Discipline, production and tolerance are supposed to be our
nation’s watchwords. One is inexorably drawn to the conclusion
that the engine has seized up. Since we have great difficulty
in finding these attributes, we should change the term to
“look words”—attributes, for which, we have
to look—with magnifying equipment.
Indiscipline is the order of the day. We observe double parking
on major roads, left side overtaking on the shoulder, weaving
in and out, breaking the traffic lights, speeding under the
influence of alcohol and general chaos on the highways and
byways.
We find extortion and exhibitionism, teacher absenteeism,
fights, drugs and gangs in the schools.
A general attitude of indiscipline pervades the entire nation.
Hard work, the child of discipline, is increasingly being
scorned and alienated.
Con-man-ism and its associates are admired and even worshiped
at the altar of those seeking the fast buck.
No wonder, then, that ruction has become the national pastime.
Ruction here, ruction there, ruction everywhere. Ruction in
the Parliament, in the labour movement, in the Police Service,
in the prisons, in the courts and almost anywhere you look.
What is certain is that there is certainly a high production
of ruction.
For a land that is made up of immigrants, since the “god-fearing”
Columbus and his “soul- harvesting” colonisers did
their best to ensure that the original inhabitants no longer
lived on this earth, not much tolerance is demonstrated by
those who feel they have inherited the colonial mantle. A
pecking order has been established and—while some changes
(more accurately described as tokenism) have occurred at the
periphery of the national window, in response largely to the
pressure generated by multi-cultural forces and to maintain
a facade of plurality—it remains largely intact.
So you have those who think that because their ancestors came
here first, they are more Trinidadian than those who came
later, irrespective of the contributions they may have made.
This, the earlier-comers believe, endows them with a kind
of super right to national patrimony.
Naturally, this super right includes free or state-subsidised
housing on a perpetual basis, the lion’s share of the
scholarships (awarded by criteria other than only merit and
which, of course, makes the lion angry) and funding for community
and cultural activities.
Further, somehow, they have managed to define poverty as having
a geographical basis. The Caroni River is the demarked line
south of which, for some perplexingly strange reason, poverty
does not exist, even though photographs of the destitution
and economic data show otherwise. But then “you know
how statistics does lie and how people does tamper with photographs.”
After all, what is the big deal for the earlier-comers if
we believe that these over-the-river natives prefer not to
have state housing and prefer to eat grains and bush? So what?
They came after and have fewer rights. How can they be so
presumptuous to think that they can aspire to all these important
public offices and public service jobs? That is our inheritance
and birthright, the earlier-comers pontificate. How dare these
later-comers mistake tokenism for equality. They are getting
too big for their sapats. Now what? Their want to enter high
society with being invited to our cocktail circuit.
Every society has inbuilt prejudices. The institutions that
it has put in place to counter these prejudices and how well
they work measure its development. Can we, with any measure
of truthfulness and honesty, say that we do have such institutions?
Can we look someone in the eye and say that effective measures
are being implemented to correct existing institutional imbalances
that arose because of the aforementioned prejudices? I think
not.
There has been some talk and some not-so-effective, ad-hoc
action. But intolerance for the later-comers still exists.
You ask for evidence?
The waffling and then refusal to change the name of the highest
national award; the distribution of housing; the identity
of those appointments to high office and the general neglect,
inaction and indifferent attitude towards agriculture—a
good example of which is the recent closure of the NFM rice
mill.
On that point, it is worthwhile repeating that the developed
countries are fighting tooth and nail in the WTO to protect
their agriculture industries by not giving ground on the subsidies
they give their farmers, while here we engage in a policy
of “close here, shut down there.”
In the final analysis, development is not judged by buildings
and roads but by the quality of the society and its inherent
attributes, including the all-important ones of equality,
liberty, discipline and production.
Make your own measurements on this scale.
Tell your friends and family the answer.
