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 put 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 relatively 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

 

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

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?