BREAD AND STONE

Nov 15, 2010 Features / Columnists, Tony Deyal column

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“Would any of you give a stone to your son when he asks for bread? Or give him a snake when he asks for fish?”  Christian Community Bible (Luke 6:37)
“Sure, it’s going to kill a lot of people, but they may be dying of something else anyway.”  This was the considered view of Othal Brand, a member of a Texas pesticide review board on the chemical Chlordane which is associated with cancers of the breast, testicles, prostate, brain and blood cells as well as migraines, respiratory infections, diabetes, anxiety, depression, and immune system disorders.
Brand’s statement is one of the entries in the book “The 776 Stupidest Things Ever Said” (Doubleday 1993).  I went back to the book when I saw a statement by the Trinidad and Tobago (TNT) Prime Minister (PM), Kamla Persad-Bissessar immediately after Tropical Storm Tomas hit Barbados, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
She said, “We will have to look at ways in which we would be able to assist. But you would recall my comments earlier this year, when I said there must some way in which Trinidad and Tobago would also benefit.”  Is this bread and stone, snake and fish behaviour?
There are people in TNT who agree with their Prime Minister’s position but felt she should have been more “diplomatic”.  If one agrees that “Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘Nice Doggie’ while reaching for a rock” then one has to judge the effectiveness of her diplomatic skills.
Is the determination that TNT should benefit from helping its neighbours a rock or a millstone?  One can weigh the PM’s diplomatic skills against those of former US President, Richard Nixon.
While attending the funeral of France’s President, Charles De Gaulle, Nixon said, “This is a great day for France.”  Is this a great day for TNT or what?  One can also compare her statement to that of Charles Z. Wick, the Director of the US Information Agency, who after a trip to Africa admitted, “Some of them have marvellous minds, those black people over there.”
Then there is the US Ambassador to Italy, Pete Secchia, who used his best diplomatic skills to try to win over a female reporter he regarded as hostile. “Look, I’m going to tell you something, hon.  You’ve crossed and uncrossed your legs twice and one time you showed me something I shouldn’t see.  Now am I going to complain that you’re loosey-goosey or you got no class?”
While all those comments might be considered as lacking tact, a State Department memo did a better job, “Anything concerning the Ambassador’s swimming pool must be referred to as a water storage tank not as a swimming pool.”
In this case, it is possible they would have preferred the PM to say, like California Governor Pat Brown discussing a local flood, “This is the worst disaster in California since I was elected.”  Was this the worst disaster in the Caribbean since the PM was elected?
Despite the angry reaction from within, especially by the Opposition, and from the people, if not the politicians, in the rest of the region, the prevailing view in Trinidad seems to be that the Prime Minister said the right thing the wrong way.  Many feel that she should have been less forthright but just as forceful in her insistence that her country’s self-interest was sought and protected.
This view, that charity begins at home, is fuelled by the experience of TNT in the past.  When the Calypsonian, Swallow, sang about Trinidad and Tobago (and its Prime Minister, Dr. Eric Williams) as being the “Caribbean Godfather”, it was not well-received by many people in that country.  They pointed to the poverty, lack of adequate housing, water shortages, villages without electricity and generally poor infrastructure in TNT and insisted that instead of being given away to other Caribbean countries, the oil wealth should have been used to improve the standard of living in TNT.
One that really hurt was that TNT provided assistance to Barbados which then built a better airport than the one in Trinidad and took away TNT’s role as the regional air-traffic hub.
There was also a rejection of the same role which they perceived the previous Prime Minister, Patrick Manning, saw himself as playing in the region – giving away TNT’s money without getting anything back for it from people who consider and will continue to regard all TNT citizens as “Tricky-dadians”.
Which way should the PM have jumped- the seemingly pragmatic, political route placating what she regarded as public opinion in her own country, or the route of the Ten Commandments which calls for loving your neighbours?
What applies here– bread, stone or the Golden Rule?  Or is the best way the one she chose – aid with strings attached?  Is that the middle ground or is it sitting on the fence?  This has its own hazard and as one British parliamentarian once quipped, “The Honourable Member has sat on the fence so long that the iron has entered his soul.”
Is there iron in her soul or is it fool’s gold?
“The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said” (Robert Byrne, Fireside, 2003) quotes Dwight Eisenhower when he was asked, “Has government been lacking in courage and boldness in facing up to the recession.”
His answer was, “Listen, there is no courage or any extra courage that I know of to find out the right thing to do.  Now, it is not only necessary to do the right thing, but to do it in the right way and the only problem you have is what is the right thing to do and what is the right way to do it. That is the problem.”
That is the Trinidad PM’s dilemma.  Was her response to the catastrophe worthy of changing the name of the book from the 776 to the 777 stupidest things ever said or could it be considered among the best things ever said, making it number 2,549?
Perhaps the most appropriate answer comes from the British poet, W.H. Auden (Number 1,915 in the 2,548 Best Things), “We are here on earth to do good to others.  What the others are here for, I don’t know.”
*  Tony Deyal was last seen wondering whether the TNT PM felt that her neighbours would welcome her statement in the same way former US Vice-President Dick Cheney thought that the Iraqis would respond to US troops, “My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.”

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