Spinning top in mud

We had been spinning tops as an idle pastime all along. And the ability to have an idle pastime and survive economically is a particularly Trini trait.

Our little sister family, Tobago, is nowhere near as adroit as Trinis in “getting by” by scheme and style. But let me not digress before I start.

The rains of Brett and then last weekend created mires across the country, into which every politician and other fraud tossed their spinning tops—more to be critical of their political opponents than to provide genuine relief—only to see the tops lose their spin.

Here is a memo to the PNM and the UNC: The people are not buying your spin any more. Yes, I know that you see and hear a small group of sycophants at your rallies: wining and waving, paid to attend and perform, but they and you are no longer fooling us.

All this useless ritual of Prime Ministers and Opposition Leaders “visiting the stricken”, or not, and handing out Pampers and flour must be condemned and attention directed instead towards preventing the flooding from happening at all. And it can be done. But maybe the will is lacking in a society — from Penal to Cascade—which is always more prone to feeling sorry for itself than feeling proud of itself.

Since the beginning of this year, and especially towards the end of the long dry season, I have been calling upon government to ensure that the drains, canals, streams and rivers are cleaned and cleared.

Everywhere I looked while I drove during the dry season, I saw ditches, drains, streams, dry watercourses and rivers clogged with sediment, six-foot tall grass and trees and garbage. Proper, effective drain and river clearing is never done. And you could have seen this in the news clippings, from Penal and Barrackpore to Cascade and Maraval, and of course in our capital city.

The city and EW Corridor had blamed the “stupid country people” for building their homes in ravines.

The country people then had their laughter, even as they were still submerged, at the “nasty, ‘dutty’ city people” for bringing their own grief upon themselves. So here we were as a people — inundated by flooding everywhere, cursing each other while we waited for the waters to recede, so that relief might be delivered! And yes, while it is the government that must clear and clean the drains, it is also we who must stop clogging those drains. But the bulk of the blockage is sediment washing down from bulldozed hillsides and the grasses and trees that grow in that sediment. So, until government can get a grip on controlling deforestation and bulldozing, they will have to clear and de-silt all watercourses every dry season.

And it can be done! And it was done in the dry season of 1987, when NAR became the government.

And there was no serious flooding anywhere for the next two dry seasons. But that clean-up was a typical Trini “one and done”, and the drains and rivers were allowed to silt up again, and we tossed more and more garbage into them. Now we continue to almost encourage the population to clog all watercourses, apparently so that our two pathetic political parties can blame each other? If you think this suggestion is farfetched, then you explain to me why our politicians continue to allow this appalling state of affairs to continue indefinitely? It is important to the politicians to have flooding. This provides photo-opportunities, blaming the other side, and trips in helicopters.

They say that the waters must recede before they can see what to do (and this is arrant nonsense, because they should have equipment clearing, from the outfalls, moving upstream to hasten the flow-off). So, the wandering around in brand new tall boots is just another pappyshow: “look at me, I left my office to come down here and pretend that I care!” And let us not forget that these rains bring some political blessings.

The rains and mud drown out the horrendous murders, the fact that “known criminals” can stroll into official functions at President’s House, welcomed as “stormers” by Cabinet Ministers.

That our Prime Minister and his cabinet continue to be clueless about everything they should be managing. That a service contract cannot be finalized to utilise the scanners needed to examine containers of goods which also bring in a $100,000,000 supply of guns for bandits.

And on and on and on, we keep spinning top in deeper and deeper mud, until it turns to quicksand from which there will be no escape.

This time, this year, can we truly clean mud and filth from our lives?