04 May 1998, 921 words
Freedom of movement is essential to human happiness. This is why constipated persons always look so miserable. I do not know if National Security Minister Joe Theodore actually suffers from constipation, but he looks so. Perhaps this is the real reason he turned down Julian Rogers's work permit. Misery, after all, loves company, and it must have been galling to Mr. Theodore to know that Rogers had the freedom of movement which Mr. Theodore looks like he lacks.
In such a situation, what can one do? There is always Ex-Lax, but this is not a wise idea when your job entails sitting for long hours in Parliament. Getting up frequently to leave the Chamber would excite comment from the damn media and, what is worse, entail bowing to House Speaker Hector McClean each time. Mr. McClean, of course, never has to leave the chair, no matter how long Parliament drags on for. This. I suspect, is his main qualification to be Speaker. One cannot rule Parliament without a strong constitution, or a good supply of Pepto-Bismol.
Yet what, really, is Freedom? It is a panty shield with extra absorbency, but it is also a metaphysical entity. (All entities are metaphysical, but it sounds more profound to be redundant.) Metaphysical entities can neither be seen nor proven. This is why Express columnist Burton Sankeralli likes talking about them so much. Theologians are people who make a living by asserting the existence of things no one can ever know about, which is nice work if you can get it. Thus, Christianity says all men have free will, but will suffer eternal torment if they attempt to use it.
In a similar vein, the Hindu theologian Sarvepalli Radhakrishna, writing on karma and free will, says, "To endure suffering is the quality of the strong in spirit." Let this thought comfort you the next time you get a gripe in the middle of traffic. As for the philosophers, Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote, "Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains." And, in some bedrooms, also being spanked.
But who really is free? Vasant Bharath is free of all wrong-doing at the National Flour Mills, yet one shipment of rice became dog rice and now an entire ship of Indian rice has gone missing. Ken Soodoo has been freed of all blame by Energy Minister Finbar Gangar. Agriculture Minister Reeza Mohammed is free to lie to Parliament, Education Minister Adesh Nanan is free to be incompetent, and Abu Bakr free to threaten the country. But Julian Rogers is not free to work here.
My own view is that free will exists, but only if you have large amounts of cash. So Ishwar Galbaransingh continues to receive Government contracts free sheet, despite the Deyalsingh Report and questions over the Cherokee jeeps. Steve Ferguson is free of all responsibility for his pitbull dogs killing one man and maiming another. Yes indeed, once you have money, you are free even to murder other people. Witnesses will develop bad memories, bad eyesight or, even better, become Christians. Judges will be dripping with sympathy at your horrible experience of hearing the prison bars close behind you which, of course, is punishment enough for killing someone - once you have lots of money.
It seems, then, that money is the same as freedom. Yet money is definitely not a metaphysical entity. If it were, Brian Kuei Tung would not be so attractive to certain kinds of women.
So the philosophical question is: is the UNC administration a supporter of free will or determinism? "A conscious being without free will is a metaphysical absurdity," says Raymond Smullyan, author of The Tao is Silent. If true, then Morgan Job, being "Panday's puppy dog", is clearly a metaphysical absurdity. But if Smullyan is not correct, then Job is only a common or garden-variety absurdity. Wittgenstein, on the other hand, holds that free will consists in not knowing what will happen next. Wade Mark would therefore be the freest of men, being completely clueless.
But which view does Prime Minister Basdeo Panday himself ascribe to? Jean Paul Sartre held that consciousness is not-matter and so escapes determinism. "Consciousness is capable of imagining what is not the case," wrote Sartre, and so too is Mr. Panday. After all, the Prime Minister is on record as believing the media to be in a giant conspiracy to overthrow his administration. This, according to Mr. Panday, is because the media are racist, protecting drug lords, and want political power. It would be difficult, I think, to imagine what is more not-the-case than this. Thus, Mr. Panday's feats of fevered imagination must be attributed to a deep belief in free will. Unfortunately, as Julian Rogers and the principled editors at the Guardian before him have found out, Mr. Panday's belief in free will extends only to himself and his cronies like Ish, Bharath, Kuei Tung et al.
So, between the Green Paper, Clause Seven of the Equal Opportunities Bill, and the curious methods by which Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj is attempting to abolish the Privy Council, I feel it safe to conclude that this government is implacably opposed to freedom for anyone except themselves. But there are many roads in life. Some are paved with good intentions, others with asphalt. Some are straight and narrow, and are never used by politicians. One road even goes to Club Coconuts - but only the hopelessly shallow drive up that one.
Copyright ©1998 Kevin Baldeosingh