Transcript
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The speaker opens with a story from his youth about visiting a businessman in Tobago and witnessing a 'conscience sale.' He learns that not everyone acts with conscience, a lesson that shapes his later argument.
I
wanted to start with a story for many years ago it it goes back maybe more than 40 years ago when I first joined my father's business it was much smaller than it is today and I was given asuitcase full of samples and told to go and see customers all over the place all it reaches of the country to sell including Tobago and on this particular occasion I was center to be a GU to see oneof my dad's very close friends they were close friends because he respected him he respected him because like himself like my dad this man started with nothing unlike my father was making his way in the world I'm honoringhis commitments and being very straightforward in his dealings his name was Rufus Phillips he was a famous to be gone young business fun and I was given the task of going over to show him all of the new
fabric that we had just received so I arrived in Tobago and outside his store was a banner that said Philips conscience seal there's more than 40 years ago I was twenty some odd years oh that's enough detail aboutmy age and I looked at the banner with a bit of confusion and then I went inside to say hello to mr.Philips and he said se dong here and he took me behind his rapping counter because he was busy conscience L was working so I sat behind the counter and what would happen would be that customers would come tothe counter and they would put something on the counter and it would P what their conscience said to P this is the explanation he gave me so a lady came to the counter and she had a address langshe said mr.Rufus are paying $10 for that so he took him on he put it in a bag and he gave it to her and she left a gentleman came to the counter with a toaster James Rufus happen $15 or
P in $20 for a true first oh c'mon put it in a bag and give it to him a man came to the counter with a hammer Stanley Himani put it on the counter he said mr.Rufus happy and a dollar for that mr.Rufus picked up the hammer got up from his chair and attempted to hit demand so I said mr.Rufus what are you doing it's a conscience seal mr.Rufus said that man have no conscience
He connects conscience to public responsibility, arguing that those with power and means should speak up for others. He explains why criticism is more persuasive when people challenge their own side.
so it dawned on me all those years ago it hadn't dawned on me before that there are people with no conscience I always assumed that everyone had a conscience that everyone cared about each other and would do theright thing but Rufus taught me a valuable lesson which you learn when you are a self-made person like my dad unlike mr.Rufus Phillips you learn the lessons and one of them is that not everybody has a conscience and how does that connect us to responsibly lead because the silence of the elite is meant to see that we are beingunresponsible unresponsible is a term coined by Lloyd best a famous citizen of our country who all of you should know we have to decide if we want to be responsible about those who may not have the means thatwe have and the two components of being responsible in my humble opinion are conscience which I have spoken enough about now and the other part is common sense and the common sense aspect of us being responsible to lose
and I'm speaking about a responsibility not about those who are better than anybody else but those who have more means those who occupy the corridors of power those who cut ribbons with Ministers though people that are silent whatI am saying is that they should be vociferous because they have a conscience but also because they are sensible because they should recognize that they should water the tree from which they pick their fruit they should recognize thatthey should nurture and prune the tree under which they shelter they should recognize that it can't be that the ship of state will sail smoothly if everyone doesn't have basic amenities if some live in splendor on the topdeck and some people are below deck with little ventilation and little convenience a little service it is going to upset the equilibrium of the ship and if has done it throughout history it is not a novel idea that
I bring to you so the concept is that we should be responsible if we don't have a conscience we should be responsible because it is sensible to be responsible to those who do not have the means that wehave and why am i raising this complaint well if the business community complains about union behavior it has no effect the Union people assume that that is our rule if Union people complain about the business people they payvery little mind to the complaint but if a union leader was to complain about the behavior of workers and a businessman was to complain about business people wouldn't that be a little bit more convincing in your opinion
Using Gandhi and Mandela as examples, he argues that the real complaint is not inequality itself but the failure of basic services. He then questions why repeated fixes like more buses, hospitals, and teachers have not solved the underlying problem.
and where does that philosophy about complaining about your own come from it's not my idea that is if the philosophy of the Great Mahatma Gandhi believed that to resolve the conflict between the Hindus and the Muslims of theirtime of Independence he should complain about the behavior of the Hindus of which he was one and that is how they didn't go into civil war I mean it didn't end up as happily as it should of becausetragically he was assassinated but that also is the philosophy of mandela mandela had a Truth and Reconciliation after the released from 20-some years in prison he didn't come out and blame his captors he came out and asked themto explain themselves and to admit what wrong may have done so it is my view that I have the right and that I should raise this complaint so what is my complaint my complaint is not about the disparity
between you having a car and those of lesser means having to take the bus my complaint is that you have a car and the bus never comes for them that's my complaint my complaint is not that you cango to a private hospital and get attention and those of lesser means have to go to public health care facilities my problem our complaint is that when they go to the public health care facilities they sometimes sit therefor 10 hours are no doctor attends to them that is my country I am NOT saying I am not saying that you are not entitled to enjoy the fruits of your labor I am saying that we have toguarantee some basic amenity of service to ordinary people to people of lesser means if we want to live a harmonious and productive life and if we want our country to develop so what is the cause of this inability
of the bus derives what was a reason for that so how do we respond since our post colonial days to that problem we buy more buses how we deal with the problem of the patient setting in emergency withina no doctor come in and being told at five o'clock in the afternoon the doctor going home how we deal with that we build more hospitals and how do we deal with an absentee rate among teachers that exceeds30 and 40 percent or we deal a lot we hire more teachers and what has that done it hasn't worked so what should it responsibilities do donate buses pay for the teachers import more doctors that doesn't work sowhat is really the problem the problem in my humble opinion is that we have to admit we have to accept that it is not going to get better we have to accept that we have to accept it because
we know it because we have the education to analyze it because we know that the diagnosis of it is not that we don't have enough buses but that we don't know how to guarantee that the buses will runthat is our problem we have bought billions of dollars worth of buses and ferries and everything else and we still can't get the service to operate why is that I'll tell you why this is where I'm trying tobe responsible now in addition to asking you to be responsible this is my active responsibility to say that it's not going to get better any reason for that is as follows at Independence we took the British Charter ofthe Constitution and we drafted our Constitution what does the British Charter see the British Charter says that man is an honorable creature we took the Charter of our colonial masters and said that it was a document that we
could build on and that document prescribes that man is honorable it's an old will document go back and see when it was created I mean centuries ago almost a thousand years maybe what did the Americans do they werecolony - they wrote a new constitution did they take that Charter No they wrote a brand-new constitution what did it make the assumption about man it made the assumption that man is a selfish creature he can be honorablebut he's pruned to tyranny the word tyranny exists in the American Constitution several times they were trying to make sure that they never faced the tyranny of a colonial master again and that their own government couldn't turn intoa colonial master so they wrote a new constitution that separates their president from their Parliament and unlike the British they do not appoint their senators they elect them they elect their congressmen and Senators they're members of parliament under
senators are both elected we appoint our senators and to prove my point we have a majority appointed by the government of the day a minority appointed by the opposition and then we have eleven independent senators appointed by HerExcellency a president who were supposed to God the public's interest so my question to you is this if those eleven are supposed to guard public interest who are the others guarding
He shifts to constitutional design, contrasting the British and American systems and arguing that Trinidad and Tobago inherited a model that does not properly align representatives with public interest. He concludes that meaningful change requires writing a new constitution.
well the answer is clear they're guarding their party they are guarding the partying is it their fault that they do not know that's what the model requires so let me give you a quick example when mr.Obama brought his health care package to the United States people of universal health care insurance for everybody it had to be remodeled and changed it had to be amended who amended it who causes to be amended mr.Obama was a Democrat it wasn't the Republicans of course interim ended it was the Democrats because they came to him and I said listen chief if I go back to my small town where they elected me and Icaused those small business people to pay all of those charges they will never elect me again so unfortunately I'm gonna get my back in unless you make the following changes that's how government works you can't have a prime
minister deciding that we are going to build this or break down not on every member of the cabinet instead of seeking his constituents interest seeks the interest of the prime minister so in that regard cook me goo whoI sat on a committee with was a professor at UE he often used to say to me we replaced our English governor with a local governor and that is my thesis and therefore it is responsible of me tosay to you that if we want to see change if we want to see the quality of life improved if you want to be responsible either because you have a conscience or because you are sensible or you areboth we need to set about writing a new constitution this is my recommendation
The speaker returns to the consequences of weak accountability, citing disasters and repeated failures as evidence that the system must change. He ends by urging the audience to speak up and help write a new constitution together.
in United States the model that they created that is afraid of tyranny has had the effect of enriching the power of ordinary people and that's why for many years I think it was mr.Truman President Truman that had I put a plaque on his desk that said the buck stops here in our societies the buck stops with the previous government or the other party that's what we see when a public complainswe never see it was my fault I should have made sure the dreams were clear so he hi we wouldn't flood and people waited for hours we never say that it was his systems for the former attorney generalsaid about three babies that died in two weeks at the San Fernando Hospital this system is bad how could his system be bad who's a nurse that ignore the child who is that nurse and doctor still there do
you even know so let me say this how many more years 500 murders a year do you want how many more flooding events do you want after every 30 minutes of Rhian how many more times you want tobe stranded trying to get to Tobago how many times do you want to pay more for a ticket to st.Lucia than you do to Miami how many more times does this have to happen before you realize
before you realize that we need a new rule book I would like to say to you that the spirit of conscience is that we do not enjoy eating a great meal if those below decks are without anything toeat novice conscience and it is common sense if we're eating a great meal to recognize that the meal will be threatened if those below decks have nothing to eat you decide you want to do it because of yourconscience you want to do it because of common sense you decide but my plea to you is speak up do not be silent and let us please get set about not asking for a new constitution let us writeone among us and I thank you very much for the opportunity of expanding my idea about the silence of the elite I hope I have been convincing in summit to some extent and I thank you very much for
the opportunity