Where to TT?

THE EDITOR: Tomorrow marks our 57th anniversary as an independent nation. The question now is whether we should be jubilant over our achievements or continue to be uncertain about the future.

Without a doubt, we have accomplished much. However, I cannot deny that negativity, lawlessness, and laissez-faire attitudes have infiltrated our society.

I remember how we celebrated the 1962 independence celebrations and were particularly excited by the words, “Forged from the love of liberty, in the fires of hope and prayer, with boundless faith in our destiny, we solemnly declare…” These words then promised us a bright future.

Now, 57 years later, I see the emotions of our citizens in terms of their fear to enjoy freedom of movement and interaction, their anxiety with respect to continued employment, and their concern over the direction of the economy and society. Indeed, our nation has been sinking from once serene heights into turbulent uncertainty.

Some scholars, defining civilisation collapse as the rapid and enduring loss of population, identity and socio-economic complexity, and the crumble and disorder of public services as governments lose control of their monopoly on violence, argue that we will only march into collapse or oblivion if we continue to advance blindly without listening to the past and observing other areas of the world.

Others submit that societies of the past and present are essentially complex systems composed of people and technology; that the theory of “normal accidents” advises that complex technological systems tend to give way to failure. In other words, collapsing may be a normal phenomenon for civilisations, regardless of their age, size and stage.

The above arguments give us little ground to believe that we are immune to the threats that undid our ancestors – especially since our new-found technological abilities have brought unprecedented challenges to the mix, leaving at the same time our ethical, moral, and common-sense perspectives unattended.

Our nation and grandchildren may be in dire straits in decades to come, if we continue to live as we have been living over the past three decades. This is why we should start paying attention to the impact on the nation of: climate change, environmental degradation, inequality and class domination, internecine struggles, societal decay, our national work ethic, an ideologically rootless bureaucracy vis-a-vis economic and political organisations, the national work ethic, external shocks and natural disasters, bad luck, and unforeseen developments.

Congratulations, people! We will survive yet another year of nationhood. However, we must recognise that we face extraordinary threats that our nation in the past has not had to contend with. Indeed, we cannot continue to indefinitely race along the short-term planning and happy-go-lucky path we have been on since the feasible “money is no problem” days of Dr Williams.

RAYMOND S HACKETT

Curepe