Au­thor, play­wright, politi­cian and jour­nal­ist Lennox Raphael (no re­la­tion) is cau­tion­ing politi­cians that Trinidad and To­ba­go as a so­ci­ety runs the risk of be­ing turned in­to a pil­lar of salt if we con­tin­ue re­fer­ring to the past for our present-day chal­lenges. Raphael, who lives in Den­mark, in tak­ing a crit­i­cal look at the coun­try's pol­i­tics, is con­fi­dent that we will emerge suc­cess­ful­ly out of our present chal­lenges, but warns that we must stop play­ing the blame game and unite for the sake of the coun­try.

Mr Raphael, about ten years ago when we were shar­ing a meal you ate a large hot pep­per with­out even once mut­ter­ing "Ouch." Are you still a pep­per con­nois­seur?

(Hav­ing break­fast at the Ho­tel Nor­mandie, in St Ann's, Wednes­day, with a rem­i­nisc­ing smile) Oh yeah. But you see, there is a way of eat­ing pep­per: you mustn't eat the seeds, just eat around them. It is the art of eat­ing, in gen­er­al (a mis­chie­vous chuck­le).

If my mem­o­ry serves me right you con­sumed the en­tire thing. I don't re­call you throw­ing away any of it.

That was a weak pep­per (loud laugh­ter).

Ok, bro. You are re­turn­ing to Den­mark, where you now live with your fam­i­ly, in a few hours. What brought you back home this time around?

(Well at­tired in tuxe­do, with black bow tie) Well, I want­ed to bring my fam­i­ly here-Pa­paya (daugh­ter) and Hel­ga (wife). They love Trinidad and To­ba­go very much and I got tired of mak­ing ex­cus­es for not bring­ing them to my na­tive land as of­ten as they would like. Present­ly I am work­ing on a very long nov­el called Naipaul and I have been wrestling with it for some time now.

You are quite a colour­ful...well, I wouldn't say char­ac­ter, but rather, gen­tle­man: you are a play­wright, au­thor, politi­cian and for­mer jour­nal­ist at the Guardian. Which of these vo­ca­tions ex­cit­ed you the most?

I start­ed to work at the Guardian on Jan­u­ary 2, 1958, the same year with Ger­ry Samuel, Frank Arlen and June Car­tar. What I feel most com­fort­able with-it is the art of writ­ing, cre­at­ing, dis­cov­er­ing and ex­ca­vat­ing a whole new way of look­ing at things...chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties in terms of lan­guage.

Has lo­cal jour­nal­ism ap­pre­ci­at­ed or de­pre­ci­at­ed over those years?

It hasn't de­pre­ci­at­ed; I find it is very live­ly, and you can­not blame the press for any­thing, be­cause the press mere­ly re­flects and il­lus­trates what is hap­pen­ing in the so­ci­ety. We have a very vig­or­ous press and we need all sec­tions of the news me­dia, be­cause they are in­te­gral in any democ­ra­cy.

What have you been do­ing in De­mark?

I do a lot of writ­ing and lec­tur­ing, which in­volves trav­el­ling, and for in­stance I went to Birm­ing­ham, where I met a fel­low Trin­bag­on­ian, Roi Kwabeena, who was the Po­et Lau­re­ate of Birm­ing­ham. Un­for­tu­nate­ly he has passed on, but he was a fan­tas­tic in­di­vid­ual who did a lot for so many peo­ple out there.

Let's look at your po­lit­i­cal side. In 1981 you were the Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Na­tion­al Re­con­struc­tion (ONR) can­di­date for Port-of-Spain East.

Yes. Lam­en­ta­bly we lost that elec­tion...

You al­so lost your house, which housed your the­atre, on the morn­ing of that elec­tion.

Yes. I had re­turned home, built the the­atre in Bel­mont and it was de­stroyed by fire. It was pret­ty sad, but I con­tin­ued in pol­i­tics and in '82, I be­came a mem­ber of the ONR ex­ec­u­tive and the par­ty was the start of new pol­i­tics. If we had been ac­cept­ed in 1981, I think things would have been dif­fer­ent in Trinidad and To­ba­go to­day. We missed out at a very cru­cial point in the turn­ing around of the so­ci­ety in­to a new kind of emo­tion­al, men­tal di­rec­tion.

No doubt you have been keep­ing up with events at home through the so­cial me­dia. How would you rate the per­for­mance of the PP ad­min­is­tra­tion?

Be­fore an­swer­ing your sub­stan­tive ques­tion, Clevon: af­ter the PNM lost for the first time the pop­u­lar vote in the 1983 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion, the ONR start­ed cre­at­ing the A Ac­com­mo­da­tion and cre­at­ing con­tact teams, try­ing to deep­en the coali­tion process, which I was a part of. These groups in­clud­ed Win­ston Dook­er­an, Kelvin Ram­nath, Karl Hud­son-Phillips and ANR Robin­son.

Did you meet any of these guys-of course with the ex­cep­tion of Ram­nath, who re­cent­ly passed on-dur­ing your cur­rent trip?

Yeah, I met Mr Robin­son last Fri­day, where we had a love­ly and an­i­mat­ed con­ver­sa­tion and he is fine. I think there is a bit of ex­ag­ger­a­tion in his be­ing hos­pi­talised. I even read him three po­ems. And then I be­came mem­ber of the NAR ex­ec­u­tive again with Karl, Dook­er­an, Robin­son and Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-who I know very well and like her very much.

Ready to an­swer the sub­stan­tive ques­tion?

Yeah. Yeah. I have been fol­low­ing the sit­u­a­tion and have been briefed in many ways and the Gov­ern­ment by and large is do­ing ex­cel­lent.

Ex­cel­lent?

Yes.

You know PP de­trac­tors would be­rate you for say­ing that...that you are not liv­ing here so you don't know what is go­ing on in TT?

Well (in­tense ex­pres­sion), well, the PNM is do­ing well al­so....

In what way?

The par­ty is car­ry­ing out the func­tions of an op­po­si­tion, as in any de­mo­c­ra­t­ic state, and is ful­fill­ing its re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as an op­po­si­tion.

In a re­spon­si­ble man­ner?

Yes. I mean when you are in op­po­si­tion you op­pose cre­ative­ly and po­lit­i­cal­ly be­cause you are ac­tu­al­ly lob­by­ing against the gov­ern­ment, and they can­not ap­plaud the good deeds of the gov­ern­ment.

Aren't you be­ing po­lit­i­cal­ly cor­rect in prais­ing the per­for­mance of the loy­al op­po­si­tion par­ty, when its de­trac­tors are say­ing the com­plete op­po­site?

I think the PNM has to be ap­plaud­ed for the fact they have re­cov­ered from the ex­cess­es of Patrick Man­ning-and they need to do a lot more.

How is this re­cov­ery be­ing man­i­fest­ed?

I mean the PNM is not in gov­ern­ment so they don't have the means of di­rect­ly lob­by­ing the cit­i­zen­ry, in terms of ma­te­r­i­al goods, and the par­ty has done a lot of good for Trinidad and To­ba­go. It has al­so been in­volved in things which were not prop­er in terms of gov­er­nance and at­ti­tude.

Mr Raphael, if a gen­er­al elec­tion is called to­mor­row, would you sup­port the PNM?

I wouldn't say that and, I don't want to be too judg­men­ta,l but in Trinidad and To­ba­go we have to ap­pre­ci­ate those who come for­ward to serve (frown­ing) and there is too much of you know....too much blam­ing or cast­ing stones, too lit­tle ap­pre­ci­a­tion of those who are in­volved in pub­lic life. We do have a rich fu­ture, but we have to stop blam­ing each oth­er and let us build the na­tion to­geth­er. We keep look­ing back, and while look­ing back, the en­tire so­ci­ety is in dan­ger of turn­ing in­to a pil­lar of salt.

Are you say­ing, Mr Raphael, that we should not look back at the past per­for­mance of the PNM, and I am sure you have heard the max­im that if a peo­ple who don't their his­to­ry they are domed to...

(A sharply dis­mis­sive tone) That is a waste of time, Clevon, to crit­i­cise the past. The past is dead. And that max­im you re­ferred to is a stu­pid one. It's a stu­pid max­im. Hu­man na­ture is be­yond max­ims, Clevon. (Sip­ping black cof­fee the sum to­tal of his break­fast.) These are ill-serv­ing max­ims, and his­to­ry is no judge of hu­man char­ac­ter.

So the PP is be­ing wrong when they re­mind cit­i­zens of the po­lit­i­cal mis­ad­ven­tures of the PNM, es­pe­cial­ly the Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tions?

(Wring­ing his palms be­tween his legs) A lot of that has been done and is be­ing done, but as time goes on, less of that should be done, be­cause it is all a waste of time. Peo­ple are not stu­pid. They know what hap­pened and what is hap­pen­ing. The gov­ern­ment should spend much time as pos­si­ble cre­at­ing new pro­grammes, do­ing new things and ful­fill­ing its man­i­festo.

While this is be­ing done, Gov­ern­ment is se­vere­ly crit­i­cised by the op­po­si­tion and is it that they should sim­ply roll over and say or do noth­ing by way of re­but­tal?

By its works the pub­lic will know the Gov­ern­ment; by its work, not by its words. So the Gov­ern­ment right now has the op­por­tu­ni­ty to go out there to re­con­fig­ure and re­struc­ture. What I am al­so say­ing it is the op­po­si­tion's du­ty to dis­tract the Gov­ern­ment, and it is Gov­ern­ment's cor­re­spond­ing oblig­a­tion not to fall for the dis­trac­tions..that is the na­ture of pol­i­tics.

The na­ture of the beast?

(With a pok­er face, which pre­ced­ed loud laugh­er) The beast and the an­gel.

Mr Raphael if fate willed it, would you be in­ter­est­ed in con­test­ing a gen­er­al elec­tion in TT?

Of course. Of course. I can see it hap­pen­ing.

Which par­ty?

Whether PNM or the PP, it re­al­ly doesn't mat­ter to me, be­cause you know I have been away for 20 years, and I have spent many years fight­ing the PNM, but I start­ed in pol­i­tics with the PNM.

What? You were a PN­Mite? So many years we have been close friends-soul broth­ers-and I nev­er knew this?

When I was 17 years old I was the sec­re­tary of the par­ty group in Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni, and the last PNM con­ven­tion I went to was at SWW­TU in Port-of-Spain. But you know you can­not bury the PNM, the PNM is part of the life of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Nei­ther can you bury the UNC or Bas­deo Pan­day.

It has been said by its crit­ics that the PNM has lost its moor­ings, that it has moved away from cer­tain sec­tions of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

Well, once you aware of los­ing your moor­ings, it is a won­der­ful op­por­tu­ni­ty to change, and every chal­lenge is an op­por­tu­ni­ty, so the fu­ture would take care of those things. And I don't think the PP has lost its moor­ings. I like Kam­la very much-who I con­sid­er a friend-and I think the state of mind of the pop­u­la­tion ap­pears to me to be cre­ative­ly con­fused.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

It is part of the grow­ing-up process, and be­cause we are a very young coun­try I am ex­treme­ly con­fi­dent we will come out of what­ev­er prob­lems we may be go­ing through at this time. But as I said, we have to stop play­ing the blame game and unite for the bet­ter­ment of all our cit­i­zens.