What independence has reaped

RAE SAMUEL

SIXTY YEARS of independence? Well my car radio works on automatic now. No voice command or setting required. I hit a pothole and I switch from a soca song to gospel programming. Of course I pay for this feature with busted shocks and bent rims.

Actually, I am one of those original children of the newly independent nation in whose school bags the future of the nation was supposed to lie, according to Eric Williams. Back then, school bags and books were affordable. Book lists were much shorter because teachers were required to engage the students directly in the classroom. Today, the workbook has replaced the copybook. Bookstores are in their glee since a copybook was much cheaper.

I did a quick survey of those of us who remain from that era. Asking how we feel about having been entrusted with the future of the nation. In the course of being taught Greek and Latin, we encountered far fewer potholes on the way to school. Back then there was something called the Trinidad Government Railways. It was a cheap, efficient form of mass transport, no road traffic congestion. Williams and his handlers looked around and decided that a dangerous precedent was being set – efficiency in a state enterprise? PNM forbid! We live with the consequences today.

Who would have imagined that our era would have produced a prime minister who would have taken himself and the nation from Mason Hall to potholes? Speaking of which, is it not time we place potholes on our national flag as an enduring symbol of our post-colonial development? I sometimes wonder at the cultural shock nationals encounter abroad on seeing miles and miles of road without holes? Do they get homesick?

I also noted the new housing plan unveiled for the occupants of the Riverside shelter. Yes, from what I read they are to be removed to a new location. From Besson Street to Frederick Street. Lower? Outdoors? We know how these programmes are usually run. Who told them to choose poverty, homelessness, unemployment and mental illness? And they want the Government to look after them. Don’t they know the Government has more important things to do like engaging labour leaders in debates about how to treat women? Dear street dwellers, pressing matters, such as these debates, demand the Prime Minister's attention. Sorry!

There was a “welcome return” of the annual Independence Day military parade. I wonder what is the reason for the military parade. We do not have a standing army with any form of tradition of history of battles won in defence of our country. We have a memorial in the park opposite to NAPA but that was for locals who saw themselves as loyal to the British Empire.

Of course there were one or two misguided zealots of non-white origin who fought for the mother country. But I do not think anyone really thinks Ulric Cross is some kind of national hero. Did they celebrate the lives of heroes of the 1970 army mutiny who choose to not follow orders which could have cost many innocent civilian lives?

I also noted that an Eric Williams library was opened. Is there anywhere in print or electronic form a collection of his major speeches? I would think as the father of the nation he would have wanted his children to continue hearing from him. I can go online and hear/read from CLR James, Thomas Sankara, Maurice Bishop, Winnie Mandela. But I am yet to see a collection entitled "Eric Williams Speaks.'' After 66 years of PNM…shut up! The task of documenting the history of the PNM in a concise, easy-to-read form has fallen to Ferdie Ferreira. Say no more!

Someone told me that, if nothing else, the PNM, which ran this country for 45 of our 60 years of independence, gave us free education. But why then did it turn around eight years into independence and ban certain books? Anything by Fidel Castro, Mao Zedong or even Malcolm X.

Yes, it was called “subversive literature” and you could have been arrested and charged for reading “communist literature.” We were, I imagine, supposed to contentedly read Capitalism and Slavery. Alas, the youth of the day, rising in rebellion just eight years after independence, suggested that having written Capitalism and Slavery Williams sought to keep us there. Cheeky lot weren't they? Calling their father of the nation “Deafy.”

I often point out that the country we were taught to fear, Cuba, is the most socially advanced in the region; that it has done so against tremendous odds. We in the Caribbean have borrowed from all the “lending agencies,” we have signed all the treaties, have hosted all the major conferences, joined all the international bodies, have attempted all forms of integration unsuccessfully, have had all kinds of economic booms.

Yet from Guyana to Jamaica we have produced some of the worst forms of political and social barbarism. Institutional breakdown continues in healthcare, education, public services, transportation, national security, as evidenced by the crime toll which is a reflection of the social breakdown.

Yet still the “communists” we were taught to fear, in the face of inhumane challenges, have built a society to which nations all over the world turn to in times of crisis. Cuba has a similar political and social history to the rest of the Caribbean – slavery, colonialism, struggles for national independence. What did the Cubans know/do that the rest of the region did not? Socialism?