The Profession of Nobility

Since the news of the arrest of two politician-lawyers last week, reactions have flowed from all quarters which have exposed the bad, not-so-bad and the ugly in the consciousness within our body politic – the collective of our citizenry.
Aspects of lynch-mob mentality fuelled by divisive partisan politics engendered by 63 years of the entrenchment of party politics and the notion of 2-party ‘democracy’ hailed as a major achievement by the founder of the PNM.
Prior to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) v People’s National Movement (PNM) then DLP (successor to the PDP) v PNM electoral skirmishes of 1956-58, the political contests for office under the crown colony system largely involved individual politicians and some alliances of politicians (even those in loosely amalgamated groups named as political parties).
Williams set out to cement the 2-party state as the post-colonial form of colonial governance (the PM replacing the Governor as the centre of state power). His early organising and support among the urban, intellectual and semi-professional strata (particularly teachers) created a support base for the PNM in roughly the same geographical locations as seen in the seats held in the 2015 General Election.
Bhadase Sagan Maharaj, the triumvirate leader of the PDP (Political Leader, Union and Religious Leader combined) built his base among the rural agricultural (sugar) worker and farmer communities. That support remained with the DLP (a coalition of 3 parties) after 1956.
Williams and the PNM’s desire to expand out of their urban base areas naturally meant that they had to attempt to displace the DLP from its rural areas of support.
This fight for political turf among these rival political gangs competing for the approval of the colonial and post-Independence masters of the economic-political power was presented in a narrative of ‘race-based’ politics which has served as a tool to divide the body politic to this day.
Inevitably, the ugly angry display of hate outside the Parliament last Friday, catalysed by the arrests of Ramlogan and Ramdeen, once again exposed the utter hostility of this fabled ‘racial’ politics.
And the angry calls for vengeful punishment of those yet un-convicted resembled the goings-on in the US ruling apparatus in which hopes were placed on Mueller to deliver the ‘goods’ to facilitate the defeat of Trump by the other party which coincidentally presents itself as friend of certain ethnic demographics (not unlike our fake Afro and Indo parties).
So here was the lynch-mob chanting for heads to roll.
This trend continued this week with calls by PNM supporters for the 2 lawyer-politicians to be prevented from practising their legal profession while on bail as the court matter proceeds.
Not only have they determined guilt but they demand sentence even before the hearing gets underway.
Here we have those involved in two of the professions we have been told are ‘noble’ now accused of the vile crime of self-serving corruption (enriching themselves at the expense of the public interest).
But, thinking about it, this is not new. Since the early exposures of the gas station and bus rackets, the Caura Dam corruption, Lock Joint, Sodoteg and sundry scandals from Johnny O to Jack W and all in between, the marks have been busting against corrupt officials of every building boom and agencies like UDECOTT and HDC and even private conglomerates like CLICO to fake oil and now kick back brief scandals.
Sadly, our long history of corruption allegations and Commissions of Enquiry and investigations is not also accompanied by even a short list of those made to account for this reprehensible behaviour.
The airport case hasn’t even made out of the starting blocks of the Preliminary Enquiry after a decade and counting. And this, that and the other -gate remains frozen cases still at the stage of investigation or decision-less contemplation by the office empowered with responsibility for ALL criminal prosecutions and others yet resist extradition.
This long history of failure to act and put a halt to the corruption gravy train over the entire history of our Independence cannot become justification for impatience for the rule of law and due process in the instant episode.
The noble profession of politics (and political lawyering) have long exposed their ignoble side. But the sanction has not materialised and the practitioners have become a part of the profession of nobility.
This profession of nobility is to be seen in the fact that those who appropriate the wealth of the society produced by the majority of its members are hailed for their entrepreneurial acumen. Their only excuse for unexplained wealth is that it is legal for the socially created wealth to be made the private property of the parasitic oligarchy.
Their representatives have only followed their example and claimed authority to feed at the trough of public money in all the schemes from those exposed by Jean Miles to the more recent exposures within and even outside of our borders.
This profession of ‘nobility’ is as ignoble as it gets and is anchored in the foundation of the 2-party unrepresentativeness of this so-called Representative Democracy.
To end it, requires a new formulation of our Governance arrangements in a direction that facilitates the Majority being vested with sovereignty and for the first time entrenching the “National Purpose which must precede… sectional interests” that was envisaged, not by the professional nobility in their political parties but by the commoners assembled in 1962 in a non-partisan organisation called Pegasus.
The corrupt profession of nobility will only be defeated with the defeat of the notion of a power to deprive with that of a power to share – that was demanded in 1970, and other points along the way since.
The profession of nobility must be replaced by the genuine nobility of profession, of serving the interest of the Majority and the nation-building project.
 
Clyde A Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for the
Democratic Renewal of
Our Political and Electoral Processes
To End Corruption.
 
7 May 2019