Voices Hoarse From Empty Laughter

I live in a place where grandfathers and grandmothers relate stories told to them by their own grandfathers and grandmothers. In some cases, tales of torturous journeys across the deep dark waters of the Kala Pani are matched by memories of barrack yards cast with the sweat of slaves.

My own maternal grandfather would have, if we had asked him, reminisced about the parched, barefoot schoolyards of Guangzhou, his own engagement of the Kala Pani – and his midnight embrace, many years later, at Ramleela, with little Miss D’Hurieux whose parents told of masters past and present.

This is the place where stories are told. Houdini begat Atilla begat Kitchener begat Rudder and we know much more than we care to remember because they cared to sing and to make music for all time, through the haze of Sawdust Caesars scattered in the wind over time. As empire begat empire begat empire.

Today, it is a place where silence reigns while the fat go hungry and the thin grow angry. A place of plenty, but a place of little. A flag flies on the barren island in the din of empty, metal drums and voices hoarse from empty laughter.

This is the place I call my home. It used to be a place that was my home. Freedom has fled the frame and seeks the shade of the treacherous Manchioneel.

If today the silence grows and prospers and prevails, it would be because we have shut up and let it reign. We, grandparents, are not telling the story anymore. The scores are written for us and we whistle them to no one in particular in the wind.

This, again, is the time for poetry and poets and foolish old men and women with stories to tell. Men and women who have the right to remain silent but who dare not exercise it.

Outrage over Firing of Trinidad TV Show Host

On Saturday November 6, the co-host of one of Trinidad and Tobago's more popular morning television talk programmes, Fazeer Mohammed, received a telephone call from the state-owned media network. The caller advised Mr Mohammed that his services were no longer needed at the station because of a "cost-cutting" exercise.

Problem is that on Thursday November 4, Mr Mohammed had been engaged in a heated on-air exchange with Foreign Minister, Dr Suruj Rambachan. During the interview, Dr Rambachan interrupted to ask the host if he had a problem with the fact that the recently-elected Prime Minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, was a woman.

Mr Mohammed, a practising Muslim, said his faith did not condone women in leadership positions within the religion.

His sacking is linked to the ensuing exchange, which can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT4fRxhnLes

On November 10, the Trinidad Express published this editorial:

Political interference?

In keeping with its apparently helpless compulsion to shoot itself in the foot, the People's Partnership administration has now wrought an unholy and toxic mess at the State-owned Caribbean New Media Group (CNMG). The firing of talk show host and sports commentator Fazeer Mohammed will not be received as the cost-cutting measure claimed by the company's interim chief executive officer, Ken Ali. Darkest fears will be entertained over what was in the mortar apart from the pestle.

Citizens calling talk shows yesterday, posting comments on the Express website, and discussing the issue elsewhere, have linked the performance of Foreign Affairs Minister Suruj Rambachan, who was a guest on the First Up show last Thursday, with Mr Mohammed's precipitate dismissal two days later. Mr Rambachan, surprisingly assuming the role of the show host he once was, questioned Mr Mohammed on whether, as a Muslim, he had a problem with women leaders.

Displaying more diplomacy than the Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Mohammed replied that he did not believe in having women in religious leadership, but that he had no problem with a woman as a national leader.

CEO Ali claims that the decision to terminate Mr Mohammed had been made long before that interview. He and the Government will find this line a hard sell. Even if it is true, Minister Rambachan, by his attitude and words, has undermined the Government's free speech bona fides, and the ensuing action can have only destabilising effects at CNMG.

Neither does Mr Ali's claim that Mr Mohammed's firing was a "cost-cutting measure" fly very well. The most effective cuts in cost would be ones which made the CNMG profitable.

Mr Ali may not be aware that, in its former incarnations as Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT) and the National Broadcasting Network (NBN), the company's books actually went into the black. That success was short-lived, however, in part because political interference by the United National Congress administration undermined viewership. Bending to political pressure always harms media houses which, like banks, must be seen as trustworthy in order to survive. This is so even for privately owned media, as the Guardian newspaper discovered in 1996, when it appeared to be kowtowing to government power.

The Partnership's wielding of the rod of political correction, in its dual capacity of government and proprietor, will further undermine CNMG's professional standing, and potentially cost the station viewers and therefore advertisers. It appears that the new administration, like that under Basdeo Panday, needs to appreciate that the State-owned entity cannot viably subsist as a Government mouthpiece or pawn. Its reason for being remains to serve the interests of all the people, not just People's Partnership partisans.

Keith Smith

So many of us in the Caribbean media are holding our breaths and crossing our fingers as writer extraordinaire, editor-at-large and journalistic guru, Keith Smith of the Trinidad Express, lies in a hospital bed in Port of Spain fighting the biggest battle of/for his life. Hopefully, this struggle will also join his great journalistic repertoire sometime in the future.

The Blindness of New Love

I remember the great Caribbean economist and thinker, Lloyd Best, expressing his political position by saying he could not describe himself as an unbiased commentator on most public issues because not only was he not a supporter of the political contestants at the time, he was against them all.

Best’s position soon became a part of my own statement of principle whenever prying acquaintances and even complete strangers attempted to wrangle a narrow partisan position out of me. For sure, this is not mere parroting of a teenage memory, but a view I have grown more and more to associate myself with over the years – especially given the level of contact with national and Caribbean politicians I have had as a journalist.

This is not to say that I have not often agreed with the national politicians. I agreed just as much with the late Prime Minister George Chambers regarding the need for urgent caution on matters of the national economy in 1981 (I was a Tapia candidate for the election that December), as I did with ANR Robinson on the same question in 1986 and with Patrick Manning in 1991 and, thereafter, with Brian Kuei Tung and with Mariano Brown and, now, Winston Dookeran. No mention of Basdeo Panday, because he never appeared to believe in or to be committed to anything on such questions.

How therefore could I have been “a PNM” in 1981? How could I have been “an NAR” in 1986 when the administration was soon branded by my column in the Express during that period as a “bourgeois revolt”? How could I have been “a UNC” when I participated in one of the most sustained campaigns for a free press we have ever witnessed in Trinidad and Tobago (credit for which has erroneously been assigned to retired publisher, Ken Gordon, by the way)? How could I now be “a UNC” or “a COP” when the signs of real political change seem so distant?

I however believe my journalism during the tenure of the respective political parties was as independent and as fair as is possible under authoritarian conditions – such as those under which we continue to endure in the English-speaking Caribbean.

Many colleagues cringe when I use the term “authoritarian culture” to describe the way we work in the Caribbean, but I insist that there need not be open ostracism, injury or death for there to be conditions that foster an absence of independent thought in favour of silence.

The most urgent political question of these times in the Caribbean therefore seems to be how do we break from the grasp of authoritarian politics and culture and seek true freedom and independence.

The former Education Minister under Chambers, Marilyn Gordon, struck my siblings’ names off a Balisier House Carnival band lineup, post-1981, Robinson’s Information hit-man summoned the “foreign correspondents” (I was a stringer for Prensa Latina back then) to discuss the slandering of the country overseas with a view to silencing us, Keith Rowley thought I was an agent of “the opposition” during 1991-1995 and Panday (to my utter bewilderment) branded me a “political dinosaur” sometime between 1995 and 2001.

Some were amazed that I functioned as a freelance television presenter and producer for the Government Information Division during the Panday era, was retained as Communication Coordinator for the Fifth Summit of the Americas under Manning and, since then, functioned as a Communication Advisor to a state regulatory agency, yet find time to write freely and openly about public affairs and the economy for various journalistic principals.

All of this comes readily to mind as we contemplate the prospects for the “People’s Partnership” administration in Trinidad and Tobago. It is difficult terrain to navigate, if only because of the disastrous path blazed by the previous regime, but it is an exercise we do not engage at our peril.

In many respects, though, the opinion-leaders to whom so many pay close attention are simply not engaging the task of casting a sharp and critical eye. Instead, there is either open adoration or barely-disguised hatred and quick resort to partisan labelling and open condemnation as, among other things, being “a PNM” or “a UNC” or “a COP.”

The fact is, I am not unbiased on this question, I am against all of them and what they, in essence, represent. This, indeed, constitutes an open declaration of political position and intent.

Satisfied?

So, what now?

What now, is that I continue to openly declare myself opposed to authoritarianism and the sycophancy and kow-towing to authority that follow. The subtle corruption of keeping the bosses politically satisfied, at all costs. The bright-eyed blindness of new love and the penance that flows in its absence.

Already, the various shades of such corruption are apparent. There are shadows behind the trees that grow longer with each passing day. More to come.

Condemning Violence Against the Media in Mexico and Elsewhere

AUSTIN, Texas — Distinguished investigative journalists and members of media support organizations from 20 countries in the Americas and Europe strongly condemned the killings of journalists and attacks on media by organized crime, particularly in Mexico. They insisted that international organizations and governments in the Americas assume their responsibilities to guarantee the rights to life and information that are included in their constitutions.

The “Austin Declaration” was issued by participants of the 8th Austin Forum on Journalism in the Americas, conducted Sept. 17–18, 2010, at the University of Texas at Austin. The annual gathering, which focused this year on coverage of drug trafficking and organized crime, was conducted by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at UT Austin and the Open Society Foundations programs on media and Latin America.

The Austin Forum began Friday (Sept. 17) with the news of the shooting death of 21-year-old Mexican photography intern Luis Carlos Santiago, who worked for El Diario in Ciudad Juárez. His 18-year-old fellow intern, Carlos Manuel Sánchez, was injured in the attack.

"Since we started organizing this annual meeting in Austin of journalists and journalists organizations in 2003, this is the first time that the participants decided to issue a public declaration at the end of the meeting," said Professor Rosental Calmon Alves, director of the Knight Center. "And it is not surprising that something so extraordinary has happened, considering the gravity of the situation facing journalists in Mexico and other countries of the hemisphere, especially those who cover drug trafficking and organized crime, which were the themes of the Austin Forum this year."

"The declaration shows the international outrage at so many attacks on journalists and the news media of Mexico and other countries. It also shows the solidarity that all participants of the Austin Forum wanted to send to the journalists and their families, especially in the regions that are most affected, like Ciudad Juárez and other cities close to the border between Mexico and the United States," Alves said.

The Austin Declaration reads as follows :

“Renowned investigative journalists from throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, who gathered at the University of Texas at Austin for the 8th Austin Forum on Journalism in the Americas, organized by the Knight Center, declare their strongest condemnation of the killings of journalists, and attacks of any kind against the media, that are being unleashed by organized crime in Mexico, and that have been committed for years amid the negligence of the government.

“From Mexico to the Southern Cone, drug trafficking and organized crime have become the biggest threat against democratic society and life. In other countries, such as Guatemala, Honduras and Colombia, the media and journalists are under fire. Freedom of expression and the right of citizens to be informed are in grave danger throughout the region. Confirming this has been the point of all the participants’ presentations at the Forum.

“The participants of the Austin Forum, from various media, declare their decision to take action, denouncing the impunity with which the bands of organized crime are operating, and insisting that international organizations and governments of the region – particularly Mexico – recognize the urgency of the moment and assume their responsibility to guarantee a minimum of two rights included in their constitutions. The rights to life and to information must be restored.

From Austin, we send this demonstration of our solidarity with all our colleagues in danger.

Sept. 18, 2010, Austin

• Juan Javier Zeballos, Asociación Nacional de la Prensa (Bolivia)

• Mauri König, Associação Brasileira de Jornalismo Investigativo

• Mónica González, CIPER Chile

• Ginna Morelo Martínez, Consejo de Redacción y El Meridiano de Cordoba (Colombia)

• Álvaro Sierra, University for Peace, Costa Rica

• Giannina Segnini, La Nación, Costa Rica

• Mónica Almeida, El Universo, Ecuador

• Carlos Dada, El Faro, El Salvador

• Benoît Hervieu, Reporters Sans Frontiers Bureau Amériques, Francia

• Claudia Méndez Arriaza, El Periódico, Guatemala

• Gotson Pierre, AlterPresse, Haiti

• Byron Buckley, Association of Caribbean Media Workers y Press Association of Jamaica

• Marcela Turati, revista Proceso y red Periodistas de a Pie (México)

• Marco Lara Khlar, Insyde (México)

• María Teresa Ronderos, Verdad Abierta, Colombia

• Mike O’Connor, Committee to Protect Journalists

• Óscar Martínez, El Faro, El Salvador

• Samuel González, criminal justice consultant, México

• Carlos Chamorro, El Confidencial, Nicaragua

• Dilmar Rosas Garcia, Centro Latinoamericano de Periodismo, Panamá

• Osmar Gómez, Foro de Periodistas Paraguayos (FOPEP)

• Gustavo Gorriti, IDL Reporteros, Peru

• Luz María Helguero, Red de Periodistas de Provincias del Perú

• Ricardo Uceda, Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS), Peru

• Tyler Bridges, journalist

• Paul Radu, Romanian Center for Investigative Journalism

• Ana Arana, Fundación MEPI, México

• Bruce Bagley, University of Miami

• Bruce Shapiro, Dart Center for Trauma & Journalism, United States

• Cecilia Alvear, National Association of Hispanic Journalists /Unity -Journalists of Color (U.S.)

• Judith Torrea, blog Ciudad Juárez : en la sombra del narcotráfico

• Luis Botello, International Center for Journalists

• Ricardo Trotti, Inter-American Press Association

• Steven Dudley, InSight / Organized Crime in the Americas

• Javier Mayorca, El Nacional, Venezuela

• Algirdas Lipstas, Open Society Foundations, Media Program

• David Holiday Open Society Foundations, Latin America Program

• David Sasaki, Open Society Foundations, Latin America Program

• Gordana Jankovic, Open Society Foundations, Media Program

• Miguel Castro, Open Society Foundations, Media Program

• Sandra Dunsmore, Open Society Foundations, Latin America Program

• Lise Olsen, Investigative Reporters & Editors and Houston Chronicle, United States

• Donna de Cesare, University of Texas at Austin

• Rosental Calmon Alves, University of Texas at Austin

• Kristel Mucino, Washington Office on Latin America y Transnational Institute

• Ricardo Sandoval Palos, International Consortium of Investigative Journalism/Center for Public Integrity (U.S.)

• Gabriel Michi, Forum del Periodismo Argentino (FOPEA)

• Dean Graber, University of Texas at Austin

• Summer Harlow, University of Texas at Austin

• Ingrid Bachmann, University of Texas at Austin

• Mónica Medel, University of Texas at Austin

• James Ian Tennant, University of Texas at Austin

• Joseph Vavrus, University of Texas at Austin

Independence, Diversity and Self-Confidence - Trinidad and Tobago

We have been around long enough as an independent state to understand that the raising of our own flag on August 31, 1962 had value and potential in excess of political self-determination and a notion of economic choice.

For one, the ability to determine constitutional and legislative values and to command indigenous human and natural resources unfolded as both opportunity and as intrinsic challenge. Small states finding their way in the world, under crippling pre and post-colonial circumstances, have consistently been found to be haplessly subject to such conditions.

The offshore orientation of the economy is now widely acknowledged and accepted, and undoubted vulnerabilities on account of geography, limited capacity and a lack of self-confidence have taken intractable root. There is now little doubt that political independence has neither brought us true freedom nor has it led to a trough of sustainable prospects for a future as a sovereign state.

It is not that we have been hopeless at political negotiation or that we have been unable to prosper, in relative terms, through economic decision-making. In many respects, we have conducted our affairs at a high level of civility and we have covered much developmental ground. Our score card on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is impressive.

Up to this point, Eric Williams, CLR James, William Demas and Lloyd Best are absolutely indispensable if we were to understand some key paradoxes. There is an established pathway that leads us to an understanding of how and why we have failed to advance the gains of political independence yet thrived in important ways. Economic determinism, political under-achievement and cultural insufficiency feature prominently and are irresistible subjects to ponder even in the face of the statistical high-points.

The fact that cultural, political and economic institutions have under-performed is however difficult to deny. There is yet no grasp of the changing “peoplescape” and certainly no sense of an economic destiny over which we have an adequate measure of decisive control in the final analysis. The political parties and their vital organs, in the absence of official life-support, are moribund and particularly useless in pursuit of the broader, civic self-determination that separates free people from those who are not.

The resort to authoritarianism and paternalistic dependence and control remains impulsive and few are to be found who consistently patrol the boundaries of rights and freedoms. As a consequence, important questions of state-sanctioned killing, free expression and independent jurisprudence are subject to official “vaps” and sycophantic advocacy capable of 180 degree shifts. In this respect, political complexion has made no difference.

To move us forward, new levels of understanding are needed which concede that the Trinidad and Tobago of 2010 is not the same country we came up with in 1962. The challenge of managed diversity, to cite one important example, is certainly not the same.

In many respects, it makes sense that a Ministry of Multiculturalism exists. But there is yet no evidence that the relevant political and administrative managers and functionaries understand the true nature of the challenge. This government ministry, perhaps above all others, has the greatest potential to move the development of the country forward.

This has nothing to do with financial support for entertainers or official dicta that seek to regulate taste or repairs to the National Academy for the Performing Arts. It has to do with acquiring a proper understanding of the changing nature of our society and the value of the global interface to which we are now - and have always been - inextricably attached.

There are few greater manifestations of under-development than our failure to recognise this important point. Cultural policy cannot be founded on xenophobia nor can it be built on static notions of what comes together to constitute what some would wish to describe as a “national culture”. The current nonsense of proposed regulated media content, ostensibly to “protect” national cultural products, falls far short of a proper understanding of this.

The fact is the channels of so-called cultural imperialism have the potential to offer net gains if we choose to be more confident and more independent.

Because these points are not understood, the potential of some features of our economic diversity is not correspondingly recognised. How, for example, have some of our newest arrivals sustained what appears to be a glut of food establishments throughout the length and breadth of the country? How have others, from not so far away, been able to preserve artisanal skills which they deliver at lower cost and at a higher level of productivity?

There is, as well, the lost potential of our Caribbean engagement at the hands of our own parochialism and xenophobia. To what extent, for example, is the Caribbean paradigm envisaged when we define “national culture” and our wealth as a people? We do not understand the value of such a stock of assets at our peril.

Instead, we are finding it hard to accept the fact of our changing collective face. The durability of our political independence needs to be matched by a much higher level of self-confidence and a willingness to negotiate much wider spaces. Some individuals, manufacturers and banks understand this much better than players in other sectors.

In the end, our independence has to be pursued and achieved with a much higher understanding of who we really are and what we desire for ourselves.

(First published in the Trinidad Guardian - Tuesday August 31, 2010)

Word to New T&T Journalism Interns

These remarks were made at the launch of a newspaper internship programme in Trinidad and Tobago on Wednesday August 11, 2010. Students between the ages of 16 and 19 were selected on the basis of their performance in a writing competition. They are being interned at the Trinidad Guardian:

I am very honoured to have been selected to say these few words to you as you accept the challenge of being introduced to one of the most important professions anyone can consider entering. Like other similarly old and enduring professions it has faced more than its fair share of infamy. But, at its core, its basic tenets strike at the most noble aspirations of human beings – the need to know and to understand changing realities, and in so doing claim and secure our future.

As a consequence of this important mandate, free societies vest in media enterprises and the journalists who operate within them, a variety of freedoms and rights derived from the broader, more universal freedom to express oneself. In Trinidad and Tobago, this manifests itself in the constitutional guarantee of a free press. We are the only Commonwealth Caribbean country with such a feature in its national constitution and some of us have had, over the years, to defend its continued presence there.

In return, there is the implicit agreement that we provide our society with the journalism it not only deserves but which it requires as we move from one stage of development to the next and as we confront some of the most difficult challenges we have ever had to face. It is a journalism that insists on the basis principles of fairness, balance, accuracy and a commitment to truthfulness.

Our people deserve the best journalism and we need to deliver it. I am not sure we are currently doing so.

But none of this is possible in an environment in which direct and indirect forms of censorship are officially applied, neither is it possible under conditions in which self-censorship is allowed to take root. Meeting the requirements of such a journalism is also impossible if the people assigned such responsibilities are not equipped with the basic intellectual and material tools to perform such a function.

This programme is an important start. We have with us today, some of the brightest and the best who have come forward. The panel of judges marveled at the high standards, as if we ever fell for the view that the current generation ought to be written off. Instead, we found there are scores of you who care, who seek to understand and who believe you can help convert this country into a different kind of place.

It was evident that some considerable reading is taking place, that some high level of interpretation of events is occurring and, most importantly, there is pursuit of an understanding of the realities. Through this, and through you, this entire exercise can and will benefit from the special perspectives you as young people bring. They are perspectives that bring the irreverence, skepticism and candour of youth and a way of looking at the problems of our society that cuts through the fluff and fog age and experience (as valuable as they are) sometimes bring.

There is another quality you can also bring to the profession that is, unfortunately, not in abundant supply nowadays. This is the attribute of humility. Because it is sometimes absent, the stupid, simple question is often omitted. Because it’s not there, opinion is sometimes more highly valued than information. Because there is so little humility, hubris and conflict predominate. The news, someone once said, is always more interesting, and certainly more important, than the journalists that cover it. That’s lesson number one.

So, we are here, ready and willing to make our first embrace of this noble profession. The time we have is short, so we get down to some work in a little while. Our sessions will be deep and intense. We will find time for some wholesome fun and, at the end of it all, I am hoping it would be as much a learning experience for me as it would be for you.