Need for positive examples

should go, and when he is old, he will

not depart from it.”: Proverbs, 22:6

TWO THINGS that the young people

of this country need, and

urgently, are discipline and example,

yet in all too many cases their

parents, their elders and and those

who should be exemplars demonstrate

otherwise. It is easy to lay the

blame for this failing on, for example,

slavery, indentureship, colonialism

and the lingering effects of

imperialist capitalism which saw

privilege and economic power for

far too long vested in the descendants

of former slave masters.

While, admittedly, these were and

continue to be contributory factors to

the minuses hurting the society today

it is time for all of us to seek to take

charge of our lives, of Trinidad and

Tobago’s future and move on. Too

many parents, scores of them mere

children themselves, are not prepared

to accept the responsibility of properly

and effectively training their offspring

and setting positive examples.

Several of them are victims of a new

form of slavery, drug abuse in which

their responsibility to their children

and their children’s future and well

being takes second place. In turn,

there are many single parent mothers,

who whether into drugs or simply not

prepared to work, have offspring with

several different fathers and bring

home a succession of “uncles”.

Many of them, and fathers as well,

are not prepared to supervise their

children when they do their homework

or encourage them to study. To

them, the mere placing of their offspring

in a junior secondary school or

for that matter, a life centre, following

on the SEA, is an indication of their

sons and/or daughters’ ability to cope

with the syllabus and to move ahead.

They utter such inanities as “chip off

the old block” and “they pass for a

secondary school because I make

them study”. It is true that some of

those “securing” places in junior secondary

schools eventually make it to

tertiary level education and professions

and/or skills, but they are the

exceptions that prove the rule.

Children, who are constantly

exposed to an environment in which

their fathers are on and off workers,

their mothers are hustlers, and their

parents, generally, are not prepared to

devote quality time to their upbringing

are at a disadvantage. A vexing

problem in many homes is that of parents

using obscene language not

merely in the presence of their children,

but to these children as well.

These parents and other adults use

expletives in casual conversation and

it is little wonder their sons and

daughters trump and follow suit. In

some homes parents take illegal drugs

in front of their children and when

they need money for a “fix” and are

prepared to steal for it will have their

children act as lookouts when they go

out to rob to buy more cocaine.

We are, without exception, children

of an embittered past, and I would be

the last person to dismiss the damage,

the mental slavery that our slave,

indentured and colonial past has

inflicted on us. Scores have been able

to overcome it and this is to be commended.

But it has taken a great deal

of conscious effort over generations.

The physical damage of slavery and

colonialism was nowhere as cruel and

as vicious as the psychological damage.

And it is this psychological damage

that has made all too many former

colonials and descendants of slaves

and indentureds not only dismissive

of the injunction of the Book of

Proverbs quoted above but, in the

process, has hindered the economic

and social development of so many

Third World countries. All of this

encouraged a deep seated sense of

inferiority in many. It was Alvin

Toffler, who would state in his monumental

work, The Third Wave, published

in 1980 by Bantam Books:

“Often ...their cultures (were)

ridiculed, their languages suppressed.

Moreover the colonial powers hammered

a deep sense of psychological

inferiority into the conquered people

that stands even today as an obstacle

to economic and social development”

(Page 90).

To this I add the thinking of Darcy

Ribeiro, who declared in his 1971

work, The Americas and Civilisation,

(Page 75): “For the peoples caught in

the nets of European expansion these

conceptions shape the burden of the

spiritual heritage of Western and

Christian civilisation. Acting like distorting

lenses they made it impossible

for the nascent cultures to create an

authentic image of the world and of

themselves...”

We cannot and must not continue to

view ourselves through the historically

distorted lenses of former slave and

colonial overlords. In turn, we must

not merely shape a new vision of ourselves,

but help others less circumstanced

to shape a new self image and

assist in guiding them to forge a better

and brighter world for their children.

It is not enough that a few should

change themselves.

All should undergo the metamorphosis

if the youths are to be able to

make a full contribution to the development of the society.