Forty-one years have passed

My elder daughter was born in mid-June 1962.  She has always claimed to be an Independence Baby.  It was, of course, just weeks before Independence, and we were learning the words of our new anthem, the colours of our new flag and Dr Williams’ watchwords — “Discipline, Production and Tolerance.” 

Of course, among my peers at the time — other statements by Dr Williams were repeated with foreboding: “Massa Day Done”, “We going to bulldoze St Clair”.  I, born, raised and then working and living in an oil-camp enclave, did not accept that Independence was the end of Trinidad for white people — and I am vindicated now — forty-one years later, as I have been every year. I was “on duty” over Independence, so I did not go to Port-of-Spain for all the ritual, and we had not bought a TV set — that newest of Independence status symbols, so I celebrated at Beach Camp Club with the English and the wannabe English.  My wife and I bought red shirts, with the black and white band printed on like a sash, from Leong Pois’ at Palo Seco junction, and we wore these to the club.  Senior management, sipping gin and tonic and toasting the Queen, muttered surprised comments like: “I say there O’Connor, rather well done!”  But the younger Brits, you know those supercilious idiots who were sent out here, were scathing.  Quaffing their Allsops, they mocked us: “You don’t wear it, old chap, you fly it on a pole.”  Well, we were the trendsetters — for the British do now wear their flag, as shirts, hats, shorts, underwear or bikinis, at sports events everywhere!  Take that!  I wish I was more observant then, for the Independence celebration at Beach Camp Club must have been something that Graham Greene would have written about. But I digress.  My daughter and my country are now forty-one years old.  My daughter has matured but my country has not.  My daughter has become a woman, but my country has not yet become a nation and, sadly, shows no signs of growing up, becoming responsible and fostering any form of Discipline, Productivity or Tolerance among her children — her citizens.  Looking back, can any of us feel proud of what our country has achieved?  We can love her (although we don’t understand this), we can excuse her (as we excuse everything) but there is not much to admire, to feel proud about — is there?

In truth, we have failed.  Our leaders have failed us and we have failed ourselves.  We have failed our children, and we continue to fail our country. Indeed we hardly recognise “country” as the centrepiece to whom and what we are.  In this regard, our poor relations — Jamaica and Barbados — are so much better off than we are.  Economically poorer, they are so much richer in their sense of nationhood, pride and maturity than we are.  Maybe it was because we were born “rich”, compared to the other island nations.  We had oil — so we never developed ambition — and while we were quick to bawl “struggle” for every inconvenience, we never seriously “caught our tail” in the way Jamaica or Guyana did. While other islands seriously struggled against poverty, our oil, and later our oil and gas, gave us a cushion to lay upon and allowed us to create the programme Special Works which morphed in DEWD, URP and finally CEPEP.  Programmes, which trained no one, built nothing and were always avenues for corruption. The Government, especially the PNM, was always like a rich and stupid parent.  Rather than educating and encouraging its children to invest, it kept doling out money for nothing and a “ten days” was (and still is) the limit of ambition for too many. In business too, goodies were doled out to favoured sons, in the form of the Negative List, rather than making them work.  While the favoured sons got rich, we had to live with shoddy, locally manufactured products for years.

In almost every facet of our lives things are worse — considerably worse - than they were forty-one years ago.  We were never able to keep pace in growing with our wealth, so now our roads (many of them built since Independence) are woefully inadequate — clogged with traffic and becoming more congested every day. Our environment is abused — forested mountains being burnt then cut away, causing flooding like we never saw in the sixties.  Our personal filth clogs drains and despoils our beaches, rivers and parks. Crime is a runaway demon.  People in every urban and suburban community live in fear and this situation is getting worse. Our hospitals are in chaos.  Morale among health professionals has never been lower.  Education is faltering and children are leaving schools  illiterate. Sport continually demonstrates our potential but also exposes our total inability to sustain excellence, so we have occasional peaks of near greatness, only to fall away because of a lack of commitment.  New hope springs however from Bovell, Brown and the resurgent Brian Lara. But yet, for all our failings as an overindulged child, we never sank into the chaos that overcame many others, even though we had all of the ingredients for strife — many races, many religions and the unfair distribution of the country’s natural wealth.  So any disappointments can be tempered with the knowledge that we can still, after forty-one years begin meaningful development as a nation.  If we mature, we may yet do it! So — how you feel?