Yellow vests and bobolee vests

SOME OF you may have followed accounts of the gilets jaunes, the yellow vest movement in France that saw several weeks of violent protest. French President Emmanuel Macron had, for the most part, been defined in the international media as a robust counterpoint to the idiocracy of Donald Trump. It seems he’s less revered at home.

The largely working-class movement appeared to crest on one issue: the imposition of an eco-tax on fuel. Sounds great on paper except this policy hit the working classes right in the feels. They put on their high-visibility vests and caused mayhem, property destruction and widespread injuries.

In a surprising about-face, the eco-tax was first suspended, then scrapped altogether. The
gilets jaunes had prevailed and Macron was forced to back down. Except, they weren’t done.

The international press assumed that the riots sprang principally from a group of people upset with the proposed fuel tax. Once the tax was taken off the table, the rioters should have swapped their Molotov cocktails for champagne cocktails, yes? No. They weren’t through with Macron and his
merde just yet. The embattled French president was eventually cornered into further concessions.

No longer prepared to eat cake, frustrations among the ordinary man and woman to make ends meet found expression in the voice of the unheard: the riot. What’s interesting about the yellow vest movement is, according to media reports, participants vigorously resisted politicians’ attempts to co-opt the momentum built by ordinary folks. Every move Macron makes now will be with the knowledge that those yellow vests are ready for round two.

In stark contrast, in Trinidad and Tobago, it seems our threshold for pain is considerably higher. We recoiled in disgust when Finance Minister Colm Imbert was pictured on television talking about incremental increases in fuel prices. He could barely contain his glee when he quipped, “They haven’t rioted yet.” Everyone condemned Imbert’s insensitivity, but there weren’t any riots after the “They haven’t rioted yet” so where’s the lie?

This Government presided over not merely the collapse, but the dismantling of the sea bridge. The history of the decline, and of vessels that came and went, is too meandering to recount here, but the Galleons Passage offers no respite. Tobagonians, for the most part, appear to suffer in saintly silence. We are left to assume they’re quietly carrying their crosses in dignity or that reports of declining business and shrinking domestic tourism are all “fake news.”

Then there’s Marlene McDonald: You’re once... twice... three times a minister! So indispensable is she as a senior parliamentarian that if found standing over a shallow grave in Moruga at midnight she would be rehired a fourth time because she had no shovel in her hand. Not to be outdone is Foreign Affairs Minister Dennis Moses for whom diplomacy seems a foreign concept. He escaped censure for his part in the OAS blunder that saw this country blanking a two-year waiver for Dominica of its OAS fees in the aftermath of a hurricane pounding. Moses went on to lay down some old testament at the airport, triggering the suspension of a guard who failed to find his place in the pecking order. Horrified watchers reached peak incredulity when he appeared on television speaking with all the coherence of a bag of mixed scrabble tiles.

Still, the Prime Minister was unmoved and, consequently, so is Moses. Dr Rowley seems determined to emerge at the end of his term with the tagline: “At least I didn’t fire ministers like Kamla!” If Peter pays for Paul, then Darryl Smith will pay for them all.The economy continues to struggle notwithstanding the Finance Minister’s insistence that “he can see clearly now.” Job losses continue to mount, and we are yet to face the repercussions of the Petrotrin closure. Next year will undoubtedly bring more business failures.

Infrastructure across the country is crumbling, with sidewalks opening up to swallow pedestrians whole. Potholes are making mas with your front ends, back ends and rear ends. Notwithstanding the recently discovered vigour of the police, the butcher’s bill stands at more than 500 and looks to top out at 530 murdered by the end of the year. French President Macron reached out to former president Nicolas Sarkozy for help with the yellow vests. What he really needed was to sit down with Imbert to learn the secrets of a society with an unmatched appetite for taking licks like a bobolee.