We Jammin’ Still

As we’re in the Carnival season, I’m encouraging you to sing the next two sentences of this column with a MX Prime (Maximus Dan) voice and a “Full Extreme” beat in the background. We watched the UNC, clean out the treasury, but we jammin’ still... yes, we jammin’ still.

Now under the PNM, every day is a post-mortem, but we jammin’ still...

yes, we jammin’! And at the end of the day, these two major political parties in our democratic dictatorship are sitting in the background ignoring the population, and singing “dey-could-talk, but ‘wuk’ (radio version) dem”. In case you were unclear, unsure, or uncertain, let me tell you now that Trinbagonian politicians “doh business” because they thoroughly enjoy screwing over our citizens with the utter fecklessness of their governance.

As a result of rampant corruption on one side and abject cluelessness from both, the Trinbagonian population has to live in constant fear of criminals (suited, uniformed and non-uniformed), suffer job losses, pay higher online taxes, spend more money to fill up gas tanks, and get less items at the grocery for much more money. But try as hard as they like, even when “they raised the price of rum in the budget,” we now realise that Trinbagonians will still spend as much as necessary to have a good time.

I have always said that many of my compatriots are easily-manipulated sheep who are also barbaric (death penalty), lawless, backward and spineless (our only protest is to call into talk shows to spew ignorance), but maybe there’s some positivity in all of this. Maybe, just maybe, our ability to ignore the crime epidemic and the economic nose-dive in order to party illustrates resilience and the resistance of insanity. Maybe, just maybe, Trinbagonians could make it through the toughest times without breaking a sweat, and isn’t that the kind of temerity we were taught to have? I mean, where else could one find a society where a treasury could burn down without affecting the wider population’s festivities? If police officers, politicians and other ‘big pappies’ in society could destroy our country and then go out to enjoy their Carnival without a care in the world, why shouldn’t we also go out and have fun? If politicians cared anything about optics, they wouldn’t be out gallivanting in the country’s most expensive all-inclusive parties in the midst of a “recession” where more people are losing their jobs than any time in recent history. I recently heard some folks discussing the feasibility of banning fetes, or even Carnival entirely, to help reduce crime because apparently, criminals only rob, kidnap and murder at Carnival time. Well, if you find that to be ridiculous, there’s more: another person suggested that the threat of a State of Emergency for Carnival would encourage citizens to ‘snitch’ on criminals to save Carnival, which is (1) a great suicide mission when one considers the fact that society does not trust the police; and (2) the percentage of the population to be affected by such a ban is negligible by comparison.

And with all this talk of State of Emergency (SoE) being bandied about, who can justify the punishment of the citizens of Trinbago by the very crooked politicians and police service that have us in the mess we’re in? If the plan for the SoE is not to arrest and charge several politicians, business people, and police officers with corruption, drug smuggling and gun trafficking, it will be an exercise in futility. But seriously, after five years in opposition, the best crime plan this government could present to the people is a statement from the Prime Minister and a SoE? I guess they were “red and ready” for power and everything else besides effectively dealing with the country’s issues.

Believe it or not, I stopped watching local news over a year ago, and I know many people who also don’t.

It’s not because we don’t care about what’s going on, but especially for me, continuously listening to the lack of intelligence and constant idiocy of Trinbagonian politicians would have landed me at a mental institution; so instead, while everything in this count r y crumbles a r o u n d us, this Carnival, I, along w i t h m a n y o t h e r s , will definitely be jammin’ still... for our sanity.