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Critical changes needed to rescue T&T
The traditional year-end wish list column has become so trite and predictable that I cannot find the energy to do one this year.
In reviewing my previous year-end columns I noticed that most of the wishes remain unfulfilled as T&T has moved from bad to worse in several critical areas.
We have progressed from a murder a day to one in every 20 to 22 hours. People write, as we expect, condemning this year’s figures and expressing hope for improvement in the new year.
For the last six years however, the seamless transition from the previous year’s murder rate into the new year’s bloodshed seems to have gotten easier with time.
The current trend has raised fears that we may soon graduate to the stage where 2,000 people are murdered every five years.
Young men no longer live to take care of their parents or children (if they were lucky enough to experience fatherhood). The internal sickness that seems to have afflicted our once carefree society has spread to the point where it has crippled our normal daily life. Everyone is exposed and feels naked and vulnerable. Easy targets who can easily become a mere statistic at any time.
Economic fortunes and a buoyant economy have done precious little to arrest the social decline because the wealth has not trickled down in sufficient measure.
The Government is yet to understand the difference between handouts that fuel a dependency syndrome and the empowerment of citizens who can utilise State resources to create sustainable personal wealth.
People skim through the small Laventille murder articles and quickly turn the page because it is yet another gang-related murder that doesn’t touch and concern the rest of society.
Newspaper editors could easily cut and paste yesterday’s Laventille murder story onto tomorrow’s newspaper with the minor adjustment of the name change.
There is no compassion as the pain and anguish of the mothers in Laventille continues to be ignored despite the fact that their loss and pain is no different to any other mother who has lost her son to crime.
Instead of declaring a limited state of emergency and flushing out the criminal elements from their nests in the North, the Government’s inaction allowed them to migrate and spread their wings so the police are now complaining that if they plug one leak in the North three more spring up in Central and South while their backs are turned.
The upshot of all of this is that our crime-infested society is slowly disintegrating. People are leaving and many are thinking twice about remaining. Most leave with a heavy and unwilling heart but feel they have no choice as the criminals have driven them from their own homeland.
The current police service cannot solve the crime crisis. Superintendent Chandraban Maharaj did his country a great service by going public with his concerns about criminal activity within the police service itself by senior officers who facilitate and promote the illegal gun and drug trade.
The addition of more SRPs will further dilute the quality of our policing.
The criminal justice system will continue to malfunction unless adequate resources are immediately invested to salvage and preserve what is left of public confidence in the administration of justice.
Last week, a defendant accused of the PriceSmart robbery was freed because the police officer did not show up in court for a second time.
A friend called to report a robbery that was in progress and was actually asked by the officer “which side of the road yuh livin’ on?” because they fell in different police districts.
Millions of tax payers’ money have been spent in paying compensation to citizens whose constitutional rights were violated by police officers.
The Ministry of the Attorney General actually represents the police officers in these cases and knows who the culprits are. Amazingly, no attempt is made by the Attorney General to ensure that these officers are disciplined or removed.
At minimum they should be made to repay the monies paid to their victims by the State as a result of their illegal abuse of the power. No one monitors calls to the E999 service or police stations in general to ensure quality customer service.
In the same way WASA promptly arrives on your doorstep within six months after a road is finally paved to dig it up and run a pipeline, so too it is only a matter of time before the tentacles of criminals elements reach into the so-called crime-free safe zones.
Urgent fundamental changes are necessary to save T&T in 2008 or else many more will leave our beautiful shores.
By Anand Ramlogan 2007-12-29
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In a sense I must excuse Anand for being rather slow on the take. I can't recall him writing a commentary like this one before.
He is subsumed in a culture, young, vibrant, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed - and knows his place is among his people. I wonder if it is a cause he thinks is worth dying for.
What Anand has woken up to in the above commentary, many of us overseas were well aware of. In reality those with intelligence and/or money have been leaving T&T in droves. People are actually loving places like Canada - as cold as it is.
As I've mentioned at various times on this website, I have seen what's happening to T&T, happen to Guyana and Jamaica. In 1982 when I lived in Jamaica, I became aware of a large Guyanese community out there. They were using Jamaica as a platform for the USA. Ten years later, Jamaicans were using Florida and surrounds as platforms for mainland USA and other parts of the world. Who were these people? They were the most intelligent and adaptable people. People with vision and good survival instincts.
In the opposite direction was an influx of people to Jamaica and Guyana? Who were these people? They were largely 'organised criminals' who knew how to capitalise on failing economies. How would they do it? Easy - they would sell sex, drugs and ammunition. They would manipulate the law enforcement agencies. Any bells ringing yet? What - you want me to give evidence out here? Jes open your eyes and ears and observe what's happening - for God's sakes!
Sorry mates. Time up. Game over! The ship is taking water rapidly. The captain is out of control and merely singing songs of hope and reassurance. Get to ass out of T&T now. Oh - like stick break in yuh ears - leh meh say dat louder, GET TO ASS OUT OF T&T NOW!!
Not only are Trinbagonians afflicted by learned helplessness, they are victims of 'cognitive dissonance'. The Manning government has been promising Utopia. It will never come. The Manning government asserted a reduction in serious violent crime and murders - it never happened, and is unlikely to happen in the next 10 years. Now there is relative silence in the media about how the recent crime statistics contradicted the thrust of what Manning was spouting in late October 2007.
Oh yuh want tuh know what is 'cognitive dissonance'. Basically it is a way of people rationalising that which is inconsistent with what they are supposed to believe. But it isn't that simple and it is more powerful than simple rationalisation. To get a feel for what it is see: When Prophecy Fails - as Manning's prophecies will.
By the time most of T&T have shaken off the effects of cognitive dissonance, it will be too late. Forget all the fancy psychology and sociology if you want, but trust me Anand, you, your friends and loved ones please get to hell out! You can serve your Nation from any place on this planet. But just stay alive.
Dead men and dead women (Benazir Bhutto most recently) fight no battles. GET OUT NOW!!
...The many many problems and social ills affecting the people of our twin Islands of Trinidad & Tobago today, the most severe being crime, did not "materialize" yesterday or day before that, it has been in the making and cleverly crafted at that, for fifty years....but more critically over the past twenty of those years...!
...remember land of the "Humming Bird", "sweet ole Trinidad & Tobago", "Jewel of the Caribbean", richest island in the caribbean, land of paradise, in fact they used to say that "God himslef was a Trini", thats how beautiful the twin islands were looked at...but this was a while ago, when the "Colonial Masters" were in charge, and there was Law & Order in the land "imposed on us by our Colonial Masters".
...those were the good ole days when we had Usine Ste Madeleine Sugar Company - turned Tate & Lyle, turned Caroni Limited with all the undulating hills of green sugar cane fields and lots to do for the cane farmers who educated their children both home and abroad, built houses and bought cars and fed their families...!
...then we had British Petroleum (BP) Texaco, Shell Oil etc all looking after the oil and refinery business...! Lots of work for Trinis to keep them happy...and fete for so...!
...then we had the U.S.Naval Base in Chaguaramas with all the U.S sailors and money that kept Trinis happy and safe...!
...then we wanted Independence, and rightfully so, and kicked out the "British Colonial Masters", the Americans - U.S Naval Base, and took over the running of the country ourselves, The Republic of Trinidad & Tobago...!
...gone were the green topped white houses sitting on well manicured lawns on the Caroni Estates and the naval base, and now replaced by overgrown bushes, the houses now moss covered and neglected and havens for "drug dealers and users", the cane fields now abandoned to grow nothing but more bushes and hide out for "bandits"...!
...to fast forward to about early 90's, we now came upon Patrick Manning, Leader of the PNM party and Basdeo Panday, Leader of the UNC party...and this is where most of our biggest problems materialised...!
...between Manning and Panday, they have both held power either as Prime Ministers of TnT or Leader of the Opposition interchangebly for more than twenty years to date...to current...!!
...whatever "the condition" and "problems" facing the nation today must rest solely with these two people, who have brought it forward from the sweet ole Trinidad & Tobago to the state of affairs of today...!
...it is hard to say who holds the most blame, but it really does not matter in the end, they are both responsible for our current problems, and they both are more interested in their own empire building than they are about the good and welfare of the people as a whole...!
...this being the case, it is not in the winds to expect the change on a "dime", in 2008 as is expected, for that which has taken over twenty years to bring to this state of disrepair, cannot be turned around on short notice...!
...if Manning was serious about change, he would have replaced his Security Minister immediately for lack of performance, and by his actions, he has demonstrated that he is satisfied that things are going in the direction he expects and is happy with it...status quo that is...!simlarly for the Commissioner of Police...a shining example and beacon of incompetence if ever there is one...again, Manning has approved...!
...on the other hand, Panday, well he is just plain happy to be in charge and sitting in the "opposition" benches doing "nothing" as he said is their function there, and to which he has been doing for the past twenty years or so...!
...so I am so sorry Anand, I don't see the change that you so rightly expect for our country and our people, because since the "two source" of the problems that I have identified remain in their respective places, the "problems" cannot go away, they won't let it, as their very survival depends on it...!
...as for the people, they had that window of opportunity on November 5th to embrace change had they too so wanted it, yet they allowed it to slip by, brainwashed and misguided by their respective so called leaders, who are the architects of the malaise affecting our people and country today, and they want to keep it just that way, an illusional dependency on them...!
...awhile back on this very site, an MBA student "Black-College" remarked ..."if better can't be done, let worse continue...", and to which my reply was that his statement was the same as saying, "do nothing...!"
...in any walk of life, very seldom is doing nothing ever an option, except in very rare cases, and so he must either be a student of Manning or he is Manning's mentor, because thats exactly the position Manning has adopted..."do nothing" and so "worse is continuing...unabated..."!
...another contributor to this site "TriniCan" also said ..."if you always do what you always did, you wil always get what you always got..." !
...so to now expect change, when just a few weeks ago the people themselves allowed it to go by silently, and the very people who can influence change, namely Manning on one hand, has chosen "status quo", and Panday on the opposition benches, has taken his usual stance alongside Manning, blame everyone except himself, nothing will ever change...their very existence both deepends on it being so...!
...as an optimist which I am, it is difficult to see any positive changes that would come by in 2008 to quickly change things around, so long as the same players who have been there for tha past twenty plus years are still acting out their respective roles...! They are the "root cause" of the problems to begin with, so as long as they are there, the probems are there, only to go away when they go away...!
...I hope you are right and the changes take place in 2008, but sadly enough, I don't see it unfolding out that way, more and more of our people will leave "their land" for strange pastures, all because of individuals who are power hungry and put selfishness and greed first, way before people and country, despite what they may say...!
....Goodluck and a Happy New Year to you all...best of wishes and good health for 2008...!
Trini.t.o.o
I will quote from a relative of murdered 78 year old Samdaye Motilal, mother of the President of the South Chamber of Commerce:
Well, the answer to this is in the question... you did not think.
You did not think that voting the PNM back was voting for crime to spiral upwards (2007 had the highest murder rate in all of Trinidad's history), for food prices to go up, for cronyism to get more blatant, for discrimination and victimisation to become more open and transparent... so many things you did not think about.
As unfortunate as this is, perhaps the Chamber of Commerce can now use this tragedy to get it's thumb out of its fat collective arse, and try to influence the duncey Ministers and duncey police to do the job they're paid for... investigate, solve and yes, prevent crime.