Opinions
an official party with only four seats; and a most welcome election of Elizabeth May who defeated CPC's Munn to win the Green Party's first seat. (These figures are subject to minor changes). Amazingly both Ignatieff and Duceppe lost their seats. The statistics are revealing: 40% of the electors gave the Conservatives 166 seats, 30% gave the NDP 103 seats, 20% gave the Liberals 34 seats, 6% gave the Bloc Québecois 4 seats and 4% resulted in one seat. Of the total votes cast the Conservatives gained 5.2 million, NDP 4.5 million, Liberals 2.5 million and BQ 842,000.
These figures clearly show the inequality of representation in our system and underline the need for the winning party to accommodate the positions of those who voted for others, totalling 60% of electors. In his victory speech Harper seemed to have listened to Mr. Layton and Mr. Ignatieff and made concessions to total representation and to work with the others in the house to achieve good government. I wait with bated breath to see whether this is just election victory speechmaking or a sincere desire to shed his former image and adopt a more human and more humane one. I hope too that he recognizes the fact that his massive victories in Ontario's GTA were not wins for him but losses for the Liberals; if one tallies the votes of the NDP and Liberals in ridings won by the Conservatives the picture becomes quite clear that strategic voting by Liberals shifted to the NDP in fear of a conservative majority and conversely to the CPC to stem the NDP tide, since Harper had predicted doom should the NDP win and dismissed the Liberals as effete. One striking example is Ignatieff who lost by just over 2000 votes while his NDP and Green Party opponents together obtained nearly 11,000, half of which were historically Liberals!
The tension in the air at the school auditorium where I voted was high with faces stern as they moved in and out. The corridors too were lined with cases displaying the work of elementary students, some of which reflected the optimism and innocence of youth, emphasizing the fact that voters in this election are really deciding the fate of future generations. What kind of society are we going to create for these children when they mature and join various communities to take part in nation-building? Will they learn cooperation, altruism, concern for others regardless of whether they agree with you or not, truth, honesty, good manners, general civility, preservation of environment and the economy, conservation of resources? Certainly they wouldn't learn these from watching the performance of members of Harper's government in Parliament, for example Baird, Oda, Toews and Mr. Harper himself. What they would learn instead would be rudeness, name-calling, chicanery, cheating, disdain for the good of the ordinary citizen, sinecures and preferences for friends and partisans.
The Conservative majority was not a positive choice. Five senior cabinet members lost their seats. I see it rather as a result of fear-mongering by the winners and a failure by the Liberals to take advantage of the many strong arguments that they had against Harper's style of government and his many weaknesses and biases, as mentioned in previous articles. Mr. Ignatieff's lacklustre performance lost votes, even allowing points for his gentlemanly behaviour, politeness and civility; he was handed many aces against an unworthy opponent on a favourable playing field. The match was his to win but he managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, as the saying goes. He ran a gentlemanly campaign while Harper slung mud. It is pointless urging democracy or high-sounding logic and reasoning when your opponent, the demagogue, has turned off his hearing aid. Fight fire with fire. That's politics.
The party of the centre has now gone into limbo. It would be illuminating to see how Layton conducts his opposition and deals with the majority Québecois members that now populate his caucus. His success may well be bittersweet, but he's a resourceful man. I wish him all success
Penchant for the hot in
making a 'chow'
Mangoes are even better. For a mango "chow" to absorb the hot spices its skin must be in what Trinidadians describe as a state of "in-betweenity". This means it is on the threshold of ripening, with the fruits soaking in sunshine in shades of purple, red and blue, and filtering this into its yellow pulp.
Sour cherries are also a key ingredient. These are marble-size fruits and are a yellow-translucent hit of concentrated, citric sharpness. So are tomatoes, pineapples, paw-paws, cucumbers, oranges, mandarins, grapefruit and other citrus family members. When in season, pommeracs and the deliciously caustic and stringy flesh of the cashew above the nut pass in the rush. Plums of the tropical type are also found in a bowl of "chow". They range from the hardy, almost inedible Hog Plum to the yellow and purple Jamaican variety, which is mostly a hard stone for a seed coated with a thin, sugar-filled layer of flesh.
Next comes a deep, large bowl. The chosen fruit is washed. Sometimes a mélange of fruits is used. Guavas, mangoes, and cool chunks of cucumber go well together, the latter serving as a counterpoint low in the heat registry and welcome to a palate that has been deliberately set on fire.
The fruits are prepared by being cut into finger-food size chunks. Oranges are peeled, the individual sections, or "pegs" sliced open, and the pulp extracted in chunks. Mangoes are peeled and then cut into thin slices. The mango-stone, or seed, is also added to the mix. Sour cherries get individual attention with a knife used to make small incisions on its surface. So too are the grape-size Jamaican plums, which are cut in several places down to the stone. This preparation of the fruit in slices, chunks, and incisions, create a bigger surface area for the absorption of the next stage, which is the addition of the spices.
The base seasoning is obviously salt. To this is added the prolific leaves of the chadon beni, which has been ground on a large, flat stone. The grinding is done using a round rock found through serendipity during a walk along a river bed. Ground in with the chadon beni leaves are cloves of garlic and the main ingredient used to set fire to a "chow", which is the pepper.
Peppers for a "chow" must be freshly-picked. This is done by shooing away the birds from the pepper trees. A particular favourite, it is obviously called "bird-peppers" because of the avian fondness for the fiery red ones. These peppers have evolved through the eons into the shape of a small cone that is easy for a bird to swallow. The bright red attracts both birds and "chow-makers" with a competitive intensity. That a bird swallows these peppers whole ensures the dispersal of the seeds. That an eater of "chow" swallows these peppers ensures the wholly-prized title of 'fire-eater'.
These peppers are tremendously valued for its raging intensity. They are put by the handfuls into a "chow". The ground chadon beni, garlic and liberal application of salt grow into volcanic intensity after these hot peppers are added. The grinding done on the stone, the concoction is balled like a small bomb awaiting a fuse. It is then added to the fruits in the bowl and the contents stirred. An implosion occurs.
It is as if the fruits in the bowl have been set on fire within. Sometimes the bowl is put outside, open to the elements, with the hot sunshine adding its fire to the raging heat within. A reaction then begins in the bowl as the water level begins to rise among the fruits. Flecks of red from the pepper begin to float in the rising tide inside the bowl. The sharp scent of a savoury pickling fills the mouth, the nostrils and the eyes. The response is similar to a spring with a downward trickling of water.
The word "chow" itself could have come from a culinary legacy, out of the variety that has shaped not only the Caribbean's cuisine but its peoples as well. Wikipedia helps in pointing out "chow" as a new generation that grew out of the French word for cabbage, or "chou". Then cabbages were pickled along with other vegetables. Making a "chow" is similar to pickling, but with a catch in the Caribbean's penchant for the pungent.
And so it is in the eating. It is a repast consumed in a group setting, similar to a gathering of dragons intent on comparing individual abilities in breathing out hot plumes of fire.
And when it is all eaten, the red-flecked swim in the bowl is passed as if in communion to those who could withstand even more of the "chow's" fiery descent.