By Stephen Kangal
June 07, 2012
Ralph Maraj’s advice to the PNM is simplistic, cosmetic and fundamentally off the radar. He deludes himself into believing that the deeply embedded and fossilized, original, organizationally-driven culture of ethno-nationalism and secrecy can be easily changed when in fact the electorate has grown fed up and disenchanted of PNM’s several public relations reincarnations. The demographics have changed but the PNM remains insensitive to this political reality. It will not re-brand itself to pander to the new cosmopolitanism.
In 1986 and 2010 the electorate had to rid itself of the PNM by inflicting a radical meltdown on the clear conviction after being tried and tested several times the PNM could not depart from and abandon its culture of pathological plundering of the public purse, graft, political patronage, nepotism and omni-present corruption. The ilk of the PNM was there not to deliver good and caring governance to all – but what it could exploit, extract and exact out of the corridors of power to be distributed secretly and otherwise to its limited urban- suburban power-base what it called PNM country.
That cabal culture is deeply engrained and impregnated in the psyche of the PNM. The bloating and floating electorate of today knows it all too well. Old PNM and new PNM — same khaki pants same balisier. Nothing that the PNM does or will or can do, will excite the population according to Maraj because we have paid a huge price before and learnt our lessons. The PNM has no credibility in the minds of the 62% of the electorate and growing. Ralph Maraj is trying to set up Rowley with misplaced hopes and expectations that are pie in the sky.
The PNM cannot re-invent itself and make the requisite paradigm shift because time and again it has failed to do so, much to the disadvantage of the people. Out of the ashes of the PNM must come a new more diverse, democratic and emancipated phoenix that is sensitive to and respectfully appreciative of our diversity and our geography.
I thought leopards were spotted.
so kangal, ah hope you have a part 2 to this so that readers can see your point ??? what is the difference between then and now ??? PNM and PP … ah betting 2 million you not bold , brave or honest enough to to go there !! please please prove me wrong !!
The title of an article is significant as it defines and delimits the topic to be discussed and gives the reader a hint of the posibilities of the essay.
Striped leopards, therefore, leaves one to expect a long list of erroneous statements. Leopards are SPOTTED. Zebras and tigers are striped.
A double check with Google would have shown that, even if one in TnT had never been to a zoo, watched the Discovery channel, or travelled abroad.
Mr Kangal, you sould retract the entire piece.
There are famous fables, African fables- The Ass in the Lions Skin, Why The Tortoise’s Shell is Cracked,and the Congress of Horned Animalls, there are Greek fables – Icarus, where beings assume a different form for a specific purpose.If thherefore you intended to say that the PNM created a striped leopard,, for a specific purpose, you will have to write better and keep the analogy going. I do not think that that was your intent, however.
A leopard is also called a panther. In the black ones, you can see the spots even under the dark fur.
Check if the Emperror Valley Zoo has one, or call up a picture online.I submit that “breakfastses” implied many breakfasts, mis-spoken. The “Striped Leopard” is on another planet altogether.
In response to Ralph Maraj’s “Advice To The PNM” shown in the post immediately following this one, we would like to remind him that he no longer has to sing for his supper. The arrogant PNM prime minister who threatened to terminate his employment by the State if he ever spoke out against the Party has himself been booted out of office together with the PNM, and unceremoniously so at that.
There is no longer any PNM supper, State funded or otherwise, to prostitute one’s self respect for. There is no longer any State funded PNM Gravy Train although there is persistent, vociferous demand from the party’s hard-core support base for a return to those days of dependency on state resources that the PNM facilitated.
But the chances of the PNM making a comeback in the near future are as bleak as Manning’s chances of regaining the political leadership of the party given the near fall of his final curtain and his impending appointment with The Creator which many within the PNM brotherhood wish he would keep sooner rather than later.
Save and except the most diehard and unrepentant of PNM sycophants, the People generally have realized, albeit thirty years too late, that the PNM has long lost the goodness in its greatness, just as it has lost the fame in its glory, the positive image of its early years having being replaced by the notoriety and infamy associated with corrupt regimes that govern in their own interest, which is precisely what the PNM had been doing since it ceased governing in the People’s interest decades ago.
There are some who would say that the PNM’s decline and descent into immorality in its conduct of the People’s business started even before Williams’ death but reached its apex during the last three Manning administrations, particularly the last two which were nothing more than bold-faced missions of self preservation financed by the country’s treasury.
What was not squandered was plundered, pillaged, siphoned and otherwise misappropriated, filling the pockets and bank accounts of party financiers, cronies and hacks in a most brazen and shameless manner. So when Mr. Maraj writes about the PNM still being “a great party” we must take issue and seriously question his political judgment. Not only that, but we must wonder as well whether his memory and understanding of our recent history, his social conscience, and last but by no means least his patriotic sentiment, have all but deserted him.
If corruption were the PNM‘s only sin we could be persuaded to forgive, if not forget, as Maraj seems to have done, because corruption being punishable by law, can be atoned for, and once that happens, it should be forgiven. But the sins of the PNM by far exceed the corruption and unfettered greed that history and several commissions of inquiry have documented and detailed, which the party cannot deny.
The PNM’s greatest sin for which it can never and should never be forgiven is its infliction on the People of the phenomenon known as “The PNM Mentality”. That phenomenon was unknown in the colonial pre-PNM era. Today it is rife, particularly in traditional PNM strongholds, but it has unleashed on all of us an unprecedented and unparalleled nation wide ‘cut-arse’ that is no respecter of electoral boundaries, that has law abiding Society under siege, wreaking damage on the national psyche and the economy that is unquantifiable, irreparable and may very well prove to be irreversible for several decades. It is a mentality that is so detrimental and debilitating that it rivals the pernicious illegal narcotics trade for first place as the greatest blight to have ever descended on this beautiful country.