Tony Deyal | Ins and outs

Some political jokes actually win elections, and others have victories that are more pronounced. For example, when a particularly aggressive United States ambassador, who fitted almost exactly the stereotype described by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer in their 1958 book The Ugly American, first met Chairman Mao, he was immediately quite hostile.

He demanded fiercely, "Is your country democratic?" Mao politely said, "Of course it is." Incensed at what he considered an outrageous lie, the American thundered, "So when was your last election?" The very calm Chairman replied triumphantly, "Rast night."

You can't get a political issue more pronounced than that, but you can get one that is more separation than partition, less Gaza Strip than civil or uncivil war.

A young couple got married just before the last American presidential election. He was staunchly, and perhaps stiffly, conservative. She was a passionate, strong-minded and sometimes obstinate Democrat. In fact, when she first heard this joke about Hillary Clinton, she did not think it was a joke. Actually, it was her husband, at that time her fiancÈ, who told her the story.

Bill and Hillary Clinton are driving near her hometown. They stop to get some gas, whereupon Hillary recognises the station attendant as a high-school boyfriend. After they drive off, Bill tells her, smugly, "See, if you'd married him, you'd be working at a gas station." Hillary smartly replies, "If I'd married him, he'd be president."

Obviously, the young bride's lack of any response but a repeated nod of approval heralded trouble in the marital bed, and when it came, there was rage, bitterness, regret and recriminations. The dispute continued until late in the night.

 

Too late

 

After a few hours, the young bride whispered, "Darling, there's a split in the ranks of the Democrats, and I think if the GOP member stood now, he would get in easily."

Her husband, Republican to the death, told her bluntly, "Too late. He's already stood as an independent and lost his deposit!"

Despite the political incorrectness of these jokes and their verging on the salacious, I thought of them when I saw on television and in the daily media pictures of two sides of the national political coin in Trinidad. One group, of mainly African descent, which was supporting the government of Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, angrily confronted another of East Indian origin, who supported the opposition party led by Kamla Persad-Bissessar. This was unravelling in front of the Parliament where there was a vote of no confidence taking place inside.

The target, ironically, was a government senator and minister of East Indian descent. The supporters of the government kept shouting insistently to the other side, "Allyuh thief! Allyuh thief! Allyuh thief!" and the supporters of the opposition kept on with "Rowley must go! Rowley must go! Rowley must go!"

According to a newspaper (April 29, 2018), "The exchange between the two groups became so heated that heavily armed police officers of the Guard and Emergency Branch had to intervene." Fortunately, although they lost their cool and their tempers, nobody in the raucous, jeering, threatening crowd lost their deposits. What worried me was the sheer purposelessness of it all.

When I complained to one of my friends that the scene in front of the parliament was disgusting because of its sheer meaninglessness, the anger and what I interpreted as racial intolerance, he said, "If you think that bad, you should have seen what was happening inside."

I have been around the Caribbean for a long time. While Trinidad and Guyana are divided by race and the gap is widening daily, the other countries are split 'tribally', not exactly like the Tutsis and Hutus, or like the Muslims and Hindus, but through political allegiances over time. When I had just arrived in Belize, I was advised not to buy a blue or red car because of the political connotations of the colours. I then bought a respectable and non-aligned (except for the wheels) silver vehicle.

 

Civilised and courteous

 

Just after the Black Power problem in Trinidad in 1970, I started working as a temporary press officer in the Office of the Prime Minister. While the debate externally was still heated about who was or wasn't Afro-Saxon, who should not hold power or should own the banks, I found the debate in the parliament so civilised and courteous. I concluded that politicians were like both sides of a pair of scissors. They never cut each other, only what came between them. There was considerable respect among the representatives and, at the tea break, real camaraderie among the leaders.

I had studied English and history from my Senior Cambridge (OLevel) to Advanced Level and through to a traumatic first year, 1969-1970, at UWI, St Augustine. I loved the quips and repartee, the cut and thrust of British and, to a lesser extent, American politics.

One of my favourites is the exchange between John Montagu, Fourth Earl of Sandwich, and John Wilkes, English radical and politician. After some verbal sparring, Montague told Wilkes, "Sir, I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox (venereal disease)." Wilkes hit back with, "That, Sir, depends on whether I first embrace Your Lordship's principles or your mistress." Incredibly civilised iron hand in a sheer velvet glove.

In our parliaments today, what we have instead is this kind of language from the prime minister regarding something said by an opposition member: "I will tell that corkscrew, that creep, to come outside the Parliament and make any similar allegation against me. Don't stay inside the Parliament and make it. Come out in the streets and make any similar allegation against me. That is what I want ... ." So, if this represents the mood, behaviour and anger within the Parliament, what do you expect on the streets outside?

- Tony Deyal was last seen quoting a remark by an Australian prime minister, Paul Keating, about an opponent, John Hewson, "He's like a shiver waiting for a spine."