, in the absence of Facebook and its equivalents, the political dialogue/activity taking place among this select group would have taken a different (and possibly superior) form (as well it might). Or taken place at all.

They also assume (more than likely correctly) that there’s not some innovative parallel activity taking place “on the other side of the digital divide” using cell phones and SMS. They also assume that all online political activity will necessarily be partisan. Might we not see some serious citizen reporting this upcoming election season? Might some ordinary person not happen to capture some priceless image or bit of footage on a cell phone camera that the jaded media practitioners have missed?

I’ve just posted episode #5 of the Global Voices show. Take a listen:

 

 Global Voices Show #5 (AAC format) [16:51m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (767)

 

 Global Voices Show #5 (MP3): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1045)

Technorati Tags: global voices, podcast

Thank you, dear Jamrock, for reminding us that our own parliament doesn’t hold the monopoly on ridiculousness. Via Ria Bacon’s Stet blog, I learned of this photo, which was carried on the front page of the Jamaica Observer on October 18. It’s a close-up of the hands of Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller as she doodles on a square of paper during — get this — a debate on a no-confidence motion brought by the Opposition party! Maybe I would doodle too if my party held the kind of majority enjoyed by the ruling People’s National Party (PNP), and the debate did last seven hours; but I have to say I’m not all that impressed with the Honourable PM’s drawing skills.

You’ll want to read Ria’s entertaining attempts at analysing the meaning of the Mrs. Simpson-Miller’s imagery and also the later post where she reports on the restrictions since put in place for journalists sitting in on parliamentary sessions. Yep, instead of taking away Portia’s notepad and pencil, they’ve banned journalists from sitting in the gallery above the members, corralling them instead into a 6′ x 6′ press box. Which isn’t entirely surprising, but you sort of wish that one day the government would surprise us by reacting with a bit of imagination. Like, for example, by announcing that the Prime Minister had signed up for drawing lessons at the Edna Manley School for the Arts?