Price we pay for loyalty to the red and yellow

THE EDITOR: I have come to the conclusion that Trinis are more loyal to red and yellow than they are to any man or woman in Trinidad. They have no qualms about disloyalty and separation with their spouses, girlfriends or boyfriends, but when it comes to the yellow and red, “it’s till death do us part.”

What is it that creates this blind loyalty, this desire to have their party in power at all costs? Is it the affiliation to race, religion, ideology, culture?

As a democracy, we are free to vote for whomever we choose, regardless of rhyme or reason. We are not held to be accountable.

However, when this loyalty comes at all costs, when supporters are willing to turn a blind eye to all misdemeanours, when they lose all rational thinking, when wrong becomes right, when the argument becomes, “Well they did it, so it’s okay for us,” when corruption, squandermania, lies and deceit are no longer unacceptable, when people cannot separate themselves from their party and say this is wrong, then it becomes a problem for all of us.

As citizens, we need to be the watchdogs for our politicians, we need to stand up and say, “I support you, I voted for you, but this is wrong. This is unacceptable.”

Until we can do this, and hold our leaders responsible, and separate ourselves enough to hold them accountable for their actions, then nothing will change in our political climate.

The yellows will continue to criticise their red counterparts for five years, until they take over the reins, and then the reds would continue in the tradition of criticising for five years, and so the story goes – rehire, repeat, rehire.

We cannot move forward and progress in our politics until we as citizens take stock of ourselves and our blind, oftentimes irrational following, like sheep being led to the slaughterhouse.

The irony of it all is that politicians, in our history, continue to claw and scrape their way to the top, at all costs, not for us simpletons, but for the benefit of their own economic wealth, in dealings and wieldings, contracts and “side-cuts.”

The yellow and red blend well, fully integrated at times in their own conspiracies against us simple-minded people, neither seeking judicial justice when they rise to the top, protecting their own, with this hidden, unwritten code of safeguarding each other, taking their turns at skimming from the top, while we fight their battles, debase ourselves, lose our dignity and integrity and continue in our own simple-mindedness and inability to move forward, evolve, become critical thinkers.

This while we manoeuvre through potholes, ration our water, dodge bandits and bullets, go on waiting lists at the banks for a meagre US$100 to travel, wait in long lines at our hospitals, spend exorbitant amounts on security, feel the brunt of hiked gas and grocery prices, while they deliberately and strategically numb our senses with commercial attractions that draw us in to distract and fill the pockets of the elite, while our quality of life remains static, abysmal, substandard.

We continue to be a failed nation of sheep following the masters, waiting again and again to be slaughtered.

CATHERINE MURPHY via e-mail