PM declares: Vision 2020 is a partisan matter

Vision 2020, Trinidad & Tobago's national initiative to achieve developed nation status by the year 2020, has been labeled by the Prime Minister as a party program in Parliament last week.

Let me be clear, I would like to commend the Prime Minister and the PNM administration for providing the nation with a well-articulated, cohesive, comprehensive, and ambitious strategic plan. I am not saying that he should ignore his or his colleagues' input in the vision, or that he shouldn't use it to educate the public (i.e. campaign) as to why they should be returned to office. I am disappointed about how this is attempted, and I worry about the implications and ramifications of such a statement (and indeed his thinking behind it).

• It sends a signal that Vision 2020 should be dismantled if the PNM loses
  
  This would be truly unfortunate -- it would be a waste of time and resources if we have to "start over" rather than amend the vision to changing circumstances and democratic will


• It excludes the non-PNM supporting population from the national vision
  
  This goes for both the public and the opposition parliamentarians who will then feel the need to oppose Vision 2020 just because they are the opposition
• It obfuscates the fact the vision was fleshed out by distinguished professionals and with state resources
  
  If Vision 2020 is a "PNM thing" is the Prime Minister effectively calling the experts he assembled to author the strategic plan (the MSG) party operatives? (Note his words: "the PNM, [] has a Vision 2020 document to take this country to developed-country status.") Should the PNM then reimburse the state for the years of resources used to develop the project?


• PNM actually lost support after Vision 2020 was rolled out
  
  ...so either the Prime Minister is wrong -- and the country has expressed disapproval of the PNM's plan -- or the Prime Minister is wrong -- and the "PNM's" plan really wasn't taken what returned them to power.

• The statements were inflammatory, distracting and counter-productive
  
  The government was purportedly presenting the Revenue Authority (TTRA) Bill! Instead, the Prime Minister takes time away from the matter at hand to berate internal UNC politics, and to challenge the opposition to produce an anti-Vision 2020 plan. For once I may have to agree with Mr. Panday when he said Mr. Manning is "palancing" in Parliament.

The End of the Panday Era?

Kennedy and Krustchev...

Athens and Sparta,

Magic Johnson & Larry Bird,

Manning and Panday!!!

Are we coming to the end of an era??

In a few weeks, the "silver fox" will face off against two of his competitors in internal party elections. Anyone who knows anything about T&T politics would know that Mr. Panday has been a mainstay on the national scene even before I was born – initially emerging as the champion of the workers of the "sugar belt", and working his way all the way up to become the nation's first Indo-Trinidadian and Hindu Prime Minister.

His rival Mr. Manning unexpectedly found himself at the helm of the other side of the aisle when he was but one of three candidates to hold on to a seat in the tidal wave that swept the seemingly unshakable PNM out of power; and subsequently became Prime Minister when the PNM inevitably recovered during the first election I consciously witnessed in 1991.*

It is customary in the Westminster system (which is based in tradition and custom) for a Prime Minister who fails to lead his party back to power, to step down and hand over the reigns to someone else. Such was the case when PM John Major was resoundingly thrashed by the then "upstart" Labor leader, Tony Blair. [I would also argue that this is also the case in the US system where few would regard John McCain today as the leader of the Republican Party.] But not so with Manning, and definitely not so with Panday!!!**

One would think that being charged as a womanizer and sex offender in 1995, or that being abandoned by leaders of his party executive who grew tired of his "corruption is not an issue" approach and formed another party in 2001, or that being convicted and sentenced to JAIL with hard labour essentially for accepting a bribe in 2006, or that since as a result of that conviction he was replaced as UNC political leader and as leader of opposition, would have slowed him down. Has any? NO!! au contrarie....

Panday reemerged victoriously and was reinstated as beloved political leader in 2007 for another showdown against Patrick Manning.

But the question now is, has his luck run out? Is it his turn to dive into the "political graveyard" that Panday keeps talking about?? (where according to him, he sent Raffique Shah, Winston Dookeran, Ramesh Lawrence Maraj, Nizam Mohammed, and Hulsie Bagghan.)

Ramesh Lawrence Maraj, Winston "Gypsy" Peters, and Austin "Jack" Warner, leaders of the so-called "RamJack G" faction of the UNC.

It would take many paragraphs to describe all the characters, backstories, and potential manoeuvrings (I know, it's not a word) that surround this important party primary. What I would say though - and I guess I'm finally getting to the point of this post - is that Panday will certainly be missed in the political arena much like when Peter Pan was about to kill Captain Hook in "Hook" (the one with Robin Williams) and wondered what Pan would do without Hook... but I might as well go ahead and say it: it would be more than refreshing in my view, to see a new leader emerge; one that can contribute to the national dialogue without such insurmountable baggage and such an unproductive perspective. And if nothing else, we deserve more than to have such an embarassing figure be regarded as the foremost spokeman and leader of the Indo-Trinidadian community. or should I say, "That's Insulting!"

__________________

(*I was actually really confused at the age of 8 when when my dad told me that Ronald Regan wasn't President anymore –How does he feel about that?" I remember asking him.)

(** I must note though, that this anti-tradition tradition also exists in other Commonwealth Caribbean nations - e.g. the Manleys of Jamaica, the Birds of Antigua, or Ingrahm & Christie in the Bahamas, who manage to flow naturally from Opposition Leader to PM back to Leader of Opposition, setting the stage to run again the Prime Ministership.)

The power to change Congressional Districts

In case you don't get to the end: WE have that power. Complete the 2010 census. Write your country of origin in Question 8.

On the campaign, I had the pleasure of working with the African-American vote department. It was widely anticipated that an unprecedented turnout of black voters could help elect down-ballot Democrats in historically close districts and so have consequences beyond the Presidential race. While reviewing quantitative projections of such an effect, my friend Simeon, the AA vote deputy director remarked with so much excitement, you'd have thought we'd just won the election.

"Nigel! This is amazing!! Changing the composition of state legislatures? I mean, we're talking about the power to redraw Congressional Districts!!" Of course, he was right. He went on: "Nigel, who's looking at this??" All I could do was smile. "We are, Simeon. You and me, we're looking at it."

But actually, Simeon was only half right. Although the states, and therefore, state legislatures are given the power to determine how we are represented in Washington, the basis that underlies these judgments is the all-important decennial census. A credible source - the director of the CUNY Caribbean-American Research Center - told me that he thinks West Indians make up 2% of the US population. Yet only 1.8million or 0.66% of participants the 2000 census indicated a connection to the Region. But even if we go by census numbers, with almost half a percent of the 18+ citizen population, we're still underrepresented with only one member of Congress, only recently ending a decade and a half of no representation.

For many reasons, immigrant groups are undercounted in the census. As a community, we should aim for 100% participation in the 2010 census. We need to get the word out, especially to our out-of-status population that our responses are confidential and protected by federal law. Yesterday, I spoke with Felicia Persaud founder of CaribID 2010. They are encouraging us to use Question 8 to specify our country of origin.

This does not prevent us from specifying our race - whatever it may be - in Question 6. And if you do get the "long form" - don't exchange it for the short form - I beg you, fill it out. Unfortunately we are probably still far away from having Caribbean origin being collected as a checkbox on the short form (ie allowing designation as Black West Indian and Black non-West Indian, just as they collect White Hispanic and White non-Hispanic) rather than being buried as a free-response question on the long form. But last week we drew one step closer as Congresswoman Clarke introduced HR 2071 which will allow just that. Currently that bill is in Congressman Clay's Subcommittee on Census.

Why do we care? Why do we need to know how many of us and where we are? Well, for many reasons. For example, for Felicia her business is sustained by corporations deciding to advertise in the "ethnic" media, which of course is targeted based on available data. We need to be counted to help our friends who are working so hard for a rational immigration system. For me, as the title of this post suggests, I am concerned about our political representation - but let me save that for my next post.

West Indian students are dropping out?!?

A little more than a week ago, the Toronto School Board approved - among other measures to improve the academic performance of its black students - an afrocentric secondary school. While this sparked a reasonable debate over the use of public funds in a potentially divisive manner, what jumped out at me was a supporting factum in the Globe and Mail article announcing the decision purporting that West Indian students are dropping out!!

The dropout rate for students of English-speaking Caribbean descent is highest among all groups at 40 per cent compared with 23 per cent for those with Canadian roots. [Emphasis added]

This was highly surprising to me, given that it is acknowldeged, at least in the circles I keep, that students of West Indian descent tend to academically outperform their African-American peers. And don't get me wrong, I am willing to be proven otherwise. But the evidence agrees: The most recent study, this one at U-Penn, comparing college admission rates between the two groups suggests that Afro-West Indians (those educated in the Archipelago and their children educated in North America) have twice the representation at elite US colleges than their proportion of the US population, whereas African-Americans are underrepresented more than 30%. In fact the study shows that the more elite the school, the higher the percentage of that institution's black population is Afro-West Indian, showing not only are they more likely to be accepted, but they're also more likely to and matriculate into these schools (see NY Times article). Another study, at UNC, examining years of schooling and high school completion comes to the same conclusion. And of course, there's anecdotal evidence. My wife Legena was once told by an African-American classmate at Howard University - which by the way is probably the most embodied and tangible nexus of African-America and West Indian-America - "When I get straight A's - I aint doing it to prove it to my professors, I aint doing it to prove it to my momma, heck, I aint even doing it to prove it to myself! It's to show it to the Trinidaydians!" Interesting.

So we get to this article saying West Indian-Canadians are dropping out of high school. So I looked at the studies and wrote to the research department of the school board. Here's what I found:

1. The newspaper report was incorrect. The 40% figure the dropout rate for students born in the English-Speaking Caribbean.
2. These figures are not directly related to race. As we know, a large percentage of the West Indian-Canadian population is actually Indo-West Indian. A recent census of the Toronto high schools confirmed this: 6% of all students had Afro-Caribbean parents, and 3% of the district were students of Indo-Caribbean parents.

What's my point? Firstly, that statistic without more information was misused and has little bearing on the debate for an "africentric" school since it deals with region of birth and neither race or ethnicity But more importantly, our kids are not dropping out of high school. At least not 40% of them. The fact that 40% of English-Speaking Caribbean-born students do not complete Toronto high schools to me says more about their system of academic integration, transfer of credits, and the perceived benefits of improving upon a West Indian education and completing high school in Ontario (which has a higher compulsory age of education than the rest of Canada) than it says anything about academic underachievement.

West Indian Congress(wo)men for Clinton!?

Both Rep. Yvette Clarke, the only current West Indian-American US Congressman, and Rep. Donna Christian-Christensen the delegate from the US Virgin Islands, have both endorsed HILLARY CLINTON for President!!

Yvette Clark who was born to Jamaican parents represents Central Brooklyn which includes Crown Heights, Flatbush, East Flatbush, and Kensington neighborhoods -- easily the most West Indian district in the United States. And I repeat, she has endorsed HILLARY CLINTON, in other words NOT Sen. Barack Obama for President of the US. Her choice is likely to be disappointing to many of her constituents and perhaps many in predominately-Black nations who would probably love to have a black man lead the Western world. Interestingly, Rep. Clarke occupies the district fomerlly held by Rep. Shirley Chisholm - born to Guyanese & Bajan parents, and the first woman and the first African-American to seek the Democratic nomination for President. She was a serious, albeit long-shot, candidate; she won 3 states!!! (A record for both women and for African-Americans not yet broken by Sens. Clinton or Obama who have both won 2 states apiece.) If only Rep. Clarke could have gotten that "2-for-1" choice of nominee. Or even a "3-for-1" choice. The Congresswoman certainly was under pressure to endorse Clinton, not only as a female politician, but as a member of the NY delegation. Every single Congressional representative from the state of New York has endorsed the powerful Senator.

I'm not sure how significant losing the support of both West Indian Congresspersons is for Sen. Obama. What is significant is that support from either of the two would have broken a deadlock among black legislators. Believe it or not, Sens. Obama and Clinton have split the Congressional Black Caucus vote 15-15 even though Sen. Obama is a sitting member of the CBC. But I must say, Sen. Obama has yet to use his seat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to benefit our Region.

West Indians shut out at Davos

How the world looks from Davos, Switzerland

Tomorrow, world leaders gather in Davos for the annual meeting of the "bigwigs" who "run" the Earth (officially called the World Economic Forum). Although the fundamental ethos of the conference is the convergence of the "collective wisdom" of leaders from "all walks of life" (ie it is not the Bilderburg Group), NONE, I repeat, NONE of this year's participants are West Indian, or natives of any part of the Archipelago for that matter.

I am no fan of tokenism, or disproportional representation. Let's face it, the entire Archipelago makes up about 0.5% of the world population. Therefore on a list of 200 representative names there should be at least one from the Region, right? And if we're not going to participate in the World Economic Forum, are we really in the World?? hmm....

I urge all of you West Indians out there -- take matters into your own hands. Participate by answering "the Davos Question": an ingenious extension to this year's conference that allows us to make suggestions to said world leaders using YouTube. Kind of like the US presidential primaries' CNN-YouTube debates.

As usual, we'll hear from Africa. Latin America has seat at the table. Even Palestine will chime in. Another disappointment, however, is the absence of minority-North Americans. Secretary Rice is the lone heterogenote among a lily-white United States delegation. This is despite an abundance of members of the reputedly multicultural Bush cabinet and a host of other Bush-nominees such as World Bank President Zoellick. The problem is not that there are no appropriate community leaders to choose from. It's great that one of my US Senators (Kerry) and two Massachusetts Congressmen who represent districts adjacent to Cambridge are among the chosen few; but it would be to everyone's benefit if Rep. Frank or Rep. Markey was replaced by someone like Rep. Charlie Rangel, the all-powerful Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

As for the lowly West Indies, let's hope our OAS and SIDS allies remember us.

I'm back, but Prime Ministers Portia, Kenny, Christie, and now Owen are not

Today, David Thompson was sworn in as the fourth new CARICOM Prime Minister within the past year -- all thanks to a string of elections that have handed defeat to the ruling parties. Prime Minister Patrick Manning of Trinidad & Tobago was the only regional head of government to be re-elected despite losing the popular vote.

As far as I can tell, this wave of change may not do much to speed the pace of regional integration. Perhaps the most logical and worthwhile tangible next step in this process is adoption of the Caribbean Court of Justice. Although 12 nations signed an agreement to do this (most back in 2001), only 2 have successfully replaced the British Privy Council as the highest court of appeal. This is notwithstanding the fact that the Court is practically required to interpret the CARICOM treaties, particularly the recently-implemented CSME. In fact, the opposition UDP of Belize that recently blocked ratification of the CCJ is likely to make up the new government of that nation in 2 weeks.


Although all, including Prime Minister Manning, have declared support for CARICOM and the integration process, they appear no more alacritous than their predecessors - and in at least one case - is less so. It is not encouraging that the issue played a minor role on the West Indian campaign trail.

The long hiatus of Titleless for now was not unintentional. My last job precluded me from making public statements. As many of you know, I have spent much of last year working in New Hampshire on Senator Chris Dodd's campaign for President of the United States. Like the four-term Senator, I have no regrets and it will always be a memorable time of life. Perhaps I will elaborate on the campaign, and perhaps even respond to a blog entry asking me to write about it!


I'd love to hear your thoughts or questions.