America is harsh on Trinidadians

THE EDITOR: The last line of the Star — Spangled Banner (America’s National Anthem) says that, or more appropriately claims that, America is the “land of the brave and the home of the free.” I quote this with more emphasis on the latter of the line. How can America declare to be such a place when visitors are being detained and chained to chairs for hours upon hours for no apparent reason, then to be told some bogus report and have their passports taken away and be banned from entering the country again? Worse yet the victims were all women and Trinidadians. I am left to wonder if there is a conspiracy of some sort by America against Trinidadians, women or Trinidadian women. Or is it because one of the women’s surnames was Mohammed and the officials involved assumed she had to be related to some terrorist organisation in TT? The answer for such conduct, which I can only call barb aric, eludes me.

Even though I understand and agree upon the tighter security measures that America has undertaken since 9/11, I can see no rationale for such treatment against citizens of another country. It seems to me that the message that they are trying to convey to foreigners is that once you have a name that sounds like, is in resemblance to or can be disassociated (in the case of our BWIA pilots) to a terrorist or terrorist group, they do not care if you are innocent or not, they will treat you as brutal as they possibly can, because to them you are not human but a threat. But Trinidadians are also to be blamed because we try to be as “Americanised” as possible. Don’t people realise how truly beautiful TT is? The original version of TT I mean.

I also blame the fact that we are known internationally as having the highest kidnapping rate in the world. I don’t blame America for thinking that we harbour criminals or the rest of the world for that fact. What I do not condone is ill treatment of fellow Trinidadians. I think that the government should follow Brazil when it comes to implementing the law that allows us to fingerprint Americans entering the country as they have now started to do us. Whether or not we actually are a developing country, Corporate America, as I like to call them, will always treat Trinidad as a Third World country unless we take a stand and refuse to be a devotee of “Grand America.” Before I conclude I would like to quote a proverbial saying. “Do unto others as you would like them do unto you.”

AMY-LEIGH JAGROOP
Chaguanas