It’s Christmas, but where’s the goodwill?

In Aleppo last week, the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent evacuated over 150 mostly elderly and some psychiatrically ill people, as well as people with physical disabilities, who were trapped for days.

Eleven people died because they did not have access to their medication.

On television and in the wake of yet another atrocity, US Secretary of State John Kerry muttered that they were doing “something”.

All over the local and international news unrest and uncertainty hover. Yet despite so much pain powerful figures and forces that determine how we react dominate world opinion.

The populace the world over has become so accustomed to those with power holding sway over their opinions that the news that Fidel Castro had died became a media duel. As for the funeral, those who dared attended, and those who did not think it politically correct stayed away, as the super powers dictated their last version of the man. For me a hero had died and been laid to rest.

In Trinidad the parang continues while an increasing number of small children are abused, most often by relatives and still the neighbours continue to say, “she is better off now that her suffering has ended”, as in the recent case of four-year-old Jenice, and move on.

Do you remember little Amy Annamunthodo? Yes it is Christmas. But I look everywhere for goodwill among men.

What I see is the growth of hate crimes in the wake of the recent Donald Trump triumph in the US and a deadening pallor that is signalled by apathy about social issues even during election time, as in our recent local election. Here too the spokespersons will mutter, “we are doing something”, and move quickly away.

Trinidad is relatively unique in that as a democracy there is little to differentiate between the official commentators and the critics.

Everyone looks over his shoulder at the possibility of a reprisal for something said.

And the issues therefore remain: crime, bobol, homelessness for reasons that have not been analysed, an aging population who may well live in poverty and loneliness, a built environment that is often inaccessible to the physically disabled, or even mothers with small children, and a lack of proper facilities for people with psychiatric illnesses.

The prognosis is even more frightening, for even as 2017 approaches, there are many families and individuals who still see intellectual disability as a cause for shame and who treat such people as if they lacked both reason and rights, because that is the dominant line.

Many people with a disability are homeless because they are the rejected of society and are not seen as people with whom one can or should have a meaningful relationship.

It is true that the homeless in Trinidad have recently achieved a small human rights victory against the Port-of-Spain Corporation.

The right of the homeless to shelter is, however, not gong to be addressed this Christmas season.

The reason is quite simply this: they are seen as people who really should do better for themselves and who, whether drug addicts, alcohol abusers, people with physical disabilities, or who are intellectually different (and the list of causes why people become homeless is very long), really are not part of our community.

In our society of self-made men and women it is important to be seen with the right people and to create the right image. That there are reasons why there are people who cannot function within our society is not apparently obvious.

The homeless and people with disabilities are in fact not even visible, other than as objects of charity to be taken out when politicians or the successful, those who are savvy, give gifts amidst much fanfare and media publicity and as a way of enhancing their image.

Here in Trinidad it is the image and the charisma that count, even amongst those with religious affiliations.

I admire Castro especially for his refusal of the cult of personality.

The result of placing one individual in a position of power and high esteem is that he or she begins to believe the myth and to see themselves as extraordinary and perhaps not even subject to the vicissitudes of time.

It is more than time enough to climb down from all those pedestals and perhaps take example from the Catholic clergy of Ireland, despite the many problems there, who have now moved to the market place. This Christmas a bishop and priests have once again launched “Mercy on the Mall” in order to meet the people at shopping centres.

Maybe our own religious leaders and those who minister could also step down and meet with those who are most lowly, say in long-stay wards in hospitals and in particular St Ann’s and in the homes of those with chronically ill children or people who cannot meet with them on any other platform.

Not to give gifts, but simply to have a chat, maybe even a cup of tea, or to see them as real people.

Politicians and religious men and women could go out on our streets where those without real voice hover.

That for me would be truly Christmas.