Making of a lawless land

THE EDITOR: Trinidad, and to a lesser extent Tobago, has been beset by crime on an unprecedented scale, hereto unseen in this once peaceful land. Is it because the UK system of laws we adopted was entirely unsuited to this nation? But where did we go wrong? Was it when we were cast adrift in international waters with just the Constitution as our guide?

In 1962 we had a prime minister who was learning the ropes, but with his egocentric vision he thought he could do it all without the assistance of foreign expertise. It’s like hiring an on-the-job trainee without a mentor to guide him. But that is not unusual. Every new prime minister, to put their unique stamp on the office, makes changes that usually benefit them and not the nation.

Eric Williams could be forgiven for his lack of governing ability; he was the first PM, with nothing to guide him. He wrote the laws as he saw fit, with the Westminster system as his guide. But what are the excuses of those PMs who followed him? Why are they following him instead of changing the paradigm?

Williams practised a form of autocracy once he was elected. He brooked no dissent from the opposition or the public. He once stated “not a damn dog bark” to his opponents, and subsequent PMs followed his example of berating dissenters.

Since Williams made up rules as he went along, the people sat up and noticed. But they became disenchanted with him as the years went on, and the poor did not get the satisfaction they expected. Hence the reason for the Black Power uprising that shook the nation in 1970, a mere eight years after we achieved independence.

That was a tumultuous time when lawlessness gradually took hold of the fledging nation – and the authorities were helpless to stop it. The changes the Williams administration made were too little too late; it was done to pacify the revolution but not in any meaningful way. The rich still controlled the government and Williams was still a puppet of the oligarchs.

The nation’s youths saw through that charade and felt cheated. That was the defining point when they realised that the PNM was only interested in remaining in power at their expense.

The government was on a slippery slope of its own making. It had created a nation where every man, woman and child were left to beg, borrow, or steal to earn a living. The government had lost its moral footing, and so began the long decline to where we are today.

The PNM had built a society where every institution was compromised with PNM-installed cronies. The lack of accountability was why rampant crime, killings, robberies, murder and mayhem were the order of the day.

The trillions of dollars squandered since our independence went up in smoke. That money could have been used to build world-class healthcare and educational systems equal to the best in the world. Instead, we are left with a tale of two cities, not unlike the one when the Black Power advocates rebelled against the Williams regime. One where the rich continue to prosper and the poor are left with crumbs.

However, if we expect a saviour to extract us from this morass we have created, we will be deeply disappointed. It has not happened yet and it will never happen until we take responsibility for what we have done to ourselves.

The solution is to vote out the PNM and UNC puppets and accept responsibility for what TT has become. Then, like recovering addicts, we must pledge that we will vote out all those politicians who have failed to keep their word, and never again will we fall for their self-aggrandising schemes.

Where we are today did not happen overnight. However, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Change takes a long time, but it does happen – Martin Luther King, Jr.

REX CHOOKOLINGO

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