Nation building should be top priority

The Editor: Several developments in society over the past 42 years should have forced us by now to reflect as a people on whether we have been approaching nation building or even simple living as we should. Are our leaders in politics, medicine, public administration, industrial relations, industry, commerce, education, religion, the media, the arts, and law true patriots?  Have they been seeking the nation’s interest? Are we a caring society, seeing fellow citizens as members of one large family? How laudable are our values and our work ethic?

How useful have our major institutions — public administration, education, the law, the church, the family, etcetera — been functioning? Do we all as citizens understand the need for a vision for national development and hegemony?  Do we understand the imperatives of nation building, of a just society, and of peaceful coexistence? Do our young people have an ideology of hope and purposefulness?  How many of our citizens are held in the grip of powerlessness, despair, and alienation? As I see it, evidence of unhealthy materialism, doom, despair, declining ethical values, incompetence, corruption, selfishness, and a lack of direction and empathy loom large everywhere I turn.  Clearly we cannot continue as we have been racing. 

Trinidad and Tobago — at all levels — seems to be on a self-destruct path. Our leaders in politics, education, the church, the media, and the arts must examine themselves and rise to the occasion to save us from ourselves. Also, as individuals we must find the time to reflect on our attitudes and on the direction our society has taken. To procrastinate is to help misery, doom, mayhem, and catastrophe further enslave and ultimately wipe out our nation.

Raymond S Hackett
Port-of-Spain