Fr Martin Sirju

I was recently told by a friend, who called me in California, about Minister Achong’s behaviour at a recent smelter consultation in Chatham. I have been following the news back home via the Internet but I missed that arrogant display of power. I am, however, quite happy to see that support for the anti-smelter protest is growing.

At first I was very impressed to hear the Prime Minister promise a nationwide consultation on the construction of smelters, its pros and cons, as well as the alleged misinformation campaign that he claims is being carried out against his government on this issue.

But now I am very disappointed that the South Chamber has adopted a self-defeatist approach with its proposed 350 specially invited guests at the December “consultation”. I was also somewhat hesitant to write this article since aluminium smelters have now become a political football – an added weapon in the UNC arsenal - and all those who enter it might be painted with the brush of partisan politics, clerics and all.

There seems to be a tendency to pray away the smelter construction. While prayer services of different types are laudable, the role of religion in an issue of national concern like the construction of smelters ought not to be reduced to the spiritual. As St Benedict taught us many centuries ago: “Ora et labora” (“Pray and work”). What kind of work?

Work refers to all types of work: one’s work must be suffused with one’s spirituality and hence it is wrong as the secularists insist that religion ought to be confined to the private sphere. We bring to the different spheres of life the import of our religious teachings even when these teachings impact on controversial politico-economic issues.

Whether we use the Hindu concept of dharma, the Islamic notion of “the trust” or the Christian concept of the kingdom, fidelity to these concepts would eventually pitch us staunchly against what we see as misguided or unjust in the politico-economic order.

An interesting case that comes to mind is 1 Sam 8. Here the Israelites ask Samuel for a king. Samuel is unhappy with this request which had immense political implications. It is not that Samuel was against the monarchy totally, since there was perhaps no other way for Israel to survive, but he saw the cost: the loss of a corporate identity rooted in God and the social cohesion that went with it.

It is often said that religion is backward – a cry dating from the Enlightenment – opposed to reason and now development of our nation’s natural gas resources. We are accused of being pessimistic Samuels who cannot see into the 21st century and the potential for rural and urban development. Except we have to ask at what cost to people and the environment.
 I would not bother to repeat the whole gamut of environmental, social and economic arguments against the construction of smelters. What I prefer to offer is a religious critique of the market mentality.

Harvey Cox, the Harvard-based Christian theologian, expressed his astonishment at his findings when he ventured into reading economics: “Expecting to find a terra incognita (unknown world), I found myself instead in the land of déjà-vu. The lexicon of the Wall Street Journal and the business sections of Time and Newsweek turned out to bear a striking resemblance to Genesis, the Epistle to the Romans, and St Augustine’s City of God.

Behind the descriptions of market reforms, monetary policy, and the convolutions of the Dow, I gradually made out the pieces of a grand narrative about the inner meaning of human history, why things had gone wrong, and how to put them right. Theologians call these myths of origin, legends of the fall, and doctrines of sin and redemption.

But here they were again, and in only thin disguise: chronicles about the creation of wealth, the seductive temptations of statism, captivity to faceless economic cycles, and ultimately, salvation through the advent of free markets, with a small dose of ascetic belt tightening along the way, especially for the East Asian economies.”

It seems that the construction of aluminium smelters in Trinidad carries with it this same market “theology” of salvation. It is a mentality that ought to be opposed for it puts financial capital first and does not take into consideration the human and environmental capital costs. Religion must not be afraid to offer a critique here.

Clerics of the various religions must not say their activity is merely spiritual, quite apart from political or economic concerns. It is what it is: legitimate protest. Of course none of us are politicians and I would hope do not seek to be; that is not our mission.

But we must not be afraid to enter the discourse with insights from our various religious traditions. In this regard I would therefore like to see, in addition to pujas or Masses etc, more networking among religious groups, as well as networking with other anti-smelter personnel – scientists, agriculturalists, engineers, lawyers, environmentalists, economists and community activists.

As Dr Basil Ince wrote some time ago in the Express: what the smelter protest lacks is a broad-based support equivalent to that of the late Dr Eric Williams as he marched with his zealous supporters down to Chaguaramas.

One might ask why I feel so passionately about the smelter controversy. One simple answer is that I am from Cedros. I have seen years of neglect in the days of the 70s when we were swimming in oil money. I remember terrible roads up until recently as well as the continued absence of water for days, not to mention the power outages when rain falls.

I remember the absence of parliamentary representatives and children unable to get transport either to go to school or return home. I remember trucks running up and down the road every day taking oil from wells next to Columbus Bay while the Bay itself lay in utter neglect, no toilet facilities nor pipe-borne water, with no significant improvement at present. Yet in all of this we had one prized asset that governments did not bother to touch: our beaches. Now we are being asked to relinquish that as well.

If the beaches from Claxton Bay to Point Fortin are the measure of our “development” we would rather not have this kind of “progress”. The people of Cedros do not have the luxury of malls or easy trips to Miami like the architects of our economic destiny do.

We prefer to implement, with Government’s help, the Alternative Cedros Development Plan. And when PNM and UNC get us fed-up, we prefer to run to the beach to lime, to fish, to swim, to eat a good curry or pelau, and yes, take a little drink. We do not want these leisurely activities to become just memories we pass on to the next generation.