The forsaken people are our future leaders

THE EDITOR: “My God, my God, why have thou forsaken me?” was the cry of the son of God as his physical body stood battered and dying of the abuse he suffered at the hands of his tormentors.

So, too, I ask our Father in heaven, why have you forsaken the people of our country? Haven’t we suffered enough? We are dying from the pestilence of covid19 that has been visited upon us, and now we continue to suffer under the yoke of a government that has beaten us down and continues to do so as we turn the other cheek.

I am calling on the people to unite against a darkness that has fallen upon the land with the demise of worldwide justice and freedom. From the bastion of democracy in the US to the smallest nations, democratic rule has been under attack; with the storming of the seat of democracy on the Capitol in America to a Russian war on the innocent people of Ukraine, millions of lives are at stake.

But people are fighting back. In the US, president Trump was beaten back by woke people, while in Brazil, far-right president Bolsonaro was defeated by a past president because the people saw through his self-serving, right-wing, conservative tactics and election gimmickry. But there are still some significant holdouts, like China, North Korea, Iran and, closer to home, Venezuela and Cuba.

Here in TT, like so many other “democracies,” we have a shambolic government that ignores ordinary people's plight and instead caters to improving the bank accounts of the wealthy while pretending to care about the average citizen by handing out free hampers of food.

Must we continue suffering while our noncommittal government pretends to care about crime, poverty and lack of opportunities for hundreds of thousands of low-income people?

The Government may blame the pandemic for the state of the economy and all the other causes that impoverish us. However, this government has been in office for more than seven years and things have gone progressively from bad to worse under its stewardship.

If the voice of the people is indeed the voice of God, then let us have a new government of the people because our Father has not forsaken us – he will come down with due justice and set His people free.

This tyrannical administration must stop running helter-skelter looking for solutions when it refuses to acknowledge that the answers are upfront and in its face and have been all along.

The members of this government have to stop enabling the rich and asking them for solutions and look to the poor instead, for they already know the answers. Indeed, the poor can turn this land into a haven for all if given the opportunity.

This nation’s wealth belongs to all the people, which means everyone including the beggars and homeless who sleep on the streets, some even within the proximity of the Parliament building where the Government sits and conducts business.

The administration claims to care, but the plight of the poor and their numbers increase daily. After the PNM demits office in 2025, may the Lord have mercy on its members' souls for what they have done to this nation.

Let us look to our Father and pray for a government of the people. How much longer can we, the poor, the wretched, the many, be voices crying in the wilderness?

REX CHOOKOLINGO

rexchook@gmail.com