Trinidad and Tobago may soon be no country for old men

THE EDITOR: It seems as if the country is conspiring against itself and no one cares that there is a holocaust of sorts taking place.

Politicians on both sides surely do not imbue confidence in survivors of crime with their commentary, which ranges from mauvais langue, picong, to “Hinds-isms.”

Many politicians talk about the murder toll in tones befitting bacchanal instead of sombre reflection, regret or even sadness.

Not so long ago, phrases political in use and origin, such as “crime hot-spots,” “collateral damage,” and “wrong place at the wrong time,” were part of the daily lexicon. Today, what term encapsulates the anarchy on the streets, in homes, schools, places of worship and public spaces?

The morbid but real question, what murder rate is acceptable for a country with 1.4 million people, needs to be asked in order to begin a healthy national discussion free from politicisation of crime and towards benchmarking performance for this and all administrations.

It may also be time to report the number of homicides which occur within each constituency to make MPs more accountable to the national community and facilitate much needed data-gathering and record-keeping.

While there is no doubt that Trinidad, and to a lesser extent Tobago, is itself one big crime hot-spot, most observers would agree the main killing field lies along the East-West Corridor – the historical birthplace, turf and bastion of PNM control.

Despite this, the current administration appears not to have acknowledged or accepted responsibility for the hundreds of homicides which occur countrywide, in general, and in the communities its members represent, specifically.

Perhaps the only thing which may prompt action is this sobering axiom – if more PNM constituents are dying, the PNM voter base will dwindle.

According to its website, the Central Statistical Office will collect data this year after foregoing its decennial census in 2020 because of the pandemic, which, coincidentally, did not stop other countries, such as China, from gathering critical data.

It would be interesting to see what CSO data reveals in terms of the populations within crime-scene communities. It would not be surprising to find TT is being depopulated not only because of its extraordinary homicide rate, but due to economic and education migration, diseases (including covid), human trafficking, and road fatalities.

It would also not be surprising to find that across the East-West Corridor, not only are the numbers of native Trinbagonians decreasing (while immigrants from Venezuela are increasing), but that the young male population is declining as a direct consequence of the murders. In time, Trinidad and Tobago will be “no country for old men.”

A. AJIM

Via e-mail