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28
Thu, Mar

Typography

It would have been the beginning of wisdom if, over the course of his night without freedom, Jack Warner had begun to rethink the principles on which he had built a life of riches and power.

Despite an abundance of energy, intelligence and a certain folk hero charm, it has all come down to this. The meteor that soared to the heights of local and global power might now crash and burn itself out in a US jail. Depending on the quality of the goods he has on Kamla Persad-Bissessar and her cohorts, he might still kick up enough dust to suffocate their future. But what Trinidad and Tobago needs from Jack Warner right now is not revenge on a few but the truth about all. For this reason, we need him far, far more than the US does.

As T&T's most important power broker for the last decade and a half, this descendant of Anansi knows the real truth about T&T lurking under its veneer of casual beauty. Equipped with a good supply of lubricating cash, he oiled his way up and down, and in and out of every crevice of T&T. At his mercy, he has held men and women stripped to naked greed and begging for a taste of his power, as well as men and women living on the edge, begging for what was legitimately theirs. Now, even at this stage with so many of his ambitions going up in smoke, his life could be made to mean something more if we are open to finding out the truth about ourselves in the truth from him.

Jack Warner is us, writ large. He is the quintessence of the Caribbean reality of authority without responsibility. From the bowels of that world without consequences for power, he brought us word that "yesterday was yesterday and today is today". Well, now he knows different.

He might be surprised to learn that, like us, he, too, has no real investment in this place. If he did, he would've taken care to align his means with his ends. Instead, he pursued his ends by any means necessary, careless to the impact on our fragile institutions. Now that he hopes for strong, incorruptible and courageous institutions to come to his defence, he might also know better.

Last week the world looked on in stunned confusion at the national outpouring of grief at Warner's arrest and the celebratory reception at his cottage meeting. To them, he is a common criminal who broke the law to enrich himself. To us, he is what we would have been, if only we had his chance. We see not criminality but a man beating a power system. It is the oldest story of power and the powerless which takes no account of today's reality of independence, freedom and responsibility. We are still the enslaved, cheering on as the great house burns, oblivious to the fact that the great house going up in flames is really ours.

Tomorrow, the British and British-influenced world begin the commemoration of the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta (Great Charter). Hailed as "the most important bargain in the history of the human race" by Daniel Hannan, Conservative British member of the European Parliament, the Magna Carta was signed on June, 15, 1215 by King John of England under pressure by hostile barons. For Lord Denning, it is "the greatest constitutional document of all times-the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot".

And yet, centuries later, in these old British colonies of the West Indies, "arbitrary authority" remains the order of the day for a people so imprisoned by their history of powerlessness that they are glad to settle for freeness over freedom. Five years ago, we were happy to settle for the Fyzabad Accord when what we needed was a meaningful Magna Carta of our own.

This is the powerlessness that has us relying on foreign authorities to bring our own people to account. Despite the extensive introduction of anti-corruption infrastructure, nothing has changed in the decades since the US Securities and Exchange Commission caught on to Johnny O'Halloran's brass-faced bribery deals. Neither the Integrity Commission, nor the Financial Intelligence Unit, nor the Anti-Corruption Investigation Bureau nor the many public and statutory bodies equipped with investigative authority, has managed to thrive in a political system built on arbitrary authority and dependent on the very culture of corruption that has us drowning in talk about who t'ief what and who pay whom, impotent to do a thing about it.

Faced with our failures, we're now pleading for campaign finance legislation.

While indispensable, let's not fool ourselves that this, or any other piece of law, will be enough to legislate behaviour supported by entrenched culture. Just look at how easy it was for the Prime Minister to deny getting money from Warner for her campaign.

If not from Warner, then from where did she get the money to float her luxury boat to victory in January and May 2010? She should tell us.

But the cheering gallery does not wish to know. Like Jack Warner, it wants only to win, by whatever means necessary, regardless of damage to the fabric of T&T. If we're lucky, Jack Warner could become more than the cautionary tale. He could become the truth that sets us free.