Difference between TT and Martinique

THE EDITOR: According to the reports and accounts of history, patriots will always be ready to fight and die for the independence of their homelands.  However, when one looks around the world today — Africa, Haiti, Palestine, most of the English-speaking Caribbean — all that one can behold is chaos, suffering, and powerlessness. More specifically, all of the former colonies in the Caribbean seem to be caught in the grips of economic failure.  While Trinidad and Tobago boast of oil revenue, citizens continue to complain of an education system in crisis, a health sector in shambles, chronic economic hardships, and rising unemployment.

Martinique, on the other hand, insists on holding on to France.  As a result its education and health systems do not attract anguish.  Affluence seems to be everywhere in the air.  Unemployment tends to relieve itself in France. The questions to be asked now are: (1) Is Martinique as well managed as visitors tend to believe?  (2) Has independence been boon or doom to former colonies? Would Haiti be the same today, if it had remained a colony of France?  Why do former colonies not seem to be as efficient as we would expect? 

Why, in spite of our revenue, do we continue to swim in efficiency and hardship for the poor man?  After 42 years of independence, why are our politicians and citizens not exhibiting greater strains of patriotism and nationalism?  Where is the passion to build a strong and progressive Trinidad and Tobago?  What can we do to set things right? I raise these questions in the hope that others will be encouraged to examine and debate the issue of the disappointing outcomes of independence in the Caribbean in general, and Trinidad and Tobago in particular.

RAYMOND S HACKETT
Curepe