Gap between promise and performance

THE EDITOR: Once again we, the citizenry of our twin-island state, are being bombarded by politicians with their election promises. We all have grown accustomed to the fact that once the election ferment is over, these rather pretentious manifestoes of promise would have sunken into oblivion. Our representatives who have so long been in seclusion have suddenly surfaced on the hustings, playing the game of politics on our weaknesses as a result of party affiliations and allegiances which time and time again have led us into false consciousness. We must remember that the world renowned Florentine political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli, in his famous book The Prince, in doctrinaire fashion, postulated that in “Politics, cunning and expediency, comes before principle” that a successful leader should be governed by necessity and must be indifferent to moral considerations. It would appear that some of our politicians might have taken a page from that book. Is it not time that we, the electorates, realise that there always has been a wide gap between promise and performance, between aspirations and reality, which ultimately leads to the greatest subsequent disillusionment?

The American philosopher George Santayana warns that those of us who know history and forget history will live to repeat it. There is on record the story of an aggrieved person who approached a government minister to question him on certain promises made while on the hustings, and the alleged minister’s re-sponse was: “So you are one of those who does take things you hear on platform for granted?” It is an established fact that the nation of Trinidad and Tobago today is considered to be among the wealthiest in the western hemisphere. But there is also the great paradox, poverty amongst plenty. If money is no longer the problem, then it stands to reason that we have got an administrative problem. Some of the basic requirements of the nation continue to be left unattended; the gap between the rich and poor continues to be widened. The nation is in dire need for a more equitable distribution of wealth and the elimination of destitution and unemployment which can only come from effective planning by government.

Every individual in our society today must be regarded as an organism in relation to a total environment, and our society itself must be viewed as an organic economic complex in which human preferences and propensities must constantly be taken into account. We are no longer living in an age where governments must pay attention to the needs of its citizens, only whenever there is an election in being. For too long, we the citizens of Trinbago have been taken for granted, being influenced by the rhetoric of our leaders. Our leaders must be reminded that ultimate power rests with the people.

VICTOR ARCHIE
Trincity