‘Trinis cannot bear much reality’

THE Editor: As a youth, it is now being made clear to me that our culture, and by  extension our educational system, has in more ways than one screwed us over. 

The societal substance abuse that allows our ‘elders’ to speak such  insanity toward the topic of condom distribution and availability to youth  begs me to ask:  Why can’t they see that their cultural canopy is proving  more of a hindrance to their child’s development than an aid? It can only  be because they are indeed afraid.  Afraid to concede to the possibility  that their child may be having sex; afraid to recognise that maybe, just  maybe, they didn’t do enough to educate their child on his/her sexuality and  rights pertaining to such; and even more deathly afraid that by allowing  some ‘24-year-old joker’ access to this sacred ground of influence on  their child, that it may somehow prove that they failed as parents.  My  response to that would be:  Stop thinking about your damn selves and start  thinking about your children.  Just once, detach yourselves from the  assumptions of your own generation and really acknowledge those of ours.

TS Eliot once wrote:  “Humans cannot bear much reality.”  In this  case, I would alter it minimally to say:  Trinis cannot bear much reality. To our society’s fiery demise, we have allowed ourselves to be distorted  by and buried in the conventional, conservative and antiquated protocols of  the 1950s and 60s, thereby altering the realities of 2003.  The reality  is, yes.  Very young people are having sex.  It may even be your child.  The  reality too is, yes.  Very young people actually come with brains.  Funny  how we’re made that way, eh?  What I’d put to you readers and parents out  there now is:  What are you doing to help?  And if you’re not doing anything  or you feel like you’re not doing enough and you’re ready to admit this, then why should you try to stop others from positively picking up your slack?

A lot of people have condemned the actions of the Advocates for Youth Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights. Surprisingly enough it was a group out there and not just Svenn Grant without fully understanding their singleness and simplicity of intention.  That we should deny any attempt to educate children about the dangers and pitfalls of their sexual practices, even after the abstinence rhetoric has unabashedly failed, is reason enough to analyse where our priorities as members of society lay. We ought to applaud the improvisational fire of AYSHR, and encourage more ways to inflame the population to act in a more positive and progressive manner toward educational reform and the further instruction of our youth.  Some say the approach was too radical. I say dissociate form from content.
Peace and love.

Melissa Gabriel
Port-of-Spain