Twittering
Monday, December 23, 2002
But the big news out of Guyana today is that Desmond Hoyte, former president & leader of the PNC since 1985, died yesterday of a heart attack.
Read the Chronicle's coverage here; the Express runs a report by Rickey Singh. Most Caribbean newspapers outside Guyana base their reports on the wire stories. Here is an excerpt from today's editorial in the Stabroek News:
"The death of Hugh Desmond Hoyte yesterday at the age of seventy-three shocked the nation. The passing of time will enable a fuller evaluation of his legacy and the important role he has played in the modern history of Guyana but few will disagree that the high point of his career was his period as president from 1985 to 1992. Inheriting a bankrupt economy and a society in which there had been no free and fair elections for some time, which had led to some degree of repression, he had the fortitude, despite internal opposition in his own party, to introduce a period of glasnost and perestroika where there was a reversal of the failed policy of state capitalism and the introduction of a programme of privatisation and the encouragement of new investment.... There was a rebirth of press freedom and the introduction of electoral reforms which led to free and fair elections in 1992. It is no exaggeration to say that under his stewardship substantial progress was achieved in many areas.
"The loss of power in 1992 may, paradoxically, have been among his finest moments. Announcing on the night of October 7th that his party 'in keeping with the requirements of democracy ... will accept the results of the poll', he stated: 'I expect all citizens to accept these political developments, maintain a peaceful and harmonious climate in society and keep the welfare and good name of Guyana foremost in their minds.' At a time when the situation was still unsettled as a result of polling day violence it was an act of statesmanship that restored some level of normality. However, the immense disappointment he suffered as a result of the loss of the opportunity to continue with the economic recovery he had started led to a bitterness that was evident in his subsequent career as leader of the opposition."
(It was Hoyte who gave permission for the founding of the independent Stabroek News in 1986, ending decades of media repression in Guyana.)
And, with the 2002 shortlist just released, the Chronicle's editorial reminds us that it was Hoyte who established the Guyana Prize for Literature in 1987 (no link, because the Chronicle's editorials are not permanently archived online):
"Mr. Hoyte’s Presidency can be credited with several other positive developments. They include ... the establishment of the Guyana Prize for Literature with prizes of US$5,000 every two years.
"When asked by a member of the Committee for the Guyana Prize why Guyana with massive economic problems was in 1987 offering such generous sums for successful writers, Mr. Hoyte, with characteristic aplomb, quoted an obscure 13th century poet, who once wrote in so many words: 'If you have two pennies, use one to buy yourself bread and the other to buy some flowers to bless your eyes!'"
Read the Chronicle's coverage here; the Express runs a report by Rickey Singh. Most Caribbean newspapers outside Guyana base their reports on the wire stories. Here is an excerpt from today's editorial in the Stabroek News:
"The death of Hugh Desmond Hoyte yesterday at the age of seventy-three shocked the nation. The passing of time will enable a fuller evaluation of his legacy and the important role he has played in the modern history of Guyana but few will disagree that the high point of his career was his period as president from 1985 to 1992. Inheriting a bankrupt economy and a society in which there had been no free and fair elections for some time, which had led to some degree of repression, he had the fortitude, despite internal opposition in his own party, to introduce a period of glasnost and perestroika where there was a reversal of the failed policy of state capitalism and the introduction of a programme of privatisation and the encouragement of new investment.... There was a rebirth of press freedom and the introduction of electoral reforms which led to free and fair elections in 1992. It is no exaggeration to say that under his stewardship substantial progress was achieved in many areas.
"The loss of power in 1992 may, paradoxically, have been among his finest moments. Announcing on the night of October 7th that his party 'in keeping with the requirements of democracy ... will accept the results of the poll', he stated: 'I expect all citizens to accept these political developments, maintain a peaceful and harmonious climate in society and keep the welfare and good name of Guyana foremost in their minds.' At a time when the situation was still unsettled as a result of polling day violence it was an act of statesmanship that restored some level of normality. However, the immense disappointment he suffered as a result of the loss of the opportunity to continue with the economic recovery he had started led to a bitterness that was evident in his subsequent career as leader of the opposition."
(It was Hoyte who gave permission for the founding of the independent Stabroek News in 1986, ending decades of media repression in Guyana.)
And, with the 2002 shortlist just released, the Chronicle's editorial reminds us that it was Hoyte who established the Guyana Prize for Literature in 1987 (no link, because the Chronicle's editorials are not permanently archived online):
"Mr. Hoyte’s Presidency can be credited with several other positive developments. They include ... the establishment of the Guyana Prize for Literature with prizes of US$5,000 every two years.
"When asked by a member of the Committee for the Guyana Prize why Guyana with massive economic problems was in 1987 offering such generous sums for successful writers, Mr. Hoyte, with characteristic aplomb, quoted an obscure 13th century poet, who once wrote in so many words: 'If you have two pennies, use one to buy yourself bread and the other to buy some flowers to bless your eyes!'"
The 2002 Guyana Prize for Literature shortlist has been announced; interesting to note that the judges have decided no entries in the Fiction & Drama categories were strong enough to make the final cut. Here's the list with notes as published in yesterday's Stabroek News (no link because Stabroek has no permanent online archive):
For Best Book of Poetry
Fred D'Aguiar: Bloodlines (Chatto and Windus)
Michael Gilkes: Joanstown (Peepal Tree)
Sasenarine Persaud: The Hungry Sailor (Tsar)
For Best First Book of Poetry
Stanley Greaves: Horizons (Peepal Tree)
Ruel Johnson: "The Enormous Night"
Best Book of Fiction
These entries in particular, stood out in this category: Arnold Itwaru's Home and Back, Churaumani Bissundyal's The Game of Kassaku, and Cyril Dabydeen's My Brahmin Days. However, in light of the very high standards associated with the Guyana Prize, the judges felt that no entry stood out with sufficient distinction for a prize to be awarded. It was felt that the best among these had significant flaws despite their powerful evocation of the writers' concerns and their sometimes detailed and moving descriptions.
For Best First Fiction
Deryck Bernard: Going Home & Other Tales (Macmillan)
Ruel Johnson: "Ariadne and Other Stories"
Andrew Jefferson-Miles: The Timeherian (Peepal Tree)
Drama
While two of the entries for drama contained many elements of merit, the judges did not feel that they were of such a standard to warrant a prize.
The Books
Bloodlines (London: Chatto and Windus, 2000)
Fred D'Aguiar was the winner of the first Guyana Prize for Poetry in 1987. Since then he has won twice in the prose category, with the Best First Book in 1994 and the Best Book in 1996. Bloodlines is a "verse novel" set in slavery in the American South, a subject D'Aguiar has been researching and on which he has already written two prose novels. It is a long poem, ambitious in its portrayal of the brutality of slave society, and poignant in its commitment to retrieving humane values. The author is an accomplished craftsman and a rewarding poet who attempts elaborate styles, not all of which quite work.
Joanstown (UK: Peepal Tree, 2002)
Michael Gilkes, who returned to live in Guyana a year ago, won the Guyana Prize for Drama in 1992. He is known for his extensive work in the theatre and in film and as a leading authority on Wilson Harris. When one gets past the Walcott influence in Gilkes' work, Joanstown is a most accomplished collection; a lyric sensibility of a logical order. It powerfully conveys a sense of place in its detailed portrayal of Georgetown, and is a compelling evocation of a life-long love of the city and of Joan Gilkes. He plays on her name as he does with the notion of "Georgetown" and the infamous "Jonestown" for which Guyana has come to be known.
The Hungry Sailor (Toronto: Tsar, 2000)
Sasenarine Persaud has on a number of occasions been shortlisted for the Guyana Prize in both poetry and fiction. He is more acclaimed for his poetry, which has definitely matured, particularly in his two most recent collections, The Wintering and Kundalini, and in The Hungry Sailor. The latter has an admirable variety of subject matter and interesting poetic treatment of diasporic experience. He weaves between various locations such as his native Guyana, his adopted homes Toronto and Florida, as well as his spiritual compass, the Hindu Heartland of India, which exude his own sense of place and placelessness.
Horizons (UK: Peepal Tree, 2002)
Stanley Greaves is best known as one of Guyana's most accomplished artists, who lives in Barbados. A painter, sculptor and musician, he describes himself as "a maker of things," and these things now include his first full collection of verse, Horizons. But he has been making poems throughout his career. This well-ordered book contains a powerfully metaphoric poetry deeply rooted in a painterly imagination. It is a considerable achievement.
"The Enormous Night" (unpub MS)
Ruel Johnson is now experiencing a rising career as a writer of prose and poetry. He was the leader of the Janus Young Writers Guild and edited the Chronicle Christmas Annual 2001. "The Enormous Night" is a collection that shows great promise and real engagement with the craft of poetry. There is a strong Walcott influence and a general literariness which rather calls attention to itself, but he is very talented and manages to venture courageously into formal explorations.
Going Home and Other Tales (London: Macmillan, 2001)
Deryck Bernard has already established himself in many fields. He is an accomplished musician and singer, has served the nation as a Minister of Government and is now a Member of Parliament. He is an academic, a geographer and a University Dean. His strong artistic orientation has inevitably led him into fiction and Going Home and Other Tales is very much autobiographical. It is a well-constructed collection which deals engagingly with childhood in colonial Guyana. His prose is very "clean," un-showy and assured, although his tales often lack a satisfying ending.
"Ariadne and Other Stories" (unpub MS)
Johnson's "Ariadne and Other Stories" is, perhaps, more obviously driven by autobiography, but exhibits undeniable talent. Although the range of his subject matter is rather limited, this is an impressive first collection in which the author is seriously engaged in exploring the potential of the short story.
The Timehrian (UK: Peepal Tree, 2002)
Andrew Jefferson-Miles, Guyanese by birth, is also a poet and a visual artist who is currently a researcher at the University of North London, UK. The Timeherian is an ambitious and challengingly experimental novel. There is an unmistakable Harris influence in this book, but it is compellingly thought-provoking.
Notes
Of primary interest is the 2002 Jury's announcement that no prize will be awarded in two of the five categories, viz Fiction and Drama. This will be the first time in the history of the Prize that this has happened in Fiction, which, for most of the years, emerged the strongest category. In 2000 only one of the plays entered in the Drama category was selected for the shortlist, and that was the winner, Paloma Mohamed's Father of the Man, while there was a similar occurrence in Poetry on one occasion. In 1996 the Best Book of Poetry, Grace Nichols' Sunrise, was the only one shortlisted. Poetry, which has always had the largest number of entries, seems to have had no such difficulty this year.
The second significant observation returns us to the issue of an imbalance between the local and foreign-based writers each time shortlists and winners have been announced. This has led to much controversy. In this context, it is significant that of the eight shortlisted entries, four are by local writers this year. Of note also in this context is that a local writer, Ruel Johnson, appears on both the Poetry and Prose shortlists with unpublished first collections. This is a first for any local writer and the first occasion on which any of them has had two unpublished manuscripts nominated. Rooplall Monar came close in 1987 with his fiction, Backdam People, on the shortlist and his poetry, Koker, highly commended. Overseas-based writers, David Dabydeen and Fred D'Aguiar, have, in the past, appeared on both poetry and prose final lists.
Sunday, December 22, 2002
Jonathan writes this morning about the Common Piping-Guan (Aburria pipile, also known as the Pawi) a rare forest bird once reasonably common in Trinidad's mountains & hills, now reduced to "70–200" individuals, according to an estimate he's just stumbled upon. The Pawi was long considered Trinidad's only endemic bird species, & Jonathan sadly notes that when those last flocks have been shot & devoured, this rara avis will have disappeared from the face of the earth. It probably won't bring him much consolation to know that, according to Richard ffrench (author of the definitive Guide to the Birds of Trinidad and Tobago), recent authorities have decided the Trinidad Piping-Guan is the same species as the Blue-throated Piping-Guan of Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia & Paraguay; only "the nominate race is endemic to Trinidad, being glossed purple rather than green, and with largely black crown feathers edged with white."
I'll also quote ffrench's note at the end of his species entry, in which he reveals an unusual tone of exasperation:
"Still hunted, despite official protection. People in the remote districts neither obey nor are forced to obey the game laws. Knowing a flock of 12 guans, they will claim that the species is 'quite common' in that area. Unless a sizeable portion of remote forest is set aside as a reserve, and suitable enforcement of the law provided, this species will become extirpated long before education will affect the attitude of those who hunt it."
What chance does the poor Piping-Guan have, I wonder, when unscrupulous carnivores can dine even on the flesh of the Scarlet Ibis, the national bird, if they know which restaurant to enquire at, & can flash a suitably massive wad of banknotes?
I'll also quote ffrench's note at the end of his species entry, in which he reveals an unusual tone of exasperation:
"Still hunted, despite official protection. People in the remote districts neither obey nor are forced to obey the game laws. Knowing a flock of 12 guans, they will claim that the species is 'quite common' in that area. Unless a sizeable portion of remote forest is set aside as a reserve, and suitable enforcement of the law provided, this species will become extirpated long before education will affect the attitude of those who hunt it."
What chance does the poor Piping-Guan have, I wonder, when unscrupulous carnivores can dine even on the flesh of the Scarlet Ibis, the national bird, if they know which restaurant to enquire at, & can flash a suitably massive wad of banknotes?
Teasing away at "the meaning of Christmas", Wayne Brown writes about his favourite Christmas carols in his column in today's Observer. Not "Adeste Fidelis" — "much too far removed from its original emotions" — or "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" — "a beer hall rugby song".
"But think instead of the perfect stillness of that lovely lyric, 'Silent Night', of its moonlit serenity, its motionless gleam!... And then think, for contrast, of the Wagnerian turbulence of 'O Holy Night', how it begins in solemnity and awe, and then moves, through the transition of thrilling expectation — 'For yonder breaks a new and glorious dawn' — to the paradoxical triumph of adoration — 'Fall on your knees! O hear the angels' voices!' (and what a thunder of jubilation in that 'Fall'!), and then to the imperious affirmation, 'O night divine!' with its sobbing withdrawal — 'O night when Christ was born!' — and the wave-surge coming again: 'O night! Divine!'
"I don't know when that carol was composed; but I can feel behind it a whole civilisation in its prime, Christian Europe in its prime: supremely confident in its beliefs, without the least flicker of agnosticism, and thus free, as few thinking Christians today are free, to surrender itself to joy and thunder its praise at the God-secreting heavens, as a free man laughs out of a surfeit of life or bulls bellow away their excess in June."
(Nice little Basil Bunting reference in that last line there.)
Brown doesn't know when "O Holy Night" was composed, but Google has a fair idea — 1847, music by the French composer Adolphe Charles Adam (better known for his ballet Giselle), original lyrics by Placide Cappeau ("a wine merchant and mayor of Roquemaure" who "wrote poems for his own enjoyment"), later translated into English by the American clergyman John S. Dwight.
The story of "O Holy Night" — or "Minuit, Chrétiens", the original French title — is unexpectedly fascinating, especially in light of Brown's interpretation ("I can feel behind it a whole civilisation in its prime" etc.). The Hymns and Carols of Christmas website gives a detailed account:
"Cappeau became friends with a Parisian couple named Laurey. The Laureys had temporarily relocated to southern France so that Monsieur Laurey could follow his civil engineering career by building a bridge across the Rhône River near Roquemaure. Just before Cappeau left for Paris on a business trip, the parish priest asked the part-time poet to write a Christmas poem and to take it to the famous Parisian composer Adolphe Adam (1803–1856) for a musical setting. Adam was an acquaintance of Madame Laurey, who was a singer. Reportedly, on December 3, 1847, about halfway on the long coach ride to Paris, Cappeau received the inspiration for the poem, 'Minuit, Chrétiens'.
"Cappeau was a total obscurity when he contacted Adam in Paris. The composer, in contrast, was at the peak of his fame at that time.... After Cappeau brought his lines to Adam, the facile musician took only a few days to complete the carol The premiere performance of the song was, as intended, at the midnight mass in the church of Roquemaure on Christmas 1847. It is quite conceivable that the unsuspecting audience was delightfully stunned by the soulful beauty of the partially homegrown song. Despite this remote and unheralded beginning, the song, within a generation or so, became one of the classics of the Christmas season."
But the song did not meet with universal approbation. To Brown's ears, it sounds "supremely confident in its beliefs, without the least flicker of agnosticism", but the French ecclesiastical authorities were not convinced; it turns out that
"Adam was from a non-Christian background.... Even worse, Cappeau has been described as a social radical, a freethinker, a socialist, and a non-Christian.... These attitudes were clearly indicated in an 1876 poem, 'Le Château de Roquemaure', a 4,000-line philosophical poetical flop in which Cappeau repudiated his 1847 lyrics and drastically revised their content and outlook. The controversial views, though, were confined only to his last years, which were marked by obvious eccentricity."
(Again, thanks to Hymns and Carols of Christmas.)
Which of course doesn't mean that "O Holy Night" can't "thunder its praise at the God-secreting heavens" if its listeners & its singers so desire; the point of this little story is perhaps to remind us that works of art, however minor, have an unfathomable ability to transcend the mere human circumstances of their creation, belonging to none of us & thus to all of us, whatever our histories or our beliefs.
(Or perhaps this just proves the omniscience of Google & the prudence of fact-checking!)
"But think instead of the perfect stillness of that lovely lyric, 'Silent Night', of its moonlit serenity, its motionless gleam!... And then think, for contrast, of the Wagnerian turbulence of 'O Holy Night', how it begins in solemnity and awe, and then moves, through the transition of thrilling expectation — 'For yonder breaks a new and glorious dawn' — to the paradoxical triumph of adoration — 'Fall on your knees! O hear the angels' voices!' (and what a thunder of jubilation in that 'Fall'!), and then to the imperious affirmation, 'O night divine!' with its sobbing withdrawal — 'O night when Christ was born!' — and the wave-surge coming again: 'O night! Divine!'
"I don't know when that carol was composed; but I can feel behind it a whole civilisation in its prime, Christian Europe in its prime: supremely confident in its beliefs, without the least flicker of agnosticism, and thus free, as few thinking Christians today are free, to surrender itself to joy and thunder its praise at the God-secreting heavens, as a free man laughs out of a surfeit of life or bulls bellow away their excess in June."
(Nice little Basil Bunting reference in that last line there.)
Brown doesn't know when "O Holy Night" was composed, but Google has a fair idea — 1847, music by the French composer Adolphe Charles Adam (better known for his ballet Giselle), original lyrics by Placide Cappeau ("a wine merchant and mayor of Roquemaure" who "wrote poems for his own enjoyment"), later translated into English by the American clergyman John S. Dwight.
The story of "O Holy Night" — or "Minuit, Chrétiens", the original French title — is unexpectedly fascinating, especially in light of Brown's interpretation ("I can feel behind it a whole civilisation in its prime" etc.). The Hymns and Carols of Christmas website gives a detailed account:
"Cappeau became friends with a Parisian couple named Laurey. The Laureys had temporarily relocated to southern France so that Monsieur Laurey could follow his civil engineering career by building a bridge across the Rhône River near Roquemaure. Just before Cappeau left for Paris on a business trip, the parish priest asked the part-time poet to write a Christmas poem and to take it to the famous Parisian composer Adolphe Adam (1803–1856) for a musical setting. Adam was an acquaintance of Madame Laurey, who was a singer. Reportedly, on December 3, 1847, about halfway on the long coach ride to Paris, Cappeau received the inspiration for the poem, 'Minuit, Chrétiens'.
"Cappeau was a total obscurity when he contacted Adam in Paris. The composer, in contrast, was at the peak of his fame at that time.... After Cappeau brought his lines to Adam, the facile musician took only a few days to complete the carol The premiere performance of the song was, as intended, at the midnight mass in the church of Roquemaure on Christmas 1847. It is quite conceivable that the unsuspecting audience was delightfully stunned by the soulful beauty of the partially homegrown song. Despite this remote and unheralded beginning, the song, within a generation or so, became one of the classics of the Christmas season."
But the song did not meet with universal approbation. To Brown's ears, it sounds "supremely confident in its beliefs, without the least flicker of agnosticism", but the French ecclesiastical authorities were not convinced; it turns out that
"Adam was from a non-Christian background.... Even worse, Cappeau has been described as a social radical, a freethinker, a socialist, and a non-Christian.... These attitudes were clearly indicated in an 1876 poem, 'Le Château de Roquemaure', a 4,000-line philosophical poetical flop in which Cappeau repudiated his 1847 lyrics and drastically revised their content and outlook. The controversial views, though, were confined only to his last years, which were marked by obvious eccentricity."
(Again, thanks to Hymns and Carols of Christmas.)
Which of course doesn't mean that "O Holy Night" can't "thunder its praise at the God-secreting heavens" if its listeners & its singers so desire; the point of this little story is perhaps to remind us that works of art, however minor, have an unfathomable ability to transcend the mere human circumstances of their creation, belonging to none of us & thus to all of us, whatever our histories or our beliefs.
(Or perhaps this just proves the omniscience of Google & the prudence of fact-checking!)
Saturday, December 21, 2002
From our reading:
"To the office, where Sir W. Batten, Collonell Slingsby, and I sat a while; and Sir R. Ford coming to us about some business, we talked together of the interest of this kingdom to have a peace with Spain and a war with France and Holland — where Sir R. Ford talked like a man of great reason and experience. And afterwards did send for a Cupp of Tee (a China drink) of which I never had drank before) and went away."
— Samuel Pepys, the Diary, 25 September, 1660, pp. 253 in the Latham-Matthews edition. The note to the second sentence reads as follows: "It was imported via Holland from c. 1658, but cost c. £2 per lb. The brackets are Pepys's own."
"To the office, where Sir W. Batten, Collonell Slingsby, and I sat a while; and Sir R. Ford coming to us about some business, we talked together of the interest of this kingdom to have a peace with Spain and a war with France and Holland — where Sir R. Ford talked like a man of great reason and experience. And afterwards did send for a Cupp of Tee (a China drink) of which I never had drank before) and went away."
— Samuel Pepys, the Diary, 25 September, 1660, pp. 253 in the Latham-Matthews edition. The note to the second sentence reads as follows: "It was imported via Holland from c. 1658, but cost c. £2 per lb. The brackets are Pepys's own."
A High Court judge in Guyana has ordered the temporary reversal of the broadcast suspension of the NBTV & CNS TV stations. Prime minister Samuel Hinds & the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting must now show cause for the suspension, & the two stations are back on the air. (Read the Chronicle report here; the Stabroek News gives a fuller account, but has no online archive.) In response, Hinds has issued a statement promising vigourous pusuit of the case, "since he is convinced that the curtailment and abolition of racism and incitement to crime, public disorder and violence would be served by greater responsibility shown by television stations."
He neglected to add that democracy in Guyana is served by a free press.
Apparently by coincidence, Chandra Sharma, owner of CNS, was injured yesterday when he was hit by a car outside his station.
I still can't dig up any information on what exactly the two stations broadcast that could be considered "incitement to public disorder".
He neglected to add that democracy in Guyana is served by a free press.
Apparently by coincidence, Chandra Sharma, owner of CNS, was injured yesterday when he was hit by a car outside his station.
I still can't dig up any information on what exactly the two stations broadcast that could be considered "incitement to public disorder".
"This religion, with its own set of highly ignorant, Taliban-type fanatics, is a threat to organised societies around the world. In our time, it has become a great obstacle to the advancement of logical and critical thinking, especially among the black man."
Michael Dingwall is a brave fella to argue in today's Observer that Rastafarianism is "obsolete".
And by coincidence just yesterday I was reading a detailed essay on "The Fiya Burn Controversy" by Gregory Stephens in the online magazine Jahworks. Stephens examines the evolution of the concept of "fire" in Jamaican reggae & dancehall music from a metaphor for spiritual purification to an imperative to destroy anything by which the performers & their mass audience feel threatened — homosexuals, Christianity, Western civilisation, & other manifestations of "Babylon".
If this sounds alarmist, just remember the attack on the Catholic cathedral in Castries on 2 January, 2001, in which two Rastas set fire to several worshippers & to the priest celebrating Mass, & clubbed an elderly Irish nun to death — prompted, apparently, by a vision of Haile Selassie. "Fiya Bun fi real now," says Stephens.
"This is a problem not confined to the dancehall, but is part of a much broader tendency.... Trying to destroy those we disagree with, or those who are merely different, has become a way of life."
Stephens thinks the time has come for "the fair-skinned people" — fans outside Jamaica, who put the most royalty money in the pockets of dancehall performers — to "claim a place in the culture":
"...I’ve made this argument on historical grounds, including the evolution of Rasta as a part of a history of international and multi-racial freedom movements in which the notions of 'Black liberation' and 'multi-racial redemption' ('One Love') co-exist. For Europeans to go on acting like outsiders to the culture (or accepting that definition), merely praising 'the black man’s culture,' seems to be yet another form of mental slavery. When we develop enough wisdom to claim this as our culture too, this brings a new set of responsibilities. Which means, in my view, that if we are going to be part of Sizzla’s fan base, then we need to find ways to engage Sizzla in dialogue about his attitudes.... Sizzla’s predominantly European audience truly doesn’t need to be afraid of the fire, because if they check the roots of the historical struggle for equal rights and justice, they will find it has always been a multi-ethnic, international movement. So wouldn’t it be just if we began to expect artists like Sizzla to begin acknowledging our presence in his artistic vision?"
I'm afraid this sounds almost quixotically deluded to me. The enmity that roils in the dancehall lyrics Stephens quotes is the product of social forces deeply entrenched in some Caribbean societies; "dialogue" between dancehall performers & their well-meaning liberal fans can have no real effect on the horrible facts of life in places like the garrisons of Kingston. Stephens is right to point to the bright sparks of tolerance & love within the Rastafarian movement, but also right to acknowledge the great threat of corrupting hatred.
"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds." The truth is that most who self-righteously quote these famous Marley lyrics haven't even begun to understand what the words really mean.
Michael Dingwall is a brave fella to argue in today's Observer that Rastafarianism is "obsolete".
And by coincidence just yesterday I was reading a detailed essay on "The Fiya Burn Controversy" by Gregory Stephens in the online magazine Jahworks. Stephens examines the evolution of the concept of "fire" in Jamaican reggae & dancehall music from a metaphor for spiritual purification to an imperative to destroy anything by which the performers & their mass audience feel threatened — homosexuals, Christianity, Western civilisation, & other manifestations of "Babylon".
If this sounds alarmist, just remember the attack on the Catholic cathedral in Castries on 2 January, 2001, in which two Rastas set fire to several worshippers & to the priest celebrating Mass, & clubbed an elderly Irish nun to death — prompted, apparently, by a vision of Haile Selassie. "Fiya Bun fi real now," says Stephens.
"This is a problem not confined to the dancehall, but is part of a much broader tendency.... Trying to destroy those we disagree with, or those who are merely different, has become a way of life."
Stephens thinks the time has come for "the fair-skinned people" — fans outside Jamaica, who put the most royalty money in the pockets of dancehall performers — to "claim a place in the culture":
"...I’ve made this argument on historical grounds, including the evolution of Rasta as a part of a history of international and multi-racial freedom movements in which the notions of 'Black liberation' and 'multi-racial redemption' ('One Love') co-exist. For Europeans to go on acting like outsiders to the culture (or accepting that definition), merely praising 'the black man’s culture,' seems to be yet another form of mental slavery. When we develop enough wisdom to claim this as our culture too, this brings a new set of responsibilities. Which means, in my view, that if we are going to be part of Sizzla’s fan base, then we need to find ways to engage Sizzla in dialogue about his attitudes.... Sizzla’s predominantly European audience truly doesn’t need to be afraid of the fire, because if they check the roots of the historical struggle for equal rights and justice, they will find it has always been a multi-ethnic, international movement. So wouldn’t it be just if we began to expect artists like Sizzla to begin acknowledging our presence in his artistic vision?"
I'm afraid this sounds almost quixotically deluded to me. The enmity that roils in the dancehall lyrics Stephens quotes is the product of social forces deeply entrenched in some Caribbean societies; "dialogue" between dancehall performers & their well-meaning liberal fans can have no real effect on the horrible facts of life in places like the garrisons of Kingston. Stephens is right to point to the bright sparks of tolerance & love within the Rastafarian movement, but also right to acknowledge the great threat of corrupting hatred.
"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds." The truth is that most who self-righteously quote these famous Marley lyrics haven't even begun to understand what the words really mean.
The NY Times reports today that investigators working on the DC sniper case now think Jamaican teengager Lee Boyd Malvo was the gunman in all the attacks — there's little evidence that John Allen Muhammed himself actually pulled the trigger.
"Some officials who have reviewed the evidence at the sniper task force's new headquarters here in suburban Virginia say that the lack of evidence against Mr. Muhammad will complicate prosecutors' efforts to get a death sentence for him in the shooting of Dean Harold Meyers, who was killed at a gas station in Manassas on Oct. 9."
This opens the possibility that Malvo, though a minor, could be sentenced to death for the murder spree, while Muhammed, his mentor, gets a prison sentence.
Incidentally, the Washington Post reported a couple days ago that Malvo's been complaining about the food he's being served in jail:
"Teenage sniper suspect John Lee Malvo says the vegetarian 'loaf' he is being fed in jail has made him sick, the latest in a series of complaints he has lodged about his treatment at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center.
"Malvo's court-appointed guardian, Todd G. Petit, requested last month that Malvo be fed the loaf after a judge denied a request that Malvo be provided with vegetarian meals.... This week, Petit told jail officials that the loaf hasn't agreed with Malvo, and he renewed a request for some other type of meatless menu.
"Jail officials have denied the request and said Malvo would have the same food choices as other inmates."
The judge's decision apparently hinged on the question of whether Malvo's vegetarianism is a "religious belief" or a "preference".
Understandably, sympathy for Malvo in the US (& elsewhere) is non-existent; it's for precisely that reason that in cases like this legal principles (like the presumption of innocence until otherwise proven) ought to be zealously upheld. An adequate diet is one of Malvo's basic rights as a prisoner, whether he's a mass murderer or not. Vegetarian myself (& not for reasons of "religious belief", but certainly for reasons more compelling than "preference"), I think the authorities' refusal of his dietary request amounts to cruel & unusual punishment.
The Post does not say whether the Jamaican consulate has seen fit to get involved in the matter.
"Some officials who have reviewed the evidence at the sniper task force's new headquarters here in suburban Virginia say that the lack of evidence against Mr. Muhammad will complicate prosecutors' efforts to get a death sentence for him in the shooting of Dean Harold Meyers, who was killed at a gas station in Manassas on Oct. 9."
This opens the possibility that Malvo, though a minor, could be sentenced to death for the murder spree, while Muhammed, his mentor, gets a prison sentence.
Incidentally, the Washington Post reported a couple days ago that Malvo's been complaining about the food he's being served in jail:
"Teenage sniper suspect John Lee Malvo says the vegetarian 'loaf' he is being fed in jail has made him sick, the latest in a series of complaints he has lodged about his treatment at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center.
"Malvo's court-appointed guardian, Todd G. Petit, requested last month that Malvo be fed the loaf after a judge denied a request that Malvo be provided with vegetarian meals.... This week, Petit told jail officials that the loaf hasn't agreed with Malvo, and he renewed a request for some other type of meatless menu.
"Jail officials have denied the request and said Malvo would have the same food choices as other inmates."
The judge's decision apparently hinged on the question of whether Malvo's vegetarianism is a "religious belief" or a "preference".
Understandably, sympathy for Malvo in the US (& elsewhere) is non-existent; it's for precisely that reason that in cases like this legal principles (like the presumption of innocence until otherwise proven) ought to be zealously upheld. An adequate diet is one of Malvo's basic rights as a prisoner, whether he's a mass murderer or not. Vegetarian myself (& not for reasons of "religious belief", but certainly for reasons more compelling than "preference"), I think the authorities' refusal of his dietary request amounts to cruel & unusual punishment.
The Post does not say whether the Jamaican consulate has seen fit to get involved in the matter.
In today's Express Lloyd Best, continuing his analysis of the T&T constitution reform issue, comes at last to the great practical question: how to make it actually happen — or, as he puts it, "what could conceivably be the political ways and means of translating a largely instinctive but very real hankering for a new regime into an effective vector of renewal?"
"It is hard to see how any initiative, on the part of the Independent Senators, however spirited, can expect more than a nominal hearing. Without any clear political agenda, the Constitution Reform Forum would be hard put to evolve — though it still has great potential as a popular information centre. (To which end, it would have to make much greater effort at foraging and disseminating far and wide.)
"The two established election parties claim to be interested but they could hardly have been more luke-cold than they are now. It is easy to guess why."
Best's solution now, as it was 30 years ago (the last time constitution reform was an issue of relatively wide public concern here in T&T), is a constituent assembly, a gathering together of interest groups & interested individuals, for the purpose of "cross-talk, feedback and exchange.... making sense of individual events and of fitting perceptions and partial proposals into [a] comprehensive and cogent construction."
A great question still hangs, though (which Best promises to address in a future column): who will call this constituent assembly into existence, & on what terms? My half-dozen or so regular readers may remember that some weeks ago I made my own suggestion for one means of jumpstarting the process. As Best remarks, it's foolish to expect any meaningful initiative from either government or opposition, & for that reason the independent senators' efforts in Parliament will likely be smothered under the PNM's & the UNC's polite disregard. I still believe the best hope at present is for the Constitution Reform Forum to take the bold step I've previously argued for, & dare the people of T&T to prove their seriousness about our politics, our governance & our democracy.
"It is hard to see how any initiative, on the part of the Independent Senators, however spirited, can expect more than a nominal hearing. Without any clear political agenda, the Constitution Reform Forum would be hard put to evolve — though it still has great potential as a popular information centre. (To which end, it would have to make much greater effort at foraging and disseminating far and wide.)
"The two established election parties claim to be interested but they could hardly have been more luke-cold than they are now. It is easy to guess why."
Best's solution now, as it was 30 years ago (the last time constitution reform was an issue of relatively wide public concern here in T&T), is a constituent assembly, a gathering together of interest groups & interested individuals, for the purpose of "cross-talk, feedback and exchange.... making sense of individual events and of fitting perceptions and partial proposals into [a] comprehensive and cogent construction."
A great question still hangs, though (which Best promises to address in a future column): who will call this constituent assembly into existence, & on what terms? My half-dozen or so regular readers may remember that some weeks ago I made my own suggestion for one means of jumpstarting the process. As Best remarks, it's foolish to expect any meaningful initiative from either government or opposition, & for that reason the independent senators' efforts in Parliament will likely be smothered under the PNM's & the UNC's polite disregard. I still believe the best hope at present is for the Constitution Reform Forum to take the bold step I've previously argued for, & dare the people of T&T to prove their seriousness about our politics, our governance & our democracy.
Friday, December 20, 2002
A full month late, the Gleaner publishes an obituary of Jamaican poet George Campbell.
Guyanese prime minister Samuel Hinds, acting on the advice of Guyana's Advisory Committee on Broadcasting, has ordered two TV stations, CNS Channel 6 & NBTV Channel 9, to suspend broadcasting for 48 hours, reports the Chronicle. The ACB says both stations violated "condition (a) of Appendix A" of their licences, which prohibits broadcasts "likely to incite to crime and to lead to public disorder".
The Stabroek News report is rather more informative (no link, because Stabroek has no online archive); it notes an angry response from the Guyana Press Association, which has issued a statement condemning the suspension as "unprecedented in the world and in the history of broadcasting when no national emergency exists". I can't find any details of the actual programmes that provoked the ACB's response.
(AP has also picked up the story.)
The Stabroek News report is rather more informative (no link, because Stabroek has no online archive); it notes an angry response from the Guyana Press Association, which has issued a statement condemning the suspension as "unprecedented in the world and in the history of broadcasting when no national emergency exists". I can't find any details of the actual programmes that provoked the ACB's response.
(AP has also picked up the story.)
B.C. Pires also gets into the constitution reform debate, in his column in today's Guardian (the link is good only until next Friday, because the Guardian still has no permanent online archive). Parliament's refusal to debate the disastrous recent flooding in central Trinidad, he muses, proves yet again that our "representatives" are nothing of the sort:
"The only thing more depressing than us all knowing, before it was even raised in Parliament, that the PNM would refuse to debate the flooding, was the UNC fully expected them to refuse and were just going through the motions.
"Parliament is such a pappyshow that not even its principal actors will recognise drama when it kicks them in the teeth. In Parliament, they kicksin' and is only farce they want.
"Whole communities were cut off. TV news showed people rowing down the main roads in boats; but our parliamentarians, every man jack in his jacket-and-tie, could not see past the Standing Orders. Freemen parade their freedom; slaves parody it. You want to know the only hope the people hit by the floods had? Dry season.
"It makes no difference what the Executive did; what matters is what Parliament failed to do. In a real country, the only thing a people’s assembly would talk about in an emergency was the emergency. In Trinidad, the essential is the one thing we can be sure will never be confronted.
"Which leads to the inescapable conclusion: we do not have a people’s assembly at all, just a club for a few people who win a few more votes than one or two others to sit down and gallery in once a week.
"Which leads to the point Lloyd Best has been distilling for two generations now, and its purity is undeniable: the critical issue is representation. Important work will have to be done, but the first task is Adam’s: to name the thing."
"The only thing more depressing than us all knowing, before it was even raised in Parliament, that the PNM would refuse to debate the flooding, was the UNC fully expected them to refuse and were just going through the motions.
"Parliament is such a pappyshow that not even its principal actors will recognise drama when it kicks them in the teeth. In Parliament, they kicksin' and is only farce they want.
"Whole communities were cut off. TV news showed people rowing down the main roads in boats; but our parliamentarians, every man jack in his jacket-and-tie, could not see past the Standing Orders. Freemen parade their freedom; slaves parody it. You want to know the only hope the people hit by the floods had? Dry season.
"It makes no difference what the Executive did; what matters is what Parliament failed to do. In a real country, the only thing a people’s assembly would talk about in an emergency was the emergency. In Trinidad, the essential is the one thing we can be sure will never be confronted.
"Which leads to the inescapable conclusion: we do not have a people’s assembly at all, just a club for a few people who win a few more votes than one or two others to sit down and gallery in once a week.
"Which leads to the point Lloyd Best has been distilling for two generations now, and its purity is undeniable: the critical issue is representation. Important work will have to be done, but the first task is Adam’s: to name the thing."
All other qualities aside, Lloyd Best's patience is a marvel. His ideas for constitution reform in T&T have become topical once again, but he's been propounding some of these since before I was even born; yet he still explicates & argues with the vigour of fresh enthusiasm. In today's Express he once again restates the primacy of the issue of representation, suggesting pragmatically that this must be addressed first at the national, central level, not through the local government mechanisms which citizens perceive as basically useless:
"The re-constitution of the communities is ... long overdue. It is the most important single pre-condition to collective decision we must make, at that municipal level in this city-state, about environmental conditions, infrastructure requirements, public utilities, social services etc. Clearly this is the real task of nation-building.
"The attendant need for municipal and local government reconstruction obviously implies a patient phasing in. Utopians may, quite rightly, argue that we would learn to govern ourselves effectively only to the extent that we were afforded opportunity. If we were starting the world anew, there would scarcely be a problem in devolving responsibility willy-nilly to all those psychological communities where individuals, families and groups have little trouble inserting and locating themselves. However, to attempt that in our context would be sheer folly, as we can guess from the operations of our present system of health administration. There can be no identification with authority, no popular prompting of decision and no accountability where the great majority of our people belong to something called a region only to the extent that they might be sleeping there — not working, not playing, not worshipping and, above all, not even going to school. If we simply transferred serious financial and executive responsibilities to local authorities, we’d merely be exposing ourselves to the kind of charlatanry and crookedness we’ve already let loose.
"The prior and first requirement is, therefore, at the central level. The virtue of addressing this matter of representation at the centre is that it involves a restricted and well-defined intervention, much more limited in scope than would be any attempt to re-configure community and municipal life."
"The re-constitution of the communities is ... long overdue. It is the most important single pre-condition to collective decision we must make, at that municipal level in this city-state, about environmental conditions, infrastructure requirements, public utilities, social services etc. Clearly this is the real task of nation-building.
"The attendant need for municipal and local government reconstruction obviously implies a patient phasing in. Utopians may, quite rightly, argue that we would learn to govern ourselves effectively only to the extent that we were afforded opportunity. If we were starting the world anew, there would scarcely be a problem in devolving responsibility willy-nilly to all those psychological communities where individuals, families and groups have little trouble inserting and locating themselves. However, to attempt that in our context would be sheer folly, as we can guess from the operations of our present system of health administration. There can be no identification with authority, no popular prompting of decision and no accountability where the great majority of our people belong to something called a region only to the extent that they might be sleeping there — not working, not playing, not worshipping and, above all, not even going to school. If we simply transferred serious financial and executive responsibilities to local authorities, we’d merely be exposing ourselves to the kind of charlatanry and crookedness we’ve already let loose.
"The prior and first requirement is, therefore, at the central level. The virtue of addressing this matter of representation at the centre is that it involves a restricted and well-defined intervention, much more limited in scope than would be any attempt to re-configure community and municipal life."
Thursday, December 19, 2002
From our reading:
"History writes its tenses on the leaf
Lovingly swells its stems and in a trice
Fall ashes from forgotten walls in Crete.
But the grass grows, the everlasting leaf
Glints in the sun, and lovers walk again
Along another bank."
— A.J. Seymour, from "Variations on a Theme", p. 135 in the Collected Poems.
"History writes its tenses on the leaf
Lovingly swells its stems and in a trice
Fall ashes from forgotten walls in Crete.
But the grass grows, the everlasting leaf
Glints in the sun, and lovers walk again
Along another bank."
— A.J. Seymour, from "Variations on a Theme", p. 135 in the Collected Poems.
Mac users join forces to fight evil! A heartwarming story in today's NY Times about complete strangers, connected only by their love of Macs, forming a "smart mob" to foil a Chicago fraud ring.
Jamaican attorney general A.J. Nicholson says Jamaican consular officials in Washington are providing alleged DC sniper Lee Boyd Malvo with "'all possible assistance' that is consistent with 'established international norms'", reports today's Observer. Under Virginia law, remember, Malvo faces a possible capital sentence, even though he is still a minor.
"'Notwithstanding some reservations on our side regarding process, we also have to be sensitive to the laws and legal processes of sovereign countries, in this case, the United States of America,' Nicholson wrote."
"'Notwithstanding some reservations on our side regarding process, we also have to be sensitive to the laws and legal processes of sovereign countries, in this case, the United States of America,' Nicholson wrote."
Wednesday, December 18, 2002
"People find long-lost relatives, recall old song lyrics and locate parts for old MGs. College instructors sniffing for plagiarism type in suspiciously accomplished phrases from the papers of otherwise inarticulate students. Computer programmers type in error-code numbers to find out which Windows function crashed their program. Google can even save your life. When Terry Chilton, of Plattsburgh, N.Y., felt a pressure in his chest one morning, he Googled heart attacks, and quickly was directed to a detailed list of symptoms on the American Heart Association site. 'I better get my butt to the hospital,' he told himself, and within hours he was in life-saving surgery."
Another article about the power of Google, by Steven Levy in the December 16 Newsweek (via Nick Denton, who admits he's already altering his behaviour to suit the way the all-powerful search engine works).
Also check out Google's 2002 Year-End Zeitgeist, if you're interested in finding out the top search terms for the year thus far i.e. what the world has had on its mind lately. (For the record, I myself haven't searched for any of the Top 20 Gaining Entries. I haven't even heard of half of them.)
Another article about the power of Google, by Steven Levy in the December 16 Newsweek (via Nick Denton, who admits he's already altering his behaviour to suit the way the all-powerful search engine works).
Also check out Google's 2002 Year-End Zeitgeist, if you're interested in finding out the top search terms for the year thus far i.e. what the world has had on its mind lately. (For the record, I myself haven't searched for any of the Top 20 Gaining Entries. I haven't even heard of half of them.)
A few weeks ago I linked to a story in the Jamaica Gleaner in which a senior policeman & a well-known psychologist claimed that Jamaica's mounting murder rate should not alarm law-abiding citizens, since most of the killings were either gang- or drug-related, or else domestic; "ordinary citizens are not affected."
In today's Express, Keith Smith passionately takes on a similar claim apparently made by Patrick Manning for T&T:
"It seems that Mr Manning, no doubt seeking to limit the political fall-out, suggested that the average citizen did not have all that much to fear because the circle of murder mostly surrounded gang members and drug dealers.
"He is probably right about this but he was wrong to take that particular public stance, I find, for the simple reason that isolated though the recent spate of killings may be, the fact of that isolation is not of much comfort to anybody, certainly not to all those law-abiding citizens living within ear-shot of the gun-shots in the night.
"The thing is killing is killing and murder is murder and while it is true that there are those, even among those living in the killing fields, who hold that “the best thing is for all of them to kill out each other with dey damn stupid self”, the reality is that it is young black men killing young black men and I don’t see how any leader, and a PNM leader for that matter, could hold such a narrow perspective on this matter."
In today's Express, Keith Smith passionately takes on a similar claim apparently made by Patrick Manning for T&T:
"It seems that Mr Manning, no doubt seeking to limit the political fall-out, suggested that the average citizen did not have all that much to fear because the circle of murder mostly surrounded gang members and drug dealers.
"He is probably right about this but he was wrong to take that particular public stance, I find, for the simple reason that isolated though the recent spate of killings may be, the fact of that isolation is not of much comfort to anybody, certainly not to all those law-abiding citizens living within ear-shot of the gun-shots in the night.
"The thing is killing is killing and murder is murder and while it is true that there are those, even among those living in the killing fields, who hold that “the best thing is for all of them to kill out each other with dey damn stupid self”, the reality is that it is young black men killing young black men and I don’t see how any leader, and a PNM leader for that matter, could hold such a narrow perspective on this matter."
Riffing on a Tom Friedman column (titled "Blair for President") in today's NY Times, Matthew Yglesias proposes that Tony Blair "would make an excellent founding Prime Minister of an exciting US/UK/Canada/Australia combo nation" — a "United States of English-Speakingness". Maybe if we asked nicely T&T would be allowed to join, & we could stop worrying about this messy, tiresome constitution reform business. (And there must be, what, half a million Trinis living in the US/UK/Canada/Australia already.)
Denis Solomon, in his column in today's Express, picks at some of the loose ends in the ongoing constitution reform debate. A combination of proportional representation & state funding of political parties, which it seems someone must have proposed recently, would lead to parliamentary chaos, he says; & Solomon believes the T&T constitution was devised from the first to deny meaningful representation to the people, a more shocking allegation than I think he realises.
"...the framers of the Constitution knew that Parliament would not be independent, and didn’t care. The idea that Parliament is simply a device for enabling governments to operate is present by default in the thinking of the gurus, and overt in the statements and behaviour of practising politicians."
I'm trying to figure out exactly who his "thick-headed" gurus are.
"...the framers of the Constitution knew that Parliament would not be independent, and didn’t care. The idea that Parliament is simply a device for enabling governments to operate is present by default in the thinking of the gurus, and overt in the statements and behaviour of practising politicians."
I'm trying to figure out exactly who his "thick-headed" gurus are.
Tuesday, December 17, 2002
Good news, then: the story a few months ago, when The Autograph Man was just out, was that Zadie Smith had decided to give up fiction altogether for teaching. An interview published in today's NY Times sounds much more promising:
"She is in no hurry to produce her next novel, she said, although she has not abandoned fiction. But she seems remarkably unconcerned about the demands of the literary marketplace and will not admit to working on anything new.
"'I find it very odd that if I was sitting around toying with four paragraphs, I could say, "Yes, I've started some new fiction,"' she said. 'It would become an economic entity and a real thing in the world, whereas before it would have just been, "Zadie's just scored a few paragraphs." I find it all very unnerving.'"
(Note the extremely fetching photograph — she's wearing a sort of pink turban.)
"She is in no hurry to produce her next novel, she said, although she has not abandoned fiction. But she seems remarkably unconcerned about the demands of the literary marketplace and will not admit to working on anything new.
"'I find it very odd that if I was sitting around toying with four paragraphs, I could say, "Yes, I've started some new fiction,"' she said. 'It would become an economic entity and a real thing in the world, whereas before it would have just been, "Zadie's just scored a few paragraphs." I find it all very unnerving.'"
(Note the extremely fetching photograph — she's wearing a sort of pink turban.)
Monday, December 16, 2002
Matt Prescott of Earth-Info.Net has drawn my attention to the international Publish What You Pay campaign:
"International oil, gas, and mining companies pay billions of dollars a year to the governments of many less developed countries that are rich in natural resources, such as Angola and Nigeria.
"Few of these countries' citizens benefit from this financial windfall, however, because of government corruption + mismanagement.
"The 'Publish What You Pay' campaign aims to help citizens hold their governments accountable for how these resource-related funds are managed and distributed.
"George Soros and a coalition of more than 40 NGOs (including the Open Society Institute and the campaign's co-sponsor, Global Witness) place the onus on wealthy countries' governments to require transnational extraction companies to publish net taxes, fees, royalties, and other payments made so civil society can more accurately assess the amount of money misappropriated and lobby for full transparency in local government spending."
The campaign website includes the text of an op-ed piece written by George Soros for the Financial Times last June:
"I recognize that oil and mining companies do not control how their payments are spent, or misspent. But if they are to be good corporate citizens in this age of globalization, they do have a responsibility to disclose these payments so the people of the countries concerned can hold their governments to account.
"No individual company wants to start disclosing data before its competitors do. That is why voluntary disclosure will not work. But all companies would benefit from a level playing field if disclosure were required. They would not be violating the terms of their agreements if the requirement to 'Publish What You Pay' were imposed on them."
T&T is not one of the countries singled out by the campaign for not fully disclosing its energy revenues to its citizens (though Venezuela is). But I think we should be eager nonetheless to see how the multinational corporations currently exploiting our own energy resources respond to this challenge. "Sustainable development" is everyone's talk these days, but talk is proverbially cheap; our oil & natural gas are not.
"International oil, gas, and mining companies pay billions of dollars a year to the governments of many less developed countries that are rich in natural resources, such as Angola and Nigeria.
"Few of these countries' citizens benefit from this financial windfall, however, because of government corruption + mismanagement.
"The 'Publish What You Pay' campaign aims to help citizens hold their governments accountable for how these resource-related funds are managed and distributed.
"George Soros and a coalition of more than 40 NGOs (including the Open Society Institute and the campaign's co-sponsor, Global Witness) place the onus on wealthy countries' governments to require transnational extraction companies to publish net taxes, fees, royalties, and other payments made so civil society can more accurately assess the amount of money misappropriated and lobby for full transparency in local government spending."
The campaign website includes the text of an op-ed piece written by George Soros for the Financial Times last June:
"I recognize that oil and mining companies do not control how their payments are spent, or misspent. But if they are to be good corporate citizens in this age of globalization, they do have a responsibility to disclose these payments so the people of the countries concerned can hold their governments to account.
"No individual company wants to start disclosing data before its competitors do. That is why voluntary disclosure will not work. But all companies would benefit from a level playing field if disclosure were required. They would not be violating the terms of their agreements if the requirement to 'Publish What You Pay' were imposed on them."
T&T is not one of the countries singled out by the campaign for not fully disclosing its energy revenues to its citizens (though Venezuela is). But I think we should be eager nonetheless to see how the multinational corporations currently exploiting our own energy resources respond to this challenge. "Sustainable development" is everyone's talk these days, but talk is proverbially cheap; our oil & natural gas are not.
"There are a few questions, which someone in my situation will not even ask. Jean-Paul Sartre, for instance, devoted an entire little book to the question: For whom do we write? It is an interesting question, but it can also be dangerous, and I thank my lucky stars that I never had to deal with it. Let us see what the danger consists of. If a writer were to pick a social class or group that he would like, not only to delight but also influence, he would first have to examine his style to see whether it is a suitable means by which to exert influence. He will soon be assailed by doubts, and spend his time watching himself. How can he know for sure what his readers want, what they really like? He cannot very well ask each and every one. And even if he did, it wouldn't do any good. He would have to rely on his image of his would-be readers, the expectations he ascribed to them, and imagine what would have the effect on him that he would like to achieve. For whom does a writer write, then? The answer is obvious: he writes for himself."
— Imre Kertész, "Heureka!", the 2002 Nobel Lecture, now available online at the Nobel Foundation website.
My half-dozen readers may have picked up, from the odd hint or turn of phrase, that lately I've been wondering what exactly I'm blogging for. I started this weblog as a sort of experiment, but without any clear objective; I suppose I must have assumed that at some point I'd have an audience of at least a few dozen, that I'd manage to make some tentative but useful contributions to various debates of public interest, that I'd help establish a Caribbean presence in the blogosphere. Well, a quick visit to my page counter (scroll to the very bottom) suggests that this blog's impact on the world has thus far been negligible (Glenn Reynolds gets about 50,000 hits per day; my record thus far is 15.)
Now, my posting is nothing like the kind of writing Kertész discusses, but over the last couple of weeks I've come to the same conclusion: I'm writing this blog for myself, for the strange satisfaction of knowing my (incoherent, inconsequential, insufficiently thought out) ramblings are floating out on the ether, atoms in the great theoretical infinity of this invented universe (which some call the Internet). I'm not leading up to any conclusion here — merely acknowledging the awesome & selfish thrill of contributing a strand or two of myself to this impossible entity.
(Wryly noted: Glenn Reynolds admits that fast typing is the secret of his success....)
— Imre Kertész, "Heureka!", the 2002 Nobel Lecture, now available online at the Nobel Foundation website.
My half-dozen readers may have picked up, from the odd hint or turn of phrase, that lately I've been wondering what exactly I'm blogging for. I started this weblog as a sort of experiment, but without any clear objective; I suppose I must have assumed that at some point I'd have an audience of at least a few dozen, that I'd manage to make some tentative but useful contributions to various debates of public interest, that I'd help establish a Caribbean presence in the blogosphere. Well, a quick visit to my page counter (scroll to the very bottom) suggests that this blog's impact on the world has thus far been negligible (Glenn Reynolds gets about 50,000 hits per day; my record thus far is 15.)
Now, my posting is nothing like the kind of writing Kertész discusses, but over the last couple of weeks I've come to the same conclusion: I'm writing this blog for myself, for the strange satisfaction of knowing my (incoherent, inconsequential, insufficiently thought out) ramblings are floating out on the ether, atoms in the great theoretical infinity of this invented universe (which some call the Internet). I'm not leading up to any conclusion here — merely acknowledging the awesome & selfish thrill of contributing a strand or two of myself to this impossible entity.
(Wryly noted: Glenn Reynolds admits that fast typing is the secret of his success....)
Let the games begin: Jonathan complains this morning that he's unable to italicise text when blogging from the office, since he's forced to use a Mac, "and the Mac browser does not support that capability". He's blaming the wrong party: it's not Apple's fault that Blogger hasn't fixed their software so that Mac users enjoy the same conveniences as Windows users; also not Apple's fault that Jonathan hasn't figured out the simple HTML code for italics....
"Can someone please explain to me again why the Macintosh exists?", he asks. Ah, just the opportunity I've been waiting for to link to a fascinating five-part series by Leander Kahney on Mac loyalty, published on Wired.com: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Most of my half-dozen readers already know I'm blogging on an iBook, & have been firmly on the side of Apple since the first time I sat down in front of a little Mac Plus, roughly 12 years ago, & felt an instinctive affinity: here was a computer that seemed to think the way I did, that I could use intuitively, without frequently, frustratedly resorting to a manual or an "expert", a computer that seemed to exist to make the world a little easier for me. I've been a confirmed Mac user ever since (even though from time to time I've been forced to grapple with Windows, & even now there's a Dell sitting on a desk at home, gathering dust). There are lots of reasons: the elegance of the interface, the stability of the platform, the fact that I feel I can tinker around inside the OS without doing catastrophic damage, & that I pretty much don't have to worry about viruses — but above all else my Mac just feels right to me; it feels like an extension of my working mind, not a tiresome protuberance that I'm forced to tolerate.
Maybe I just think different.
Or you could look at it this way:
"Umberto Eco, the Italian semiologist, once famously compared Macs and PCs to the two main branches of the Christian faith: Catholics and Protestants.
"The Mac is Catholic, he wrote in his back-page column of the Italian news weekly, Espresso, in September 1994. It is 'cheerful, friendly, conciliatory, it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach — if not the Kingdom of Heaven — the moment in which their document is printed.'
"The Windows PC, on the other hand, is Protestant. It demands 'difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can reach salvation. To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself: A long way from the baroque community of revelers, the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment."
"Can someone please explain to me again why the Macintosh exists?", he asks. Ah, just the opportunity I've been waiting for to link to a fascinating five-part series by Leander Kahney on Mac loyalty, published on Wired.com: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Most of my half-dozen readers already know I'm blogging on an iBook, & have been firmly on the side of Apple since the first time I sat down in front of a little Mac Plus, roughly 12 years ago, & felt an instinctive affinity: here was a computer that seemed to think the way I did, that I could use intuitively, without frequently, frustratedly resorting to a manual or an "expert", a computer that seemed to exist to make the world a little easier for me. I've been a confirmed Mac user ever since (even though from time to time I've been forced to grapple with Windows, & even now there's a Dell sitting on a desk at home, gathering dust). There are lots of reasons: the elegance of the interface, the stability of the platform, the fact that I feel I can tinker around inside the OS without doing catastrophic damage, & that I pretty much don't have to worry about viruses — but above all else my Mac just feels right to me; it feels like an extension of my working mind, not a tiresome protuberance that I'm forced to tolerate.
Maybe I just think different.
Or you could look at it this way:
"Umberto Eco, the Italian semiologist, once famously compared Macs and PCs to the two main branches of the Christian faith: Catholics and Protestants.
"The Mac is Catholic, he wrote in his back-page column of the Italian news weekly, Espresso, in September 1994. It is 'cheerful, friendly, conciliatory, it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach — if not the Kingdom of Heaven — the moment in which their document is printed.'
"The Windows PC, on the other hand, is Protestant. It demands 'difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can reach salvation. To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself: A long way from the baroque community of revelers, the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment."
Sunday, December 15, 2002
In today's Express, both Kirk Meighoo & Selwyn Ryan take on the issue of party politics in T&T (on the Express website Ryan's column mistakenly appears with Martin Daly's byline). Meighoo revives Allan Harris's idea of a "one-&-a-half party system"; Ryan examines the UNC's current succession crisis. Both end with the same diagnosis: political underdevelopment. In Ryan's words:
"One of the better known definitions of political party was scripted by the British political thinker and activist Edmund Burke. For Burke, 'a party is a body of men united for promoting, by their joint endeavour, the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed'. If we use that classic definition, few of the organisations which make claims to being a party [in T&T] will qualify.
"Parties are now little more than electoral outfits created by political picaroons, conmen, and entrepreneurs who regard parties as a business, and politics as an investment opportunity which is no different in principle from any other investment, except perhaps that the returns in the high risk 'winner take all system' are substantial for those who win, and close to zero for those who lose."
Meighoo hints at the necessary solution: a constitutional structure in which the people are genuinely represented, which will eventually force the parties to enact internal reforms in order to achieve & maintain power. It's a chicken-&-egg case, if you will: a meaningfully democratic legislature must come first. Meaningfully democratic parties, & meaningful politics, will follow.
"One of the better known definitions of political party was scripted by the British political thinker and activist Edmund Burke. For Burke, 'a party is a body of men united for promoting, by their joint endeavour, the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed'. If we use that classic definition, few of the organisations which make claims to being a party [in T&T] will qualify.
"Parties are now little more than electoral outfits created by political picaroons, conmen, and entrepreneurs who regard parties as a business, and politics as an investment opportunity which is no different in principle from any other investment, except perhaps that the returns in the high risk 'winner take all system' are substantial for those who win, and close to zero for those who lose."
Meighoo hints at the necessary solution: a constitutional structure in which the people are genuinely represented, which will eventually force the parties to enact internal reforms in order to achieve & maintain power. It's a chicken-&-egg case, if you will: a meaningfully democratic legislature must come first. Meaningfully democratic parties, & meaningful politics, will follow.
The press in the rest of the Caribbean doesn't seem to have picked up on this yet, but the speaker of St. Lucia's House of Representatives, Matthew Roberts, has been at the centre of an unfolding controversy for nearly three months now. This weekend's edition of the Star gives a detailed summary. Roberts has been accused of rape by the "flamboyant" (i.e. openly homosexual) Paris-based St. Lucian model Vincent McDoom; the alleged attack took place twenty years ago, when McDoom was a minor. Roberts has refused to respond to the allegations, & prime minister Kenny Anthony has also remained silent. Former prime minister Vaughan Lewis, writing in last weekend's Star, called for Roberts to speak up, but the government seems to think the scandal will simply go away if they ignore it steadfastly enough.
Peter Berkowitz, in today's Washington Post Book World, reviews two new books examining the nature of good & evil: Susan Neiman's Evil in Modern Thought & Bernard Williams's Truth and Truthfulness. Berkowitz starts by pointing out the continued relevance of this old problem to a world agitated by ethico-political debate over Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, terrorism & the appropriate response to its horrors. Neiman & Williams, of course, like all good philosophers, are more interested in questions than in answers, but the conclusion they separately come to — "anticlimactic and abstract", says Berkowitz — is that our best defence against the possibility of evil is human reason, our ongoing & highly imperfect attempt to understand ourselves & the world we make around us, & to use this knowledge to prevent suffering as far as we are able.
My own fragmentary idea, picked up not from metaphysicians but from novelists, is that evil is the failure of the moral imagination, our failure to try to step outside ourselves & understand the world as it occurs to other people, to imaginatively grapple with their happiness & their suffering, to grasp their humanness. Perhaps I'm labouring under a hopeless naïvety, but I don't see how a person could deliberately inflict harm, inflict suffering, inflict evil, upon another person, unless he failed to grasp the essential fact that this other was as capable of suffering as he. Hence the pernicious strategy of dehumanising rivals & enemies through labels, stereotypes, lies. It's not that hard, it seems, to blow people up or hack them to bits if you manage to think of them not as human beings but as Jews or Arabs or infidel or sinners or terrorists.
The great sin, I think, is exceptionalism: believing oneself of more value — more human — than others. Yet our evolutionary history as an animal species, struggling for survival, has created us with this very instinct. Hence the revolutionary significance of Christ's dictum, "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them"; & of Kant's categorical imperative, "act only on that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law". They ask us to be something more than the animals of our physical nature. They ask us to do something extraordinary, something which almost no other animal species seems capable of doing: imagine what the world feels like to someone else.
My own fragmentary idea, picked up not from metaphysicians but from novelists, is that evil is the failure of the moral imagination, our failure to try to step outside ourselves & understand the world as it occurs to other people, to imaginatively grapple with their happiness & their suffering, to grasp their humanness. Perhaps I'm labouring under a hopeless naïvety, but I don't see how a person could deliberately inflict harm, inflict suffering, inflict evil, upon another person, unless he failed to grasp the essential fact that this other was as capable of suffering as he. Hence the pernicious strategy of dehumanising rivals & enemies through labels, stereotypes, lies. It's not that hard, it seems, to blow people up or hack them to bits if you manage to think of them not as human beings but as Jews or Arabs or infidel or sinners or terrorists.
The great sin, I think, is exceptionalism: believing oneself of more value — more human — than others. Yet our evolutionary history as an animal species, struggling for survival, has created us with this very instinct. Hence the revolutionary significance of Christ's dictum, "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them"; & of Kant's categorical imperative, "act only on that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law". They ask us to be something more than the animals of our physical nature. They ask us to do something extraordinary, something which almost no other animal species seems capable of doing: imagine what the world feels like to someone else.
Slowly we populate the blogosphere: another Trinidadian, Jonathan Ali, has staked his virtual claim, & he even credits my influence! I hope we'll soon be engaged in some satisfying debate; meanwhile, my half-dozen readers may be interested in hearing what Jonathan thinks about Kurt Cobain's journals or Arundhati Roy's new book of essays. (Now how do we get Damien to start blogging again?)
Saturday, December 14, 2002
As part of my ongoing effort to be useful to the world, over the last few weeks I've been tracking down online reviews of Caribbean books, & have now assembled these into an index. Most of them date from the last five years, but a few older reviews come from the online archives of the NY Times & the Caribbean Writer. So far I've got about 100 reviews listed here, of books by authors ranging alphabetically from Robert Antoni to Derek Walcott. I intend to update the index every few weeks to include new reviews as well as older ones I manage to unearth. I hope someone finds all this helpful.
A mysterious entity called top5trinidad.com has nominated what it refers to as the "Top 5 Trinidadian Homepages" (discovered via Vlado Kekoc). Kittyblogs, most of them look like to me.
Reading Naipaul's essays on India in The Writer and the World makes Soumya Bhattacharya wonder (in yesterday's Hindustan Times) whether anything's changed in Calcutta — er, Kolkata — in the last forty years.
A.S. Byatt, in an essay in today's UK Guardian, recalls the delight & fascination with which she read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as a child. My own clearest memory of reading Alice at an early age is of the slight terror induced by Tenniel's masterful illustrations. I shiver a little even now, when I remember his vision of Alice with her neck extended to serpentine proportions, after a taste of the caterpillar's mushroom....
In case you hadn't noticed, the Times reports that Roger Toussaint, the president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, & hence the leading figure in the possible NYC transit strike, is a Trini. (And a St. Mary's old boy too, according to this profile by Angela Pidduck.)
Lloyd Best goes at the constitution reform issue from another angle in yesterday's Express, describing the failure of the Caribbean's educated elite "to describe its own reality by using concepts and designations that spring out of its own experience" (as opposed to borrowing ideas of varying degrees of relevance & irrelevance from elsewhere).
"Should we not turn instead to the hard and very possibly 'unrewarding' work of plumbing the origins of the present Caribbean mess?"
This fundamental requirement to understand the Caribbean as a unique social, historical & cultural phenomenon, in its own terms, has been the basis of Best's work for forty years, & now of his radical proposals for reconstituting the colonial state, as he aptly puts it.
A week ago Best gave a detailed rationale for the "House of Parliament" with which he'd replace the T&T senate; today he does the same for his "House of Government", "the agency within which the country would be able to judge, on a continuing basis from discussion and debate, the comparative merits of all the leaders of parties vying for the right to become the Executive":
"What we now routinely mistake for a House of Representatives is nothing of the kind.
"Any child arriving from Mars would see that it is the place where the Chief Executive and his one or two rivals for the prime ministership each assembles her/his aides. While it was substantially so all along, it was not wholly so, not until the Republican Constitution of 1976. The then PM vested himself with the right to handpick up to 16 executive aides from the Senate.
"The diabolical effect of this, though unappreciated at the time, was to make members of the first or lower house essentially expendable and therefore susceptible equally of being handpicked. This is the real meaning of would be representatives and legislators ritually regarded as crapauds and millstones. To the extent that the party politics favours such a dispensation — which it does; and to the extent that the culture of the incumbent is reproduced on the Opposition side, what we have ended up with is not necessarily a bad thing. It is simply a House of Government unvarnished. It offers to the electorate no semblance of representation."
(Compare Best's ideas with, for instance, John Spence's rather timid suggestions in last Thursday's Express, & you realise how far most of us still are from recognising the necessity of an entire structural reconception of our constitutional arrangements. Superficial, piecemeal patching up — Spence would have MPs' salaries raised, the number of cabinet ministers fixed etc. — would only distract us from our real task, & postpone what I believe is an inevitable revolutionary change in the way we govern ourselves. (Flying my optimist's colours this morning!)
"Should we not turn instead to the hard and very possibly 'unrewarding' work of plumbing the origins of the present Caribbean mess?"
This fundamental requirement to understand the Caribbean as a unique social, historical & cultural phenomenon, in its own terms, has been the basis of Best's work for forty years, & now of his radical proposals for reconstituting the colonial state, as he aptly puts it.
A week ago Best gave a detailed rationale for the "House of Parliament" with which he'd replace the T&T senate; today he does the same for his "House of Government", "the agency within which the country would be able to judge, on a continuing basis from discussion and debate, the comparative merits of all the leaders of parties vying for the right to become the Executive":
"What we now routinely mistake for a House of Representatives is nothing of the kind.
"Any child arriving from Mars would see that it is the place where the Chief Executive and his one or two rivals for the prime ministership each assembles her/his aides. While it was substantially so all along, it was not wholly so, not until the Republican Constitution of 1976. The then PM vested himself with the right to handpick up to 16 executive aides from the Senate.
"The diabolical effect of this, though unappreciated at the time, was to make members of the first or lower house essentially expendable and therefore susceptible equally of being handpicked. This is the real meaning of would be representatives and legislators ritually regarded as crapauds and millstones. To the extent that the party politics favours such a dispensation — which it does; and to the extent that the culture of the incumbent is reproduced on the Opposition side, what we have ended up with is not necessarily a bad thing. It is simply a House of Government unvarnished. It offers to the electorate no semblance of representation."
(Compare Best's ideas with, for instance, John Spence's rather timid suggestions in last Thursday's Express, & you realise how far most of us still are from recognising the necessity of an entire structural reconception of our constitutional arrangements. Superficial, piecemeal patching up — Spence would have MPs' salaries raised, the number of cabinet ministers fixed etc. — would only distract us from our real task, & postpone what I believe is an inevitable revolutionary change in the way we govern ourselves. (Flying my optimist's colours this morning!)
Thursday, December 12, 2002
Glenn Reynolds approvingly quotes Armed Liberal on the subject of liberal snobbery:
"I’m a liberal because I respect pretty much everyone.... it comes from a feeling that the least of us are as human and worthy of dignity as the best.
"But somehow, we have managed to raise an intellectual class who believe in liberalism in no small part because it allows them to feel superior to others."
"Yep," says the Instapundit, but the observation is true not because of any inherent flaw in liberalism itself but because of a basic human fondness for feeling oneself superior to others. As Virginia Woolf put it,
"Life ... is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion as we are, it calls for confidence in oneself. Without self-confidence we are as babes in the cradle. And how can we generate this imponderable quality, which is yet so invaluable, most quickly? By thinking that other people are inferior to oneself. By feeling that one has some innate superiority — it may be wealth, or rank, a straight nose, or the portrait of a grandfather by Romney — for there is no end to the pathetic devices of the human imagination — over other people."
And it seems to me that one such "pathetic device" of recent invention is the casual deployment of terms such as "idiotarian" in order to affirm one's superiority over ideological opponents; name-calling which effectively dismisses intellectual subtleties or valid moral qualms for the sake of scoring easy points.
Waving about one's ideology in an attempt to feel superior to others is behaviour not restricted to liberals.
"I’m a liberal because I respect pretty much everyone.... it comes from a feeling that the least of us are as human and worthy of dignity as the best.
"But somehow, we have managed to raise an intellectual class who believe in liberalism in no small part because it allows them to feel superior to others."
"Yep," says the Instapundit, but the observation is true not because of any inherent flaw in liberalism itself but because of a basic human fondness for feeling oneself superior to others. As Virginia Woolf put it,
"Life ... is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion as we are, it calls for confidence in oneself. Without self-confidence we are as babes in the cradle. And how can we generate this imponderable quality, which is yet so invaluable, most quickly? By thinking that other people are inferior to oneself. By feeling that one has some innate superiority — it may be wealth, or rank, a straight nose, or the portrait of a grandfather by Romney — for there is no end to the pathetic devices of the human imagination — over other people."
And it seems to me that one such "pathetic device" of recent invention is the casual deployment of terms such as "idiotarian" in order to affirm one's superiority over ideological opponents; name-calling which effectively dismisses intellectual subtleties or valid moral qualms for the sake of scoring easy points.
Waving about one's ideology in an attempt to feel superior to others is behaviour not restricted to liberals.
From our reading:
"Tras el cristal ya gris la noche cesa
Y del alto de libros que una trunca
Sombra dilata por la vaga mesa,
Alguno habrá que no leeremos nunca."
("Through the dawning window night withdraws
And among the stacked books which throw
Irregular shadows on the dim table,
There must be one which I will never read.")
— Jorge Luis Borges, "Limites" ("Limits"), trans. Alastair Reid
"...I began to make unhelpful calculations, multiplying the number of books I'd read in the previous year by the number of years I might reasonable be expected to live, and perceiving in the three-digit product not so much an intimation of mortality (though the news on that front wasn't cheering) as a measure of the incompatibility of the slow work of reading and the hyperkinesis of modern life."
— Jonathan Franzen, "Why Bother?" (a.k.a. "the Harper's essay"), in How to Be Alone, p. 63 in the US edition.
"...like everyone in their middle years, I can do the calculations, and they don't augur well for my lifetime bibliography. Say I have 25 years left, at 10 books a year. That's barely a bookshelf. If I were to read all of Dickens — and somewhere, packed away so I don't have to see it, is a complete leather-bound edition — that would be a year gone. Plato, the same (times 20 if we insist, as we should, on the original Greek). Shakespeare, more like two (because you really can't read Shakespeare properly without a detailed commentary). Already it seems daunting, and where do you fit in the latest Jonathan Franzen?"
— John Allemang, "The Secret Life of Non-readers", in the Globe and Mail, 7 December, 2002 (no link because the Globe and Mail has no permanent online archive).
This awful idea (awful in the literal sense) eventually occurs to every individual who privately defines himself or herself as a reader: there won't be enough time to read everything. My first real confrontation with the fact of my own mortality happened one day as I browsed along one of my bookcases, started to pull a volume from the shelf, changed my mind & pushed it back, & suddenly realised I would never actually read that particular now-forgotten title.
Re-reading the Franzen essay recently, I was prompted to make my own "unhelpful" calculation. I don't know how many books I've read this last year — I certainly don't read as much or as quickly as I did in my youth — but an average of thirty per annum seems reasonable & conservative. Multiplied by sixty (longevity runs in my family, both sides), that gives 1,800. I must have nearly half that many unread books lying on my shelves already, but at least I'm doing better than Franzen & Allemang.
Why bring this up now? I've barely posted to my blog this week. One reason is that I've been dismayed of late by the amount of time I seem to spend online. True, much of this time is spent reading — but in stops & starts, skipping, skimming, never quite finishing anything, shifting back & forth between webpages — an altogether unsatisfying mode of being. So the last few days, instead of posting, I've been reading Pepys. I acquired the 11-volume Latham & Matthews edition of the Diary last February, & for nearly ten months it sat piled up on a small chair in my study. Now I'm halfway through vol. 1.
"Tras el cristal ya gris la noche cesa
Y del alto de libros que una trunca
Sombra dilata por la vaga mesa,
Alguno habrá que no leeremos nunca."
("Through the dawning window night withdraws
And among the stacked books which throw
Irregular shadows on the dim table,
There must be one which I will never read.")
— Jorge Luis Borges, "Limites" ("Limits"), trans. Alastair Reid
"...I began to make unhelpful calculations, multiplying the number of books I'd read in the previous year by the number of years I might reasonable be expected to live, and perceiving in the three-digit product not so much an intimation of mortality (though the news on that front wasn't cheering) as a measure of the incompatibility of the slow work of reading and the hyperkinesis of modern life."
— Jonathan Franzen, "Why Bother?" (a.k.a. "the Harper's essay"), in How to Be Alone, p. 63 in the US edition.
"...like everyone in their middle years, I can do the calculations, and they don't augur well for my lifetime bibliography. Say I have 25 years left, at 10 books a year. That's barely a bookshelf. If I were to read all of Dickens — and somewhere, packed away so I don't have to see it, is a complete leather-bound edition — that would be a year gone. Plato, the same (times 20 if we insist, as we should, on the original Greek). Shakespeare, more like two (because you really can't read Shakespeare properly without a detailed commentary). Already it seems daunting, and where do you fit in the latest Jonathan Franzen?"
— John Allemang, "The Secret Life of Non-readers", in the Globe and Mail, 7 December, 2002 (no link because the Globe and Mail has no permanent online archive).
This awful idea (awful in the literal sense) eventually occurs to every individual who privately defines himself or herself as a reader: there won't be enough time to read everything. My first real confrontation with the fact of my own mortality happened one day as I browsed along one of my bookcases, started to pull a volume from the shelf, changed my mind & pushed it back, & suddenly realised I would never actually read that particular now-forgotten title.
Re-reading the Franzen essay recently, I was prompted to make my own "unhelpful" calculation. I don't know how many books I've read this last year — I certainly don't read as much or as quickly as I did in my youth — but an average of thirty per annum seems reasonable & conservative. Multiplied by sixty (longevity runs in my family, both sides), that gives 1,800. I must have nearly half that many unread books lying on my shelves already, but at least I'm doing better than Franzen & Allemang.
Why bring this up now? I've barely posted to my blog this week. One reason is that I've been dismayed of late by the amount of time I seem to spend online. True, much of this time is spent reading — but in stops & starts, skipping, skimming, never quite finishing anything, shifting back & forth between webpages — an altogether unsatisfying mode of being. So the last few days, instead of posting, I've been reading Pepys. I acquired the 11-volume Latham & Matthews edition of the Diary last February, & for nearly ten months it sat piled up on a small chair in my study. Now I'm halfway through vol. 1.
Monday, December 09, 2002
What's happened to Salam Pax? Diane at Letter from Gotham explains that he thought it prudent to take down his blog after it was mentioned in a Reuters report, potentially bringing him to the attention of Saddam Hussein's murderous operatives.
I'm very disheartened & shaken by this. If anything were to happen to Salam now, would we even know about it?
His parting word is "sorry".
I'm sorry — & worried & sad.
I'm very disheartened & shaken by this. If anything were to happen to Salam now, would we even know about it?
His parting word is "sorry".
I'm sorry — & worried & sad.
Sunday, December 08, 2002
Today's Guardian also runs an excerpt (not online) from the speech with which Ken Ramchand introduced his constitution reform motion in the T&T senate. The most interesting part comes right at the end:
"... emancipation gave to the majority of the population neither vote, nor land nor money in compensation.... It was left to the masses to express themselves and show forth their possibilities and display their threat and revolutionary power in cultural performance, in festivals, in Carnival canboulay and Hosay riot, as dragon, diable diable, moko jumbie and pierrot, in tambour bambour, stickfight, and in the freedom of the jamette underworld, where female liberation was a socially liberating everyday fact. The establishment felt the political threat of these displays and understood them to be the most eloquent and comprehensive calls, the most human arguments, for constitution reform. They raved about them in the newspapers. They banned them. They turned on them the police....
"We have a right to make a constitution after our own fashion to suit the facts of our history and our own projections about our future, and when we do so I propose certain provisions in the new constitution should relate to the work of the artists and the craftsmen and the cultural practitioners in our country who often represent us at our best and propose the most fearless courses for our emergence."
This reading of the expression of political will through popular culture in late 19th-century & early 20th-century Trinidad is fascinating, but what really interests me is Ramchand's vague suggestion that "certain provisions in the new constitution should relate to the work of the artists and the craftsmen and the cultural practitioners". I can't think what he means — a constitutionally protected right to artistic expression? A legislative body made up of artists & performers? Don't our poets & our calypsonians & our painters & our mas men best exercise their power as unacknowledged legislators, in Shelley's phrase? But I'm eager to hear Ramchand unfold his concept.
"... emancipation gave to the majority of the population neither vote, nor land nor money in compensation.... It was left to the masses to express themselves and show forth their possibilities and display their threat and revolutionary power in cultural performance, in festivals, in Carnival canboulay and Hosay riot, as dragon, diable diable, moko jumbie and pierrot, in tambour bambour, stickfight, and in the freedom of the jamette underworld, where female liberation was a socially liberating everyday fact. The establishment felt the political threat of these displays and understood them to be the most eloquent and comprehensive calls, the most human arguments, for constitution reform. They raved about them in the newspapers. They banned them. They turned on them the police....
"We have a right to make a constitution after our own fashion to suit the facts of our history and our own projections about our future, and when we do so I propose certain provisions in the new constitution should relate to the work of the artists and the craftsmen and the cultural practitioners in our country who often represent us at our best and propose the most fearless courses for our emergence."
This reading of the expression of political will through popular culture in late 19th-century & early 20th-century Trinidad is fascinating, but what really interests me is Ramchand's vague suggestion that "certain provisions in the new constitution should relate to the work of the artists and the craftsmen and the cultural practitioners". I can't think what he means — a constitutionally protected right to artistic expression? A legislative body made up of artists & performers? Don't our poets & our calypsonians & our painters & our mas men best exercise their power as unacknowledged legislators, in Shelley's phrase? But I'm eager to hear Ramchand unfold his concept.
In discussing constitution reform in T&T over the last few weeks, I've repeatedly invoked the ideas of Lloyd Best; it must be clear to my half-dozen readers that I wholeheartedly agree with his argument that the fundamental issue is representation; & the version of a "people's senate" which I proposed recently is based on his thinking as well.
In yesterday's Express Best detailed his own practical prescription for reform of T&T's legislative machinery (as he has in the past). Unfortunately, some sort of bug in the Express website has made all of yesterday's op-ed pieces inaccessible. I reported this problem to the webmaster, hoping it would soon be fixed so I could actually link to Best's column. But as of this morning nothing's been done; so I'm reluctantly posting linklessly, & quoting more extensively than I otherwise would [UPDATE: the site's been fixed; read Best's column here]:
"Since self-government was first mooted, more than 50 years of our energies have been almost systematically misdirected. The signature demand of a free people is effective representation. However, it has almost certainly been obscured by the ineluctable necessity to resort to an ethnic mobilisation, mainly and increasingly, but not only, on the basis of race....
"It has taken the futility of a country hung on this basis and therefore of a parliament repeatedly stymied or nearly so, to bring us to our senses. We are still only groping for the new dispensation — without as yet being in a position to convert it into machinery and operations....
"... the banner demand can only be for effective representation at the level of central government. We can begin only where experience has left us and start with the agencies to which the attention of the public is turned. Given present imperfections in parliament and government, two agencies seem to be called for. Instead of a lower (first) and an upper (second) chamber, operating in the shape of a House of Representatives and a Senate, what we need are one single House of Government and another House of Parliament.
"Our problem has always been, precisely, that our institutional arrangements have amounted to one House (of Government) that invariably converts the other house into a pathological surrogate. This implies, as we are now painfully aware, that the House of Government we are in search of already exists, even if it needs to be adapted to the new requirements of reform. What we cannot simply carve out of existing institutions, and must create or invent anew, is a House of Parliament, even if there are some elements and some relevant experience on which we are able to count.
"In most ways the character of the House of Parliament is easy to outline. For one thing, it must offer the widest possible representation to popular interests. This entails two conditions. First, this house must be of ample size so as to guarantee a catchment of the largest dimensions.... Second, this house cannot be a nominated chamber. It can only be one that is elected, even if such election, in part, might come down to a selection of representatives by each of the great diversity of national interests....
"The intention of these provisions is to ensure that, as far as possible in the initial stages, the members of the House of Parliament, as well as the chamber as a collective, would be wholly autonomous. They must in no way be dependent on or beholden to the members of the Executive or House of Government....
"For a second thing, this House of Parliament must be endowed with the full powers of a legislature to inform, instruct and discipline the Executive, located in the other House (of Government). This function it would carry out by debating and voting on all legislation, whether initiated by itself or by the Executive....
When we turn to the other house, the House of Government, we are immediately transported into the realm of the Executive. We have always operated this house under the rubric of the Legislative Council and thereafter the House of Representatives, egregiously a misnomer.
"The long-standing provision that the Executive be a committee of the Legislature has in effect been the permissive condition for the latter to be subordinate to the former....
"We shall come to see that our proposal for two separate houses, including a House of Government, would seek to distribute responsibilities in such a way as to achieve not so much Montesquieu's imprecise and elusive 'separation of powers' but more an independence of agencies, appropriate to WI requirements."
I'm yet to hear a proposal as compelling as Best's; it's clear from his analysis that no one has thought about these issues as deeply or as rigorously as he has. But this great question remains: how to make such revolutionary reform actually happen? My belief has been that a credible alliance of concerned citizens — like the Constitution Reform Forum — will have to act boldly & set up a new mechanism outside the official structure in order to demonstrate the viability & legitimacy of major reform. Damien has argued via email that there's no general public interest in constitution reform & hence all this high-minded debate is doomed to failure. He also wonders, as a few other commentators have, whether T&T's ruling elite would really countenance any change that could give meaningful political power to the masses.
The only immediate solution, it seems to me, is to keep arguing these questions as loudly & as publicly as possible.
Meanwhile, B.C. Pires interviews Best in today's Guardian (not online). I'll quote only his response to the final question:
Pires: How do you feel about being dismissed as "too high" or irrelevant to the ordinary man?
Best: My ideas are everywhere. If you take a newspaper, it's hard to find a morning in which someone is not referring to something I said, and not only in Trinidad. People who don't like me try to deal with me by saying that.
In yesterday's Express Best detailed his own practical prescription for reform of T&T's legislative machinery (as he has in the past). Unfortunately, some sort of bug in the Express website has made all of yesterday's op-ed pieces inaccessible. I reported this problem to the webmaster, hoping it would soon be fixed so I could actually link to Best's column. But as of this morning nothing's been done; so I'm reluctantly posting linklessly, & quoting more extensively than I otherwise would [UPDATE: the site's been fixed; read Best's column here]:
"Since self-government was first mooted, more than 50 years of our energies have been almost systematically misdirected. The signature demand of a free people is effective representation. However, it has almost certainly been obscured by the ineluctable necessity to resort to an ethnic mobilisation, mainly and increasingly, but not only, on the basis of race....
"It has taken the futility of a country hung on this basis and therefore of a parliament repeatedly stymied or nearly so, to bring us to our senses. We are still only groping for the new dispensation — without as yet being in a position to convert it into machinery and operations....
"... the banner demand can only be for effective representation at the level of central government. We can begin only where experience has left us and start with the agencies to which the attention of the public is turned. Given present imperfections in parliament and government, two agencies seem to be called for. Instead of a lower (first) and an upper (second) chamber, operating in the shape of a House of Representatives and a Senate, what we need are one single House of Government and another House of Parliament.
"Our problem has always been, precisely, that our institutional arrangements have amounted to one House (of Government) that invariably converts the other house into a pathological surrogate. This implies, as we are now painfully aware, that the House of Government we are in search of already exists, even if it needs to be adapted to the new requirements of reform. What we cannot simply carve out of existing institutions, and must create or invent anew, is a House of Parliament, even if there are some elements and some relevant experience on which we are able to count.
"In most ways the character of the House of Parliament is easy to outline. For one thing, it must offer the widest possible representation to popular interests. This entails two conditions. First, this house must be of ample size so as to guarantee a catchment of the largest dimensions.... Second, this house cannot be a nominated chamber. It can only be one that is elected, even if such election, in part, might come down to a selection of representatives by each of the great diversity of national interests....
"The intention of these provisions is to ensure that, as far as possible in the initial stages, the members of the House of Parliament, as well as the chamber as a collective, would be wholly autonomous. They must in no way be dependent on or beholden to the members of the Executive or House of Government....
"For a second thing, this House of Parliament must be endowed with the full powers of a legislature to inform, instruct and discipline the Executive, located in the other House (of Government). This function it would carry out by debating and voting on all legislation, whether initiated by itself or by the Executive....
When we turn to the other house, the House of Government, we are immediately transported into the realm of the Executive. We have always operated this house under the rubric of the Legislative Council and thereafter the House of Representatives, egregiously a misnomer.
"The long-standing provision that the Executive be a committee of the Legislature has in effect been the permissive condition for the latter to be subordinate to the former....
"We shall come to see that our proposal for two separate houses, including a House of Government, would seek to distribute responsibilities in such a way as to achieve not so much Montesquieu's imprecise and elusive 'separation of powers' but more an independence of agencies, appropriate to WI requirements."
I'm yet to hear a proposal as compelling as Best's; it's clear from his analysis that no one has thought about these issues as deeply or as rigorously as he has. But this great question remains: how to make such revolutionary reform actually happen? My belief has been that a credible alliance of concerned citizens — like the Constitution Reform Forum — will have to act boldly & set up a new mechanism outside the official structure in order to demonstrate the viability & legitimacy of major reform. Damien has argued via email that there's no general public interest in constitution reform & hence all this high-minded debate is doomed to failure. He also wonders, as a few other commentators have, whether T&T's ruling elite would really countenance any change that could give meaningful political power to the masses.
The only immediate solution, it seems to me, is to keep arguing these questions as loudly & as publicly as possible.
Meanwhile, B.C. Pires interviews Best in today's Guardian (not online). I'll quote only his response to the final question:
Pires: How do you feel about being dismissed as "too high" or irrelevant to the ordinary man?
Best: My ideas are everywhere. If you take a newspaper, it's hard to find a morning in which someone is not referring to something I said, and not only in Trinidad. People who don't like me try to deal with me by saying that.
Kirk Meighoo, writing in today's Express, says there was a major flaw in his statistical analysis of T&T's last general election results:
"If all the new voters and swinging 'third party' voters went to the PNM, that would total 38,000. This still leaves at least 12,000 extra votes for the PNM unaccounted for. These extra votes, I argued, would have had to come from the UNC supporters of last year. It made the PNM achievement seem more remarkable.
"This appeared to be an impeccable analysis.
"But there was one factor which I did not take into account, which has negated my entire conclusion. I neglected the amount of non-voters in 2001. They numbered 283,476. It is therefore entirely possible that the 55,000 new voters could have come from this group. Also, the 7,000 'third party' voters could have not voted at all this time around. Perhaps no swing occurred at all."
I must admit that when Meighoo's original analysis appeared in the T&T Review I looked it over, trying to find a flaw in his calculations; but I have no head for mathematics, felt slightly bewildered by his array of figures, & assumed he'd factored registered non-voters into his equation. (Perhaps I should've asked Damien to take a look.) I was a little suspicious of the "swing voter" phenomenon — not because of any personal statistical research, but because of what I'd observed people around me saying & doing in the weeks leading up to the election. It's a little shocking to discover my instincts may have been right.
So much for that exciting development.
But Meighoo today goes on to argue that "ethnic" voting, the bane of present-day T&T politics, is a more recent development than is generally recognised:
"Our political history suggests that the race situation was working itself out in the 1970s and 1980s, until the disastrous mishandling of the NAR alliance in 1987–8 re-energised ethnic solidarity. We are living through this phase at the moment.
"It will not last forever."
Let's hope he's right about this one.
"If all the new voters and swinging 'third party' voters went to the PNM, that would total 38,000. This still leaves at least 12,000 extra votes for the PNM unaccounted for. These extra votes, I argued, would have had to come from the UNC supporters of last year. It made the PNM achievement seem more remarkable.
"This appeared to be an impeccable analysis.
"But there was one factor which I did not take into account, which has negated my entire conclusion. I neglected the amount of non-voters in 2001. They numbered 283,476. It is therefore entirely possible that the 55,000 new voters could have come from this group. Also, the 7,000 'third party' voters could have not voted at all this time around. Perhaps no swing occurred at all."
I must admit that when Meighoo's original analysis appeared in the T&T Review I looked it over, trying to find a flaw in his calculations; but I have no head for mathematics, felt slightly bewildered by his array of figures, & assumed he'd factored registered non-voters into his equation. (Perhaps I should've asked Damien to take a look.) I was a little suspicious of the "swing voter" phenomenon — not because of any personal statistical research, but because of what I'd observed people around me saying & doing in the weeks leading up to the election. It's a little shocking to discover my instincts may have been right.
So much for that exciting development.
But Meighoo today goes on to argue that "ethnic" voting, the bane of present-day T&T politics, is a more recent development than is generally recognised:
"Our political history suggests that the race situation was working itself out in the 1970s and 1980s, until the disastrous mishandling of the NAR alliance in 1987–8 re-energised ethnic solidarity. We are living through this phase at the moment.
"It will not last forever."
Let's hope he's right about this one.
Saturday, December 07, 2002
Antiguan opposition leader Baldwin Spencer has accused the Bird government of a "tax witch-hunt" against the Daily Observer, reports the Sun:
"A tax crack-down on local firms has been condemned as a witch-hunt against opposition-aligned businesses.
"Taking this line yesterday, Opposition Leader Baldwin Spencer specifically criticised the demand on the Daily Observer for $3 million in unpaid taxes....
"Spencer is of the view that this latest development involving the reassessment of the Daily Observer as owing $3 million is designed to harass, victimise and destroy a very important institution in this country."
I hope other regional newspapers are keeping an eye on this story....
"A tax crack-down on local firms has been condemned as a witch-hunt against opposition-aligned businesses.
"Taking this line yesterday, Opposition Leader Baldwin Spencer specifically criticised the demand on the Daily Observer for $3 million in unpaid taxes....
"Spencer is of the view that this latest development involving the reassessment of the Daily Observer as owing $3 million is designed to harass, victimise and destroy a very important institution in this country."
I hope other regional newspapers are keeping an eye on this story....
Bukka Rennie, in his column in today's Guardian (no link, because the Guardian still has no online archive), responds to Anand Ramlogan's previous suggestion of a "right of recall". Rennie points out that this idea has a long history in T&T; it was actually introduced in 1965, by the Workers & Farmers Party (long since defunct), of which C.L.R. James was a leading member. He describes hearing James speak on the subject:
"My friends and I, then members of the Mount Hope PNM Youth Group, had gone to this WFP public meeting ... out of curiosity and probably with the intention to heckle. And there at the head table was this frail old man, his hair totally grey and hands that shook, shook so badly that he had to hold a glass of water with both hands in order to drink.... the would-be hecklers sensed an open season until the old man began to talk.
"And even though the manifesto dealt with the right to recall in about six lines, basically saying that they would amend the Constitution and the electoral law to allow this right and that crossing the floor should lead to automatic 'forfeiture' of the said seat, that particular night C.L.R. alluded to much much more....
"One began to sense that there was something very challenging and morally correct about people being able to recall representatives at any moment and effecting by-elections. One sensed certain possibilities arising from this 'right to recall'.
"Firstly, a deeper questioning of the quality of representation, the need to ensure that 'principle' be given priority over 'personality', which in essence would militate against such negatives as the act of crossing the floor without sanction from the electorate.
"Secondly, the mere beginning of a transfer of authority and power from the leaders and representatives back to the people themselves in their communities where it really matters.
"And thirdly, the eventual teasing towards an overall opening up of the political structures and system in order to empower all."
"My friends and I, then members of the Mount Hope PNM Youth Group, had gone to this WFP public meeting ... out of curiosity and probably with the intention to heckle. And there at the head table was this frail old man, his hair totally grey and hands that shook, shook so badly that he had to hold a glass of water with both hands in order to drink.... the would-be hecklers sensed an open season until the old man began to talk.
"And even though the manifesto dealt with the right to recall in about six lines, basically saying that they would amend the Constitution and the electoral law to allow this right and that crossing the floor should lead to automatic 'forfeiture' of the said seat, that particular night C.L.R. alluded to much much more....
"One began to sense that there was something very challenging and morally correct about people being able to recall representatives at any moment and effecting by-elections. One sensed certain possibilities arising from this 'right to recall'.
"Firstly, a deeper questioning of the quality of representation, the need to ensure that 'principle' be given priority over 'personality', which in essence would militate against such negatives as the act of crossing the floor without sanction from the electorate.
"Secondly, the mere beginning of a transfer of authority and power from the leaders and representatives back to the people themselves in their communities where it really matters.
"And thirdly, the eventual teasing towards an overall opening up of the political structures and system in order to empower all."
The Nation reports today that Barbadian cameraman Rudy Marshall — who works for a CBS affiliate in Miami & was a member of one of the first American news teams in Afghanistan after the start of last year's bombing campaign there — has been nominated for a regional Emmy.
I've finally added permalinks (see right) to some of the blogs I read regularly. Damien, by right of long friendship, heads the list. I'll add a few more, as I stumble upon new & interesting people in the ether, but I don't expect the number will ever cross a couple dozen. Blogrolls with what look like hundreds of names in them strike me as self-defeating. (And in view of the recent "delinking" spat in the blogosphere, I hasten to add that my linking to these blogs indicates merely that I find their authors' views fascinating enough for almost daily reading!)
"The antonym of God’s non-existent antonym is closer to God than God will ever be. Which, then, brings us closer to what we want to communicate: saying what we intend, or trying to say the opposite?"
— The UK Guardian publishes a new piece of short fiction by Jonathan Safran Foer today (in PDF format): the transcendent weirdness of words, the impossibility of stories, the magical properties of ink & paper.
— The UK Guardian publishes a new piece of short fiction by Jonathan Safran Foer today (in PDF format): the transcendent weirdness of words, the impossibility of stories, the magical properties of ink & paper.
Friday, December 06, 2002
"Nothing so illustrates our WI predicament as the debate we’ve been having about constitution reform.
"We’ve been at it for more than 30 years now; at least since the youth rebellion of the late 1960s first focused the requirement to re-constitute the colonial state. And yet, our gaze remains fixed on the Constitution as law and text and on all kinds of trite problems, solutions to which will make absolutely no difference—unless the root causes are identified and addressed....
"The very large number that has still not made the link between political and party reconstruction, on the one hand, constitution reform and amendment to the Constitution, on the other, is a pledge of a collective failure. We have simply not realised that new dispensations for the individual parts, however well orchestrated, are almost certain to come to nought, if not explicitly designed for a fit into the larger scheme of reform....
"Without an effective cadre of representatives in Parliament, and without a Legislature or Parliament to discipline and instruct the Executive or Government, there is little chance that any requirements at all would be beyond systematic violation. Whether parliamentary procedure or electoral rules, Public Service regulations or public policy specifications, almost the indispensable condition for their successful application is a genuine parliament to defend and protect popular interests.
"In our current arrangement, it is not that the PM 'has too much power', it is that, effectively, we have always had a government without a parliament — except in name — so that the culture of Doctor Politics and maximum leadership can only have flourished."
— The indispensable Lloyd Best, writing in today's Express, again clearly identifies what must be the fundamental principle of our constitution reform process: meaningful representation of the people.
"We’ve been at it for more than 30 years now; at least since the youth rebellion of the late 1960s first focused the requirement to re-constitute the colonial state. And yet, our gaze remains fixed on the Constitution as law and text and on all kinds of trite problems, solutions to which will make absolutely no difference—unless the root causes are identified and addressed....
"The very large number that has still not made the link between political and party reconstruction, on the one hand, constitution reform and amendment to the Constitution, on the other, is a pledge of a collective failure. We have simply not realised that new dispensations for the individual parts, however well orchestrated, are almost certain to come to nought, if not explicitly designed for a fit into the larger scheme of reform....
"Without an effective cadre of representatives in Parliament, and without a Legislature or Parliament to discipline and instruct the Executive or Government, there is little chance that any requirements at all would be beyond systematic violation. Whether parliamentary procedure or electoral rules, Public Service regulations or public policy specifications, almost the indispensable condition for their successful application is a genuine parliament to defend and protect popular interests.
"In our current arrangement, it is not that the PM 'has too much power', it is that, effectively, we have always had a government without a parliament — except in name — so that the culture of Doctor Politics and maximum leadership can only have flourished."
— The indispensable Lloyd Best, writing in today's Express, again clearly identifies what must be the fundamental principle of our constitution reform process: meaningful representation of the people.
"We are commanded to justice and excellence and to the support of all that is good and to vie with each other in doing good, and to conspire to do good. And we are invited to repent when we fall short.
"Our religion is the religion of peace, not of war. This fact seems lost to the ones who seek to promote jihad upon the world.
"There is no compulsion in the most important matter of religion in Islamic terms. How then can we impose anything else by force?
"It is increasingly clear that those who promote aggression against the world are motivated by megalomania and not by faith. They may claim to be acting as Muslims, but their actions are antithetical to the mores of Islam....
"May peace prevail in the world by the example of Muslim restraint.
"Eid Mubarak to all."
— M.F. Rahman, in a letter to the editor published in today's Express.
"Our religion is the religion of peace, not of war. This fact seems lost to the ones who seek to promote jihad upon the world.
"There is no compulsion in the most important matter of religion in Islamic terms. How then can we impose anything else by force?
"It is increasingly clear that those who promote aggression against the world are motivated by megalomania and not by faith. They may claim to be acting as Muslims, but their actions are antithetical to the mores of Islam....
"May peace prevail in the world by the example of Muslim restraint.
"Eid Mubarak to all."
— M.F. Rahman, in a letter to the editor published in today's Express.
Thursday, December 05, 2002
John Spence, writing in the Express today, weighs in on the constitution reform issue:
"My own opinion is that our problems stem from deficiencies in the political parties, rather than in the Constitution. I believe that if we had sensible political parties, many of the problems in governance would not have arisen and conversely whatever constitution we may devise could be frustrated by the political parties. My preferred approach would be to look at the problems that have arisen over the last few years and devise amendments to the Constitution to address these.... Our present concentration on constitution reform may cause us to lose sight of the major problem of inadequate political parties."
The "inadequacy" of T&T's political parties is indeed a major problem; what Spence does not grasp is that one of the chief goals of meaningful constitution reform must be to provoke the parties to their own internal reform. The PNM & the UNC have no incentive to adjust the mechanisms by which the country is governed; as things stand, a majority of a few hundred votes is enough to give either party almost limitless power for a five-year term. But if the mechanisms were changed so as to guarantee true representation for the populace — by making the legislature into a genuine check on the actions of the executive — it might be possible to force the parties to produce real statesmen & real ideas in order to retain power. They might have to resort to truly democratic internal structures in order to achieve this. And a legislature with real power to defy the prime minister & his Cabinet might guard against the abuses of power that government after government has committed unscathed.
So ad hoc amendments to eliminate the possibility of parliamentary deadlock — which is what Spence seems to be suggesting — will not even get near to the fundamental problem. We need to work back to first principles; & I remain convinced that the very first principle must be representation, giving citizens meaningful control over how their country is run. Our present constitution does not wholeheartedly embody this principle. Are we ready for one that does?
"My own opinion is that our problems stem from deficiencies in the political parties, rather than in the Constitution. I believe that if we had sensible political parties, many of the problems in governance would not have arisen and conversely whatever constitution we may devise could be frustrated by the political parties. My preferred approach would be to look at the problems that have arisen over the last few years and devise amendments to the Constitution to address these.... Our present concentration on constitution reform may cause us to lose sight of the major problem of inadequate political parties."
The "inadequacy" of T&T's political parties is indeed a major problem; what Spence does not grasp is that one of the chief goals of meaningful constitution reform must be to provoke the parties to their own internal reform. The PNM & the UNC have no incentive to adjust the mechanisms by which the country is governed; as things stand, a majority of a few hundred votes is enough to give either party almost limitless power for a five-year term. But if the mechanisms were changed so as to guarantee true representation for the populace — by making the legislature into a genuine check on the actions of the executive — it might be possible to force the parties to produce real statesmen & real ideas in order to retain power. They might have to resort to truly democratic internal structures in order to achieve this. And a legislature with real power to defy the prime minister & his Cabinet might guard against the abuses of power that government after government has committed unscathed.
So ad hoc amendments to eliminate the possibility of parliamentary deadlock — which is what Spence seems to be suggesting — will not even get near to the fundamental problem. We need to work back to first principles; & I remain convinced that the very first principle must be representation, giving citizens meaningful control over how their country is run. Our present constitution does not wholeheartedly embody this principle. Are we ready for one that does?
Wednesday, December 04, 2002
Denis Solomon reports in today's Express on the proceedings of the Constitution Reform Forum's meeting last Saturday, at which discussion centred on the issue of "local governance: ensuring that communities have a permanent impact on policy formulation and execution."
"The issues identified and discussed in last Saturday’s meeting boil down to three: representation, accountability and autonomy. The main concerns of the population — health, education, jobs, policing — exist at the local level. Good governance implies the creation and empowerment of community groups communicating their needs to full-time representatives on the regional corporations. One purpose, and result, of this is to put an end to total dependence on parliamentary representatives, who are the least well equipped to fulfil ongoing community needs."
This is the emerging consensus: reform must be aimed at giving citizens the mechanisms necessary for true self-governance: directly, through local organisations, and indirectly yet meaningfully through a genuinely representative national legislative body accountable to community interest groups (like my "people's senate", perhaps).
"The issues identified and discussed in last Saturday’s meeting boil down to three: representation, accountability and autonomy. The main concerns of the population — health, education, jobs, policing — exist at the local level. Good governance implies the creation and empowerment of community groups communicating their needs to full-time representatives on the regional corporations. One purpose, and result, of this is to put an end to total dependence on parliamentary representatives, who are the least well equipped to fulfil ongoing community needs."
This is the emerging consensus: reform must be aimed at giving citizens the mechanisms necessary for true self-governance: directly, through local organisations, and indirectly yet meaningfully through a genuinely representative national legislative body accountable to community interest groups (like my "people's senate", perhaps).
Peter Espeut argues in the Gleaner today that, unless conservation measures are introduced to reduce overfishing, Jamaican marine fisheries are in danger of disastrous depletion.
"... 'the Matrix possibility' is conceptually impossible. If the only reality Neo knows is entirely false, then the only criterion he has with which to judge the authenticity of the 'real' world he has been pulled into by Morpheus is therefore also false, since it's based on false evidence."
— & more along those lines in Laura Miller's review of The Matrix and Philosophy, ed. William Irwin, a collection of essays on the metaphysical issues raised by the hyper-popular sci-fi movie.
— & more along those lines in Laura Miller's review of The Matrix and Philosophy, ed. William Irwin, a collection of essays on the metaphysical issues raised by the hyper-popular sci-fi movie.
Tuesday, December 03, 2002
The Stabroek News runs an intriguing editorial today about the world's ambivalence towards the United States. I quote it in full below, because Stabroek has no permanent online archive.
A dynamic contradiction
"When Charles Dickens noticed his readers were losing interest in recent instalments of The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, he quickly rushed Martin off to America. Locals complained that the resulting portraits (Martin worked in a fraudulent company) were damaging stereotypes, but sales figures showed Dickens' intuition was right, the English were curious about their former colonies, even though they were not particularly sympathetic towards them.
"Five generations later, American sympathies are the problem. Many outsiders now feel America's self-centredness reduces their lives to a cartoon. Modern America has the military strength and cultural dominance which Dickens' England took for granted, and it filters the outside world through many of the same distorting lenses. The crucial difference, of course, is that America was created by philosopher statesmen as a response to tyranny and colonial oppression. Its constitution is the most profound document of Enlightenment ideals and political wisdom and it has the potential to develop and shield human freedom in a way the British Empire never could. So, why is America so hated?
"As the major geopolitical force of the last century, America has trodden on innumerable toes. It used the Monroe doctrine and other high rhetoric to license heavy-handed political chess which the Cold War extended across the globe. Whether it was Pinochet in Chile or Mobutu in the Congo, America picked a dog in each fight and the natives had to live with its choice. The American century, especially if you are not American, can be read as a series of military incidents in which they got their way. Zoltan Grossman, an American peace activist, has compiled a list of 134 US army interventions, domestic and foreign, between 1890 and 2001. A great deal of the current animus against the US stems from the items on this list.
"There is also ample evidence of its cynicism towards weaker countries, not least Guyana. Writing about the slaughter which followed Indonesia's invasion of East Timor, and the UN Security Council's orders that it withdraw, Noam Chomsky quotes the memoirs of UN Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan who wrote: 'The United States wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about. The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success.' Chomsky notes: 'He goes on to report that within two months some 60,000 people had been killed. The numbers reached about 200,000 within a few years, thanks to increasing military support from the US ...' In the context of current manoeuvres over Iraq these words have a disturbing resonance.
"Another source of anger is mainstream America's casual disparagement of other places. First Amendment freedoms seem to entice opinions like those of the conservative columnist Ann Coulter who recently wrote, 'They hate us? We hate them. Americans don't want to make Islamic fanatics love us. We want to make them die. There's nothing like horrendous physical pain to quell angry fanatics. So sorry they're angry — wait until they see American anger. Japanese kamikaze pilots hated us once too. A couple of well-aimed nuclear weapons, and now they are gentle little lambs. That got their attention.'
"Ms Coulter sounds like the US counterpart of al Qaeda's press secretary. That she has a large domestic following raises troubling questions about the media's role in inciting jingoism and bloodlust. The overall media landscape is however much more complex than this example suggests and for every Ann Coulter there is a Gore Vidal, who can write, with equally striking freedom that 'the Supreme Court did a little dance in 5/4 time and replaced a popularly elected president with the oil and gas Cheney/Bush junta.'
"The paradox here is that a society which allows gross xenophobia to publish itself without concessions also elicits the most intense introspection and self-criticism. This yin-yang quality produces many regrettable things but it ensures that the spirit and not just the letter of the constitution remains alive. Openness to contradiction is the heart of America's strength and will probably prove its ultimate redemption. For although the US is nowhere near a resolution of its slave legacy, its genocidal policies against Native Americans, its lunatic gun culture or many other obvious moral failings, the fact that important minorities still debate, research and lobby around these issues speaks volumes about the endurance of the founding fathers' political vision.
"There is also the Hollywood dream factory, Coca-Cola, Nike and four score other brands now globalized to every village on the planet. We increasingly live in an economic hall of mirrors, angled to reflect Uncle Sam. The universality of these symbols is innocuous in itself, but as a measure of cultural penetration it is frightening. All of us know Michael Jordan and Babe Ruth, but how many of them are likely to know Sobers or Bradman when many believe Germany was an American ally in WWII? Which developed nation chooses a B-movie actor for president and a professional wrestler for governor of a major state (Italy does have the distinction of a political porn star — La Cicciolina — who recently offered herself to Saddam Hussein in exchange for world peace.) Who else could dream up the fantastic strategy of the Strategic Defense Initiative, war on an abstract noun, the Doctrine of Pre-Emption or the state-sponsored prurience of the Starr report?
"This kind of caricature is easy, and popular, but it misses the point. America is a dynamic contradiction, that is its promise.
"Yes, it has a frightening military, but who saved Europe in two world wars and played bodyguard in the Cold War? Yes, it is awash with low culture, but it is also the home of jazz. Politically it produces Jessie Helms and Ralph Reed but also George Mitchell and Ralph Nader. There is also the small matter of a literary tradition which includes James, Melville, Twain, Eliot, Pound, Bellow, Roth ... What single explanation can embrace all these? Walt Whitman understood the problem: 'Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am vast. I contain multitudes.' America cannot be understood as a monolith, it must be loved and hated and bargained with as a crowd."
A dynamic contradiction
"When Charles Dickens noticed his readers were losing interest in recent instalments of The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, he quickly rushed Martin off to America. Locals complained that the resulting portraits (Martin worked in a fraudulent company) were damaging stereotypes, but sales figures showed Dickens' intuition was right, the English were curious about their former colonies, even though they were not particularly sympathetic towards them.
"Five generations later, American sympathies are the problem. Many outsiders now feel America's self-centredness reduces their lives to a cartoon. Modern America has the military strength and cultural dominance which Dickens' England took for granted, and it filters the outside world through many of the same distorting lenses. The crucial difference, of course, is that America was created by philosopher statesmen as a response to tyranny and colonial oppression. Its constitution is the most profound document of Enlightenment ideals and political wisdom and it has the potential to develop and shield human freedom in a way the British Empire never could. So, why is America so hated?
"As the major geopolitical force of the last century, America has trodden on innumerable toes. It used the Monroe doctrine and other high rhetoric to license heavy-handed political chess which the Cold War extended across the globe. Whether it was Pinochet in Chile or Mobutu in the Congo, America picked a dog in each fight and the natives had to live with its choice. The American century, especially if you are not American, can be read as a series of military incidents in which they got their way. Zoltan Grossman, an American peace activist, has compiled a list of 134 US army interventions, domestic and foreign, between 1890 and 2001. A great deal of the current animus against the US stems from the items on this list.
"There is also ample evidence of its cynicism towards weaker countries, not least Guyana. Writing about the slaughter which followed Indonesia's invasion of East Timor, and the UN Security Council's orders that it withdraw, Noam Chomsky quotes the memoirs of UN Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan who wrote: 'The United States wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about. The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success.' Chomsky notes: 'He goes on to report that within two months some 60,000 people had been killed. The numbers reached about 200,000 within a few years, thanks to increasing military support from the US ...' In the context of current manoeuvres over Iraq these words have a disturbing resonance.
"Another source of anger is mainstream America's casual disparagement of other places. First Amendment freedoms seem to entice opinions like those of the conservative columnist Ann Coulter who recently wrote, 'They hate us? We hate them. Americans don't want to make Islamic fanatics love us. We want to make them die. There's nothing like horrendous physical pain to quell angry fanatics. So sorry they're angry — wait until they see American anger. Japanese kamikaze pilots hated us once too. A couple of well-aimed nuclear weapons, and now they are gentle little lambs. That got their attention.'
"Ms Coulter sounds like the US counterpart of al Qaeda's press secretary. That she has a large domestic following raises troubling questions about the media's role in inciting jingoism and bloodlust. The overall media landscape is however much more complex than this example suggests and for every Ann Coulter there is a Gore Vidal, who can write, with equally striking freedom that 'the Supreme Court did a little dance in 5/4 time and replaced a popularly elected president with the oil and gas Cheney/Bush junta.'
"The paradox here is that a society which allows gross xenophobia to publish itself without concessions also elicits the most intense introspection and self-criticism. This yin-yang quality produces many regrettable things but it ensures that the spirit and not just the letter of the constitution remains alive. Openness to contradiction is the heart of America's strength and will probably prove its ultimate redemption. For although the US is nowhere near a resolution of its slave legacy, its genocidal policies against Native Americans, its lunatic gun culture or many other obvious moral failings, the fact that important minorities still debate, research and lobby around these issues speaks volumes about the endurance of the founding fathers' political vision.
"There is also the Hollywood dream factory, Coca-Cola, Nike and four score other brands now globalized to every village on the planet. We increasingly live in an economic hall of mirrors, angled to reflect Uncle Sam. The universality of these symbols is innocuous in itself, but as a measure of cultural penetration it is frightening. All of us know Michael Jordan and Babe Ruth, but how many of them are likely to know Sobers or Bradman when many believe Germany was an American ally in WWII? Which developed nation chooses a B-movie actor for president and a professional wrestler for governor of a major state (Italy does have the distinction of a political porn star — La Cicciolina — who recently offered herself to Saddam Hussein in exchange for world peace.) Who else could dream up the fantastic strategy of the Strategic Defense Initiative, war on an abstract noun, the Doctrine of Pre-Emption or the state-sponsored prurience of the Starr report?
"This kind of caricature is easy, and popular, but it misses the point. America is a dynamic contradiction, that is its promise.
"Yes, it has a frightening military, but who saved Europe in two world wars and played bodyguard in the Cold War? Yes, it is awash with low culture, but it is also the home of jazz. Politically it produces Jessie Helms and Ralph Reed but also George Mitchell and Ralph Nader. There is also the small matter of a literary tradition which includes James, Melville, Twain, Eliot, Pound, Bellow, Roth ... What single explanation can embrace all these? Walt Whitman understood the problem: 'Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am vast. I contain multitudes.' America cannot be understood as a monolith, it must be loved and hated and bargained with as a crowd."
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