We are losing fight for civilised society

THE EDITOR: There are three matters that have made the headlines over the past few weeks that I would like to comment on, and draw similarities from. The first is the now historic Hurricane Ivan. Our Prime Minister announced that his government was allocating $10 million dollars to help the people of Grenada. The following day several callers on the radio rose serious objections and voiced anger over this, claiming that Mr Manning should first take care of the people from Caroni and the low-lying areas that were severely affected by the flooding. The second has to do with the very sad incident involving a runaway truck colliding with a parked vehicle on the Churchill Roosevelt Highway. Tragically both passengers, mother and son died instantly. Soon thereafter the Commissioner of Police announced that there was going to be a ban on highway vending. Again, soon thereafter on the daily news you would have seen persons being interviewed complaining that this was a bad decision, since these vendors were persons who were earning a livelihood and what were they suppossed to do now?

One similarity I wish to draw to your attention is the startling callousness of certain members of our population. Our Prime Minister should be held in high esteem for rising above local politics, our problems and for seeing things in a much larger scale by reaching out to our Caricom neighbours, who are distraught and homeless at this time... I am in no way saying that we should ignore the people in Central, but that sometimes we must forget individual troubles and give selflessly. With respect to the Highway incident, are those people in objection giving any consideration to the trauma, pain and suffering that the family of the deceased are now experiencing? Are they thinking of the potential tragedies that can be repeated? Do they not understand that the greater benefit (that is the preservation of life and people) has to be ranked above all else. Is it not a simple thing for the same vendors to find a main road or a side road to park up and sell or ply their trade? Our people have become intolerable, and disrespectful to both law and order and to the people that lead us.

Our society is in chaos, like a time bomb waiting to explode. It is like walking past someone on a street and the person smiles. But the minute you accidentally mash their feet the person wants to beat you. The cause of this hate and hurt comes, I believe, from the third incident.last week ago an alleged assault took place in the precincts of Parliament between two Members of the House of Representatives. The Member however, totally and categorically denies that the assault was committed. The other maintains that it did. Despite the testimonies of several witnesses, we see shouts being hurled across the floor of Parliament of “liar”, “you lying!” Without judging, who is right and who is wrong, this is an absolute disgrace. What do we leave for the man who chops his friend over a one-dollar bill and then totally denies it. Or for that matter the women who casually goes out with a man and then makes a police report that she was just raped. Aren’t they entitled to say now, “if dem politicians could lie who is me?” Where is our leadership? What examples are our leaders setting? This is a crucial period in a fight to bring us back to a civilised society but it seems we are losing.

YASEEN AHMED
Port-of-Spain