Intelligence may be defined as the ability to grasp facts, apply logic, and not scratch in public. So it may appear as though our politicians fail by all these criteria, especially the scratching: which is why Ish's, Steve's, Calder's, Julia's, Reshmi's, and Sasha's backs are still out in public. Admittedly, there are some politicians who scratch their side instead, while some — like Errol McLeod, Prakash Ramadhar, Anil Roberts, Nizam Baksh and Collin Partap — scratch their back and side. Or have you seen anything accomplished in their Ministerial portfolios?

But it may not be that this country's politicians are actually dotish: maybe they just play dotish or, as former National Security Minister Martin Joseph once described himself, look dotish. The present National Security Minister, John Sandy, doesn't look dotish, just clueless, but that may be because he depends on the clues given to him by Police Commissioner Dwayne Gibbs, who had enough clues to hold 17 men for an assassination plot but not enough to prove it. So Mr Sandy may not have known that certain units from his Ministry had been given to a non-elected non-appointed advisor; or that the Police Service was acquiring an aeroplane to fly by crimes; or that the State of Emergency wouldn't reduce murders: but he has never been seen scratching in public.

It is also not a given that Sandy's colleague, Justice Minister Herbert Volney, who acted in Sandy's stead for a few days last month, is mentally challenged. Mr Volney used his security stint to spent many thousands of taxpayers' dollars on double-page newspaper ads of a statement written by himself about the veracity of the SoE. Why, you may wonder, did Volney need two full pages? Because his ad had phrases like "the police are obliged to be possessed of evidence"; "the detention orders served on those detained were well considered and deliberated upon prior to issuance"; and "Mrs Persad-Bissessar will continue to provide you with the wear it all statutory and otherwise". He could just have said, "Ipsy dipsy do, babbly wabbly woo", though.

But his apparent lack of literacy may only prove how smart Volney actually is. You see, politicians depend on voters to elect them, and getting elected means catering to the values of the ordinary citizen. So, if our politicians seem stupid, maybe that's because stupidity gets votes. For example, one of the Government's most trenchant critics, Keith Subero, wrote in last Monday's Express a column headlined "Time to be real" on the theme of "inauthenticity", in which he claimed that "between 1550 and 1850, some 50 million Africans were shipped to the Americas and only 15 million of our ancestors were said to have landed."

Now the actual figure is between 12 to 14 million shipped and the number landed about 9 to 11 million. Not only are these estimates cited by a historian named Patrick Manning, but even Subero's hero, Dr Eric Williams, calculates a trans-Atlantic mortality rate of 15 per cent, not an absurdly unprofitable 70 per cent. Of course, it is possible that Subero was just offering himself as a case study in inauthenticity: but if T&T's political commentators are so innumerate, then it's no wonder that Finance Minister Winston Dookeran can stand up in Parliament asking for an additional $2.2 billion just four months after the Budget presentation, yet say with a straight face that the economy is performing better than expected.

Subero also spoke about "that monumental German philosopher/economist Karl Marx", which means he knows nothing about economics and takes no issue with a political system that oppressed and murdered many more millions than capitalism. But Subero's stupidity isn't surprising, since there are only a couple of newspaper columnists who understand history, and one of them has a PhD in that subject while the other has co-written a CSEC history textbook.

This historical ignorance also explains why all ethnocentrists continually claim that we should respect our ancestors. When Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar tried to touch the feet of India's president, Ravi-ji, Prakash Persad-ji, Pandita Indrani Rampersad-ji and every other ji stoutly defended her action as showing respect for an elder. Even afrocentrist feminist columnist Attillah Springer took a turn in PNM leader Dr Keith Rowley's tail, writing in the Trinidad Guardian (January 21) "That you do not remember or pay respect to your ancestors on whose shoulders you stand and speak with such contempt is really an indictment of you."

But in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature, which shows how the modern world is morally superior to the ancient one, scholar Steven Pinker writes: "Many of [our ancestors'] beliefs can be considered not just monstrous but, in a very real sense, stupid. They would not stand up to intellectual scrutiny as being consistent with other values they claimed to hold."

Which pretty much sums up everyone who defends tradition in this place.

•Email: kbaldeosingh@hotmail.com