Let’s learn from our leaders

With the passing of former PM Basdeo Panday and former THA (Tobago House of Assembly) chief secretary Hochoy Charles, Trinidad and Tobago has missed golden opportunities to advance to a better place based on well-considered post-retirement plans to tap into the rich experiences while they were alive.

Passing on knowledge from one generation of leaders to the next in T&T is largely a hit-or-miss affair.

We have no post-retirement plans for our past prime ministers, presidents and private sector leaders who demit office. Succeeding generations are deprived of the richness of their experiences.

Just think how much better T&T would be if we could more decisively draw on the experiences of the likes of Wendell Mottley, Dr Bhoe Tewarie, Ferdie Ferreira, Dr Roshan Parasram, John Humphrey, Ralph Maraj, Justice Anthony Lucky and Joan Yuille-Williams, and many others who are still alive.

Hundreds of youths gained from the vast experience of Dr Allan McKenzie through his post-retirement from Naparima College to lectureship at UWI/Roytec.

To have local, renowned, past prime ministers and presidents as guest lecturers at various tertiary institutions would provide golden opportunities for upcoming political scientists and others to gain from their vast reservoirs of rich practical experiences. But, alas, we often miss the boat.

While Hochoy Charles and others like Dr Jefferson Davidson and Orville London were part of seemingly transitional arrangements in Tobago for generational leadership, Trinidad has not witnessed a similar, ideally seamless, baton passing of political leadership.

We leave it to luck and chance. George Chambers inherited the mantle of leadership from the iconic Eric Williams. Although he patriotically tried his best, he was totally unprepared, unmentored and apparently caught off guard.

Tobago has vibrant, articulate, relatively clean, young political leaders such as Farley Augustine and Ancil Dennis. We can discern possibilities in Senate President Nigel De Freitas.

Trinidad however appears to be lagging way behind.

Trinidad politicians may feel they have much to offer in their winter years. Yet we provide no structured avenues for them to do so outside of active politics.

In the US, for example, when a president leaves office, there is a wide range of structured opportunities for imparting knowledge to succeeding generations through philanthropy, building libraries, guest lectureships and serving in major NGOs.

In 1982, former US president Jimmy Carter founded the Carter Presidential Center, devoted to issues of democracy and human rights. He also worked with Habitat for Humanity International, building houses for the needy.

We must make life after politics interesting, worthwhile, beneficial and desirable.

In T&T, there are no soft landings for our leaders: Basdeo Panday could have lectured post-retirement at The UWI in a structured setting on the inner workings of T&T politics, democracy and human rights to a whole new generation. His classes would have been oversubscribed.

Greats like Patrick Manning, George Chambers, Kelvin Ramnath, Anthony Sabga and Sidney Knox were treasure troves of wisdom, intellect and experiences from which our youth could have benefited.

Serious thought must be put into how we can leverage the experience of our past presidents, for example, Anthony Carmona, a citizen equipped with decades of knowledge of law locally and at the ICC (International Criminal Court).

As good leaders come and go in T&T, we must ensure that we have structured systems in place for them to contribute, post-retirement, to our betterment. Each T&T generation must not always seemingly start from scratch.

It cannot be hit-or-miss.

Rodney Charles

MP, Naparima

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