Clueless in Port of Spain

Over the past three weeks, I’ve said bon voyage to at least four friends who migrated seeking better opportunities abroad. One, a former university lecturer in agriculture, who, fed up of the bureaucracy and lack of funding for, and interest in agricultural research struck out in mid-life to begin all over again.

Currently, a few more friends between the ages of 30-45 are heading out to places where they are being afforded a better quality of life. Key words: “quality of life.” I suppose I can put a few hashtags here: #opportunities #functioningsystems #firstworldmentality #contributeskillstobuildingsocieties #disillusionedyoungtrinidadians #progressiveleadership. Readers can fill in others if they so wish. I can certainly find a whole host of other captions so this should not be a difficult task.

Over the last week, the flooding in South and Central Trinidad in particular, left some of us wondering, exactly what type of diversification schemes have our administrations been thinking about? For instance, the President, this week, spoke about making calypso “an all year thing. When the big boats come, in that context of diversification and tourism, we need to develop our calypso.” Well, I had immediate comments on that but to jump the gun and start ranting about narrow-minded views would be to take the comment out of context. Meaning that, the forum, perhaps, called calypso into question so the President would have naturally spoken about that art form. That being said, I do, however, firmly believe that none of our leaders actually have a clue about this thing they call diversification.

The destruction of valuable farmlands in what residents and farmers described as the worst flooding they have seen is evidently not only about climate change, but very poor planning. While many hailed the great job of connecting the South to the rest of the country and blamed other administrations for not doing enough, today, we are all so well connected that the waters of heaven and hell (apparently) have decided to pour in to celebrate the grand infrastructural “progress” that we have made over the past few years. As one of the farmers interviewed on CNC3 news accurately stated, “you just can’t put down houses and go about your business.” The thing is, our poor planning is just another bit of evidence of how we think.

The foolish public sees only the material progress, they see only what “we party” do for us that “allyuh party didn’t do” and fail to see that houses and roads are just one part of the equation. This is the general problem of blind loyalty to party. It doesn’t ask the deeper questions like: Well where exactly are these houses and roads going to be built? What lands are to be affected? Which land is suitable for building? Which waterways are going to be affected? What is the environmental impact and hence the impact on people, of these “modern” bits of infrastructure?

The atrocious flooding that has destroyed thousands of homes and claimed valuable crops and livestock (so much for the Government’s “go local” scheme) is evidence of what a lack of planning does. And this is just the result of a few days of rain, albeit as the gurus say, rainfall that equates to months of rain. But we all know that flooding has always been an issue. Why, up to now, have we not done something to alleviate it?

How can such a large population of people be so foolish, so blind? I am baffled! I am baffled by the fact that governments continue to dole out tokens and the people continue to take them, bow to the floor and are ever so grateful for these leaders who have our best interests at heart when, in fact, you never noticed that you were holding a bronze coin rather than a gold one. Maybe it’s because you never saw what an actual gold coin looks like. I think this has to be the reason. It has to be the reason we continue to persist in these foolish declarations of loyalty to parties – these two old, tired and tiresome political parties that continue to triumph due to the divide and rule tactics that have become a part of our heritage.

Diversification should have started a long time ago. It should have begun when we actually had a booming economy. Yet, the fact that we are still discussing it and furthermore, discussing it in very narrow terms for instance calypso and Carnival for cultural diversification – and agriculture – whatever that means – continues to reflect leadership without vision. Perhaps it’s time for a change. Perhaps we should start taking Philip Edward Alexander and the PEP seriously. The man at least has a vision and we desperately need a vision. It can’t be worse than the two options that we currently have anyway.