Chatham residents and concerned citizens march against the proposed smelter last month.

File photo

While Guardian business editor Anthony Wilson said his piece—and said it well—about dissenters of proposed extensive industrialisation in Chatham (“Do we know what we want?,” Business Guardian, March 30), one could not help but detect in his apologia for further natural gas expansion, a veiled contempt for environmental concerns and people’s choice for agriculture or eco-tourism.

Wilson should say thank God for forms of protest in different parts of the country since this is a recent development in the social philosophy of the average Trinidadian.

For too long we have allowed the political philosophy of “maximum leadership” to perpetuate the colonial mentality “we know what is good for you because we are in charge.”

Political leadership for the past 44 years has always presumed that the man at the helm of the ship has a carte blanche to do his bidding and that of his cronies, regardless of the concerns of the majority or sizable minority.

It is therefore refreshing to see protests from residents from Tucker Valley, St Ann’s, La Brea, Chatham and other places over Government plans to determine what is best for residents in their particular locale with their own traditions, customs and world view.

Why should the people of Tucker Valley not protest over what they see as a direct attack on their livelihood when their most fertile agricultural land is earmarked for housing?

Why should the people of St Ann’s not protest over the Prime Minister’s determination to appropriate for himself what is rightfully the people of St Ann’s?

Already in many rural areas there are neither community centres nor playgrounds, and if by chance there are they are not properly maintained.

And why should the people of the Cedros peninsula—of which I am a proud past resident—not peacefully challenge the decision of these audacious technocrats whose energy-tinted lens preclude them from seeing that there may very well be a better development proposal for Cedros, one in the long-term that is more environment friendly and economically sustainable.

The business editor writes confidently “it is because of taxes from methanol, ammonia, iron and steel and LNG that the T&T Government has been able to lower individual and corporate taxes. It is because of the sharp increase in tax revenues from natural gas industries that Government has been able to make tertiary education ‘free.’”

He further argues that this trend of natural gas expansion and development promotes “social mobility in fundamental ways, including providing a job for every able-bodied citizen, eliminating poverty and reducing income inequality.”

Needless to say “free” tertiary education is a political ploy of the PNM just as free secondary education for all SEA students was under UNC. Education is far too serious a business to be mixed up with a mentality of “freeness.”

In any case, those of the higher income bracket are the ones who are benefitting more from free tertiary education compared with those of the lower income bracket.

The Business Guardian editor also does not seem to be aware of other social factors at work.

With Government boasting about an unemployment rate of seven per cent, we are yet to hear reasons why the T&T economy is showing paradoxical symptoms of ill health.

Normally, with increased wealth come less crime and poverty; with our economy it is the reverse. We are getting richer by the day but we are also getting more violent by the day and the disparity between the very rich and the very poor has never been as large.

Furthermore, while the cost of living in Barbados is taken to be higher than that of Trinidad, some economists maintain that the average Barbadian is better off than the average Trinidadian.

So where are all our billions taking us?

The rosy picture Wilson paints is not so rosy on closer examination. We can paint a rosier picture for a large section of the T&T electorate if we concentrate on providing an adequate supply of water and electricity, good roads and basic recreational facilities. The energy technocrats take these things for granted because they enjoy them every day.

Had they suffered the pain of want for 30 and 40 years, their order of priorities would change radically and the billions we see being spent on macro-projects would be diverted to more urgent projects in the interest of the majority.

Let we now turn to some pressing issues so cavalierly bypassed by Mr Wilson.

First, money. Alcoa is interested in money first and foremost, not in the development of local economies as such.

David Abdullah, president of Fitun, was present at the peaceful protest staged by the Cedros interest groups and their supporters from various parts of Trinidad on March 26. There he revealed that BP operates in 70 countries worldwide but rakes in 25 per cent of its international profits from Trinidad. bpTT is therefore in Trinidad not for our advantage but for theirs.

Why should we think any different about Alcoa or any other conglomerate operating in this age of rapid globalisation and quick profits?

Wilson has not answered the question posed by Dr Raphael Sebastien either.

Why should we expect Alcoa to treat the people of Cedros any differently from UBOT, Trintoc, Petrotrin who raked hundreds of millions in profits for fifty years with no comprehensive development of the Cedros peninsula?

Why should we trust this mega-deal to redound to the betterment of the Cedros/Point Fortin area when even something as common as a heart attack cannot be treated at the Point Fortin hospital?

If this is development a la oil/natural gas, we know we do not want it.

Secondly, I am shocked by the way Wilson and his fellow natural gas promoters have treated pollution on the west coast of this country.

It is a case of “in blind man country one-eye man is king.”

Most of the country seems to be blind to the pollution on the west coast: from Tembladora to TCL to Point Lisas to Petrotrin to Atlantic LNG, pollutants are spewed out into the atmosphere unabated and unchecked.

Since the EMA and IMA appear to be politically muted on this wanton disregard for the environment, we have been led by the one-eyed king, His Majesty Natural Gas, and his advisers to think that all is well. But all is not well.

Nor have the doctors in this country, especially those in the field of environmental medicine, alerted us to the types of cancers that may very well be due to toxic emissions from industries along the west coast.

If the level of pollution is already high for a small country like T&T, would any person with an average amount of common sense not expect pollution levels to rise should Alcoa set up shop in Chatham?

And this all the more so since we intend to build the world’s largest smelter in one of the world’s smallest countries?

Thirdly, I was dismayed at the tone of Wilson’s article regarding agriculture and eco-tourism.

For starters he pays absolutely no regard for agriculture as his ending attests: “Maybe we should ask the farmer in Cap-de-ville if he would prefer his son or daughter to continue cultivating their five-acre plot or work as an accountant at the proposed smelter.”

There are two things wrong with this cockiness on Wilson’s part. One, does he know anybody in Cedros doing agriculture? Clearly he doesn’t because I can find quite a few who would prefer agriculture to being an accountant at Alcoa.

Secondly, people’s choices are based on what they consider viable.

All governments since the 70s have made agriculture such an unattractive prospect that so many young men see no future in it. How can you feel inclined towards a profession in which there is limited potential due to governments’ singular focus on oil and natural gas?

Prof John Spence has said that in the 70s our income from agriculture could at least pay a large chunk of our import bill. No such luck these days.

If young men in Cedros do not want to chose agriculture it is because people like the Business Guardian editor have condemned them to that fate. Even so the condemnation has not been the final nail in the proverbial coffin.

There are many people in Cedros and in many parts of T&T who still see agriculture as a viable option. The question is would the politicians and energy consultants give them a chance?

Fourthly, eco-tourism is viewed by Wilson with a not so carefully disguised contempt. Does he not realise there are actually more than a few people in this country who would like to get involved in eco-tourism?

Does he not know that there are many persons who would like to be a cook at an eco-resort?

Wasn’t The Breakfast Shed a profitable business for many years and would all the bake-and-shark sellers in Maracas suddenly abandon their stalls if afforded richer opportunities?

Wilson needs to remember what a fisherman told the likes of him many years ago: “Man does not live by bread alone.”(Mt 4:4)

Ironically, one of the best arguments against the Chatham smelter was just above Anthony Wilson’s article—the children. There they were with their Alcoa alphabet fighting to preserve their environment, waterways, beaches and fishing industry which oil and gas development and expansion on the west coast has already significantly destroyed.

They know just as the Clifton Hill and Cap-de-Ville beaches are no longer what they used to be, so too a dismal future is in store for recreation at our Cedros beaches once Alcoa and NEC embark on their proposed projects.

The children also attest to an important dimension of a developing social philosophy—they must be taught from young they have a say in their destiny, their rights must be respected while being balanced against the needs of the community, and they are stakeholders in their own development.

Throughout the length and breadth of this country citizens are discontented over a variety of issues. They all complain they are not being listened to for years. This reminds me of what the 19th century French social philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville called “soft despotism.”

Samuel Gregg, director of the Center for Academic Research at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty writes: “In his Democracy in America, Tocqueville suggested that democracies were especially susceptible to this temptation (to soft despotism) because the democratic state can slowly but surely suffocate all independent and spontaneous initiatives arising from that complex of free associations we often call “civil society”—associations that are, in most situations, far more effective in addressing people’s problems than bureaucracies.”

In all our talk about being a democratic state rich in natural resources, we must careful that the machinery of democracy does not operate in such a way as to encourage “soft despotism” and undermine genuine development.

Fr Martin Sirju

Parish Priest, Princes Town