Parliamentary Race Baiting

National Security Minister
Jack Warner

After a week spent neck deep in news, I don't generally bother with the local happenings much on a weekend. But, once I stumbled across this, I couldn't let it pass:

In defending Ramlogan, Warner charged that Rowley had signaled him out for "persecution" because of his ethnicity.

"It's because you have a problem with the individual," he said.

Warner questioned how come Rowley did not have "one" like him sitting on the PNM benches or going up for elections in the PNM convention which takes place today.

"They don't count. You are attacking the Attorney General because the AG represents the things you dislike," said Warner. 

Now, one of two things is going on here: either our politicians are pandering to a public which buys into this b.s. because they know that this is what the people believe/want to hear, or our politicians are so out of touch that they keep pushing this burnt-out old colonial button in the hopes that they can polarize the population enough for us to ignore their complete failure as members of government.

Obviously I'm hoping it's a case of the latter. I'm hoping that - after 50 years - T&T is mature enough to recognize the irrelevance of this particular tactic of 'debate' and pettiness behind it. I'm hoping we know that, whether a government is comprised solely of black, brown, or purple people, if they're not performing, they don't deserve our support. Because after all this time - and all this corruption - it's pretty obvious that having a government full of people who resemble us isn't the key to our problems, right?

So when we see a member of parliament respond to legitimate questions about propriety and ethics with an accusation of racism, it's obvious that that particular MP isn't looking out for our best interest and therefore isn't doing the job we hired him to do. Right?