It's an exercise about objective analysis, really

February 06, 2002
By Bukka Rennie

The purpose of governance is to provide an environment that facilitates the continuous and ongoing social development of a country and its people.

Such a purpose requires constant questioning and challenging of all assumptions, past and present, in the interest of ferreting out and advocating particular "policies" and specific "strategies" relevant to the pursuit of ongoing socio-economic development.

The economic planning, and all the industrial, manufacturing and/or agricultural activities that are derived therefrom, comprise the base or the sub-structure of the society, while the politics and culture make up the super-structure of society.

The "infrastructure", it follows logically, is therefore all the systems that organisationally and physically link the sub to the super-structure.

In modern times "governance", besides being concerned with legislative and executive agenda, tends by and large to involve the implementing of infrastructure - roads, electricity, transportation, information technology, etc - in order to concretise its role as facilitator to the further development of the sub and super-structures.

There are times in the development of a country when aspects and elements of the super-structure come to stand in variance to aspects and elements of the sub-structure or vice-versa.

There are times when the relations within the production processes demand a new level and a new kind of politics.

For example, Trinidad and Tobago of 1970 when the people from below, both unemployeds as well as workers, fed-up with their circumstances and their human condition, pushed upwards demanding a new kind of politics, greater participation at all levels, ie "power to the people", and all of this was pivoted on a heightened cultural manifestation that required respect for diversity.

But there are also times when the very opposite is the case; times when a new political consciousness seeks to demand the annihilation of old, economic structural arrangements such as that best exemplified by plantation-economy based on "hoe and cutlass".

For example, it is the new global political consciousness that is today demanding a more solid Caribbean regional structure of economic unity.

CLR James advocated for years that the fundamental problem of the English-speaking Caribbean in particular was that we are a modern civilisation trapped within the confines of 17th century economic structures that are legacies from our colonial masters.

Be that as it may, the point is that once structural contradictions arise and become antagonistic, we enter an epoch of ongoing crisis, so "ongoing" that we sometimes fail to recognise "crisis" as "crisis".

The explosions that may occur at times are not in fact the "crises" themselves, they are merely the results of the ongoing crisis.

What signifies the ongoing crisis is the total breakdown of all fundamental social relationships as is so evident today:

The relationship between parent and child, husband and wife, teacher and student, priest/ pundit/pastor/imam and religious postulants, leader and led, party and supporters, ministerial representative and constituents, etc.

Every one of these relationships has suddenly become inadequate and daily breed fresh antagonisms.

The 18-18 election result is only one reflection of the inadequacy of the political structure to fulfil all our people's hopes, desires and, moreso, "fears".

Why do we insist on saying all these things?

The purpose is to make it abundantly clear that the exercise in which we engage is about objective analysis.

It has nothing to do with who is Afro or Indo-Trinidadian, who is Hindu, Muslim, Anglican, born again or Roman Catholic.

When we said last week that the Federation failed because of "fear" and that we did nothing with Caroni likewise because of "fear", we were explaining subjective reaction in context of historic objective conditions.

We have nothing to do with the petty, ordinary, asinine efforts of so many today to assign blame to one section of our populace, to demonise one set of people, while deifying others who happen to look like them.

It is about collective responsibility or nothing at all.