PARADISE LOST? NAH, FAITH REGAINED

Just when you are starting to believe that there’s a great deal of essence to the local maxim that we are good for nothing, along comes someone in public life who makes a pronouncement so faith-revoking that it crashes down on you like a big Maracas wave and batters away the least and last pebble of cynicism in you. It’s then you say to yourself, “Girl, you really have to stop being such a pessimist,” and you vow in your next column, to toss that quiver of barbs into the dustbin and from your writer’s hat, extract the sweetest oral bouquet. You suddenly feel exuberant and magnanimous and you decide that only the reddest of your verbal Republic roses must you give to each of the persons who made you regain your faith in nation and made you see that we, the people of Trinidad and Tobago are good for many things and that best of all, we are not shameless when called upon to display our gifts.

My first floral offering is for our Acting Police Commissioner, Glen Roach. This man of buttons and stripes made me tingle with national pride on Monday because he reminded me how we truly excel at obsessing over the minutiae and how we are masters at making reality disappear. With the country swimming in the red of its own blood, Roach finds time to declare his concern over an advertisement in Newsday of a reward being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction in 24 hours in the shooting of a man outside a casino. When I read Monday what he said in another paper about the Newsday ad, I felt so proud to be a Trinbagonian, I sobbed. Here was Roach preoccupying himself with the wording of the advert such that he could not see that what should concern him was that people are becoming so damn desperate for justice, they are willing to do just about anything to get it.

And why? Because the police can’t give them justice and because that nice little clause in Section 4a of the Republican Constitution of which we are so proud, the one about our right to life, liberty, security of person and enjoyment of property is just that, a nice little clause on paper. What really moved me though on Monday was that Roach wasn’t embarrassed to exude his true Trinbagonian spirit, to display his amazing ability to zoom in on trivia and to miss the point. A flower for this man! My second Republic rose is for the business community, for showing how excellent we are at finding our outrage at the opportune moment and our dogged determination to take no action whatsoever that will jeopardise our interests. When on Thursday evening I heard the President of the San Juan Business Association Gail Merhair suggesting to the business community that they withdraw campaign finance in protest of TT’s rising crime, I looked for something red, white and black to wave.

What a true patriot this woman is, I gushed. She has demonstrated how we can suddenly find philosophy when it suits us. For years, many people, including this columnist, have advocated campaign finance accountability, transparency and reform, precisely because campaign money leads to white-collar crime. Business funds parties and then reaps the rewards when these enter office. From one administration to another, TT’s patrimony has floated at the top in the form of contracts for the boys, as we say. This has led to resentment and hopelessness on the ground, which in turn contributes to crimes of bloodier hues.

So I was proud to be a Trinbagonian when I listened to Merhair “find campaign finance” now that business is under pressure. I even felt like singing the anthem because I knew that despite her newfound philosophy, the business community would be ever Trinbagonian and cover their asses by always filling campaign coffers. You think they are about to give up the contracts for the boys? They will never do anything to harm themselves and this is why we are subjected to daily tirades from this group or another instead of meaningful protest action like shutting down the country’s shops and offices for a day or a week if necessary in protest of the murder and robbery, rape and kidnapping. No, that and true dedication to uprooting white-collar crime we will never see. It’ll cost too much. So how could I not feel a moment of nationalism on hearing Merhair? I had to admire such a display of our acute Trinbagonian sense of self-preservation.

I have a final flowery present. This one goes to a politician, Dr Keith Rowley, our Minister of Housing, for reminding me how we are experts at dressing down others for the mote in their eyes when we are far from clear-eyed ourselves. You know the type. The true “do as I say, not as I do” Trinbagonian. When I heard the indignation of the Minister over the bunch of “miscreants” he said were plaguing the country, I felt a renewed faith in my people. What ability we had for demanding standards and ethics of others while we lowered the bar for ourselves. I was really impressed that the minister could speak with such passion when he had permitted materials for his or his wife’s Landate project to be stored on a Government site and be watched over by security paid for by the Government.

I could tell that as far as he was concerned, others were the cause for the breakdown and break-up of the society. He was no wrongdoer because he was not on the streets shooting and robbing. A rose for Rowley, I pledged. And I tell you now, indeed I swear to you, that it feels wonderful to be enlightened as I have been this last week, to discover that you don’t have to worry about your country or people because while we may not be good for everything, we are certainly not good for nothing, for we are quite good for anything, anything that makes us look or sound good. Aren’t you proud to be a Trinbagonian?  Now jump up and wave your flags.

suz@itrini.com