We must do better,we must hope again

THE EDITOR: Say to the average person that our main reason for choosing someone to vote for is race and they seek to find all kinds of excuses for supporting their choice of candidate for any election. The reality is that racial voting and corruption are the two major reasons for TT not realising its true potential.

How do we ever arrive at digesting the levels of nonsense fed to us? Today he or she is seen as corrupt, incompetent, lazy, racial, narcissistic, self-serving and unpatriotic. The next day to fulfil one’s objectives one simply changes their tune to "that person" is best for us. And the population must accept that, and most do, simply because that person may in the long term fulfil their objective of having their race represented in office or support their accepted level of corruption.

It is unbelievable that a small country with two very small islands, the larger just about 40 miles wide and 70 miles long, can be in such a mess. TT has beautiful beaches, thousands of acres of fertile land, oil and gas, a pitch lake, one of the best underground caves in the Caribbean, majestic mountains, rivers filled with fresh drinkable water and almost everything required for a model island paradise.

Yet we have daily doses of murders, communities still struggling for a reliable water supply, roads that are beyond deplorable, a struggling judiciary and levels of corruption that has allowed sects in our society to not only amass millions – perhaps billions – of dollars of wealth locally, but many similar investments abroad.

All of this is so because the brightest and best from among us cannot be elected to office. Our history is filled with patriots writing and speaking about ways and means to improve our management model. These voices pass through as a gentle breeze that goes away, providing moments of inspiration and temporary notice of what could have been.

Food security, upgrading our infrastructure, making our education system world class, swift fair justice, adopting modern engineering in water distribution and road repair, caring for our youths and ageing population, putting country first are relegated to the bottom of our objectives as we continue to be excited by the same failed people whose only interest seems to be perpetuating a kind of politics that is self-seeking and divisive.

Where are our young independent thinkers? Where are our people who believe in goodness, fairness, love and standing up for what is right? Where are our religious leaders, our teachers, our business personnel, and our ordinary good citizens who ought to be saying that we are better than this? Are they too compromised by promises of their share in the corrupt wealth? Or are they compromised by their desire to see their race in governance?

TT must be better than we are at present. We must aim for better. We must hope again.

STEVE ALVAREZ

via e-mail