Fast track to destruction

These are the incidents that make a mockery of the Government’s continual boasts about how Trinidad and Tobago is on the fast track to developed country status. The National Security Minister, Martin Joseph, has spent the past three years telling citizens about the various measures being put in place which, he is always promising, will reduce crime “soon”. Just last week, Mr Joseph’s junior counterpart, Laventille West/Morvant MP Fitzgerald Hinds, said that this country was no more dangerous than any big city in the world - an assertion that is patently untrue in respect to cities such as New York, London, Tokyo and most cities in developed nations; and especially untrue for the constituency for which Mr Hinds is responsible. And, four years ago, Prime Minister Patrick Manning assured citizens that the crime wave was “only temporary” while, two weeks ago, he boasted how satisfied he was in his Prime Ministerial role in developing TT.

No doubt the politicians and their propagandists would argue that the country is being developed and the savage acts we have listed are anomalous. But, if there is one core criterion for development, it is the raising of a country’s underclass. In every developed nation, the worse off groups in the society still have a decent standard of living. They have incomes which can meet their basic needs or, if not, the country has social services to meet those needs. They have the opportunity for a good education. They have access to affordable health care. They have a vote. So, if a country’s “development” only benefits the well-to-do, then that is not true development. Indeed, that kind of development is not sustainable since the underclass always takes action to undermine such skewed sociopolitical systems.

So the murders and other crimes plaguing our society are a sign of a deep-set social malaise. We might even argue that this same malaise, which is most obviously expressed in the gang-style killings, also underlies domestic violence, white-collar crimes, even irresponsible driving and littering. In other words, at all levels of the society, too many people feel alienated and powerless, and express this in various kinds of anti-social behaviour. This is why a crucial aspect of true development is democracy — either in the sense that citizens feel they can genuinely influence the political process, or in the sense that citizens feel integrated into the society. Both are lacking in Trinidad and Tobago, hence the reason that Constitutional reform is so important at this stage in our development.

But such an exercise, and others like it, must occur in tandem with concrete short- and medium-term action to deal with the more obvious and pressing social problems. Yet, in respect to murders, the PNM regime seems unwilling to take the necessary action to remove the incentives to killing, by revamping or removing the Unemployment Relief Programme. There also seems to be an inability to reform the Police Service in such a way that officers will become true guardians of law and order, instead of the thugs and bullies that recent incidents suggest some policemen are.

Unless the Manning administration gets a handle on such issues, then all the Prime Minister’s boasts about development will merely make him seem like an increasingly hollow man.