NB This is a note, not the full thesis, so a lot of this is condensed to make for easier reading and digestion.Trying to answer the question ‘Where do we go from here’, I think it is beneficial to ask the question ‘Where exactly are we’?
In trying to understand the ‘political’ (of the people) problems, we need to address three questions:
1. Is national unity a hoax?
2. What divides us?
3. Can what divides us be rewoven into something more of a national identity?
Is national unity a hoax? Yes I believe that it is.
For varying reasons, the different races have found themselves here over the last two centuries under differing circumstances and have settled in and carved a niche for themselves, within the patchwork identity called Trinidad.
For all intents and purposes (with the possible exception of the African slave experience), entire cultures and traditions were transplanted as well and survived more or less in tact under the tropical sun. The African experience was a more violent one, and different Africans traditions wove into the Caribbean-African traditions we know now, because to the whites the blacks were property, so no allowance was made for religion or culture.
Where the races meld into something like 'one' people are in the areas of commerce, sport, entertainment and food.
Where they rub against each other badly is in representation for specific interests (read religion and historical identity ) and equality, depending on the leadership at the time.
Those two issues, if properly addressed specific to race in this country, would lead to a relaxation of posturing and a development of true intra- national communities that would flourish with the specific need of the community and within the nation as a whole.
- We need a national vision.
Equal representation under the law is the bedrock of cosmopolitan societies, and is misused here as it is given and taken as a reward or a punishment. People feel involved if the system accepts them as equal, and have no need to fall back on the racial bogey if they feel disenfranchised in the face of other races.
Our Parliament and system of Governance was transplanted from a white dominated system that had no need to recognize the needs of other races. The flaw there for us, is, that no African can ever truly appreciate any other races needs and desires, likewise no East Indian, no Chinese et al.
So then what?
Fortunately for us all and what may eventually save us from the abyss, is that Trinidad & Tobago is a republic, and is governed by law.
- Some changes need to be made.
Our Parliament needs to be so divided as to accommodate proportionally every race in our spectrum and to guarantee that representation by law.
This would open the door to true national debate and keep all interest groups’ agendas at a national level.
Only then will we be able to form Governments that represent all the people, and in that will we be able to forge a truly national agenda that takes into account the needs of all participants.
This is very important for the seamless integration of ‘all into the best’, as opposed to us all grudgingly accepting the least as occurs now.
My example here is the education system.
Government role as provider and protector should stop at the classroom door, and should not be in the business of educating the nation’s children.
Denominational schools have proven successful to international standards here in the past, so much so we were boasting one of the highest standard of education in the western Hemisphere up until the early 80’s.
The ‘Government Controlled School System’ experiment has failed, and we need to accept that to move forward. We also need to invite the major religious organizations back into the business of education and divide the schools proportionately by racial demographic and area. (Need to wear a hijab? Go to a Muslim school etc... )
Secondly, all people regardless of race, class or religion must have equal access to government provision and protection.
No one race must feel victimized when another makes up Government, and no on race should benefit alone from national patrimony.
This should be established and guaranteed by law, and a separate body answerable to Parliament with redress available through the courts should be set up for this purpose. I propose an Equal Opportunities Commission, whose main instrument and reason for existence is the promotion and preservation of racial harmony in our twin island state.
It will take some selfless individuals to step up capable of thinking country first, and it will take a mature electorate to put them into office.
What divides us? The biggest problem here is one of perspective, as we continue to labor under the illusion that there is one national view, one Trinidadian and Tobagonian perspective.
Waving of flags for sporting events notwithstanding, I have found this to be patently false, and one just has to look at the relationship between Trinidad and Tobago to recognize how vast our differences are.
We have the East Indian perspective, which is different from the educated, middle class East Indian Perspective.
We have the African perspective, which again is different from the educated middle classed African perspective.
Alongside this there is a mixed class, catch all that includes Whites, Syrian/Lebanese, Chinese, Portuguese and others that devolve into their own tribal requirements, but not on a grand enough scale to affect the national agenda, save again for Commerce, Sport & Entertainment.
I have noted that the tribes are divided by culture, history, religion and by their respective wants and needs.
These do not weave into a national tapestry as much as we would like to think, and, as much as the advertisers would have us believe, the Ganges is yet to meet the Nile.
That said, there are benefits to be harvested here, and the franchising view of the world that wants to morph us all into one is obscene and overlooks the importance of culture on development, and on the whole being greater than the sum of its parts
Herein lies the dilemma. How do we achieve a standard of tolerance that allows everyone their respective expression space without trying to put every race into everything.
This ‘Chutneying' of the national culture is having the detrimental effect of forcing a ‘center’ into existence that has no place in nature, and then trying to meld everything into that new entity.
Again, guaranteeing all races, all religions their expression space by law would go along way into freeing up wasted resources.
A people free will express themselves freely, and all Government needs do is to financially support all equitably and proportionately.
I cannot tell you the amount of ‘Party Forming Groups’ I have been a part of that ALL had the unique idea of a symbol that joins a tassa drum to a steel pan.
The intellectual bankruptcy here is in the failure to accept, especially on the face of this desire to ‘douglarise’ everything, that a tassa will never be a steel pan and vice versa.
What about ‘Unity in Diversity’?
What about ‘Here Every Creed & Race Find(s) An Equal Place?’
Action in the national interest requires that we first accept, and not just with lip service, that we are made up of different things, and each should get its space, attention and reward.
When we can fully come to that place, we will know as a nation what our heritage is and where our future lies, and stop building buildings that block our view of the sea.
Can what divides us be rewoven into something more of a national identity? Yes, but this where we have to cross the line(s), and we have to do it delicately.
In the above we accepted the need for the guarantee by law of our separateness and the freedom of space to express that.
Now we need to focus on the things that are common to all people and make sure that we use the state resources to protect and to provide, and where one race falls, we as a people should assist and try to elevate them to the ideal.
I would like to focus on the Afro-Trinidadian experience here as an example, and specifically on the ghetto culture of the lower class that has been hung around their necks that is proving difficult for them to escape.
There is a wall around Lavantille that you cannot see, but it imprisons the minds of most that live there.
It inhabits their self belief and limits their choices.
They are losing the battle and becoming our enemies even as they strive to be one of us.
We as a collective need to break down that wall, and fully embrace our less possessed brothers and sisters back into the national community. A people set on fire for a holy purpose cannot be constrained by the evil desires of the few. Ignore what has passed for Government in the past, this requires individual greatness on a national level.
Please note again I highlight this as one example of a national problem specific to one race, there are many others.
There are things we seem to have forgotten as we try to impress foreign masters.
We are a people of river limes, small goal football, windball cricket, j’ourvert, block-o, corner liming, ‘take a drink with we’ mentality.
We are deeply loving and easy to get along with.
We have been sold some heady wine that leads us down a path of self aggrandizement that only isolates us and leaves us alone, together.
We as a people need to go back to basics, and bring back the old time days, the old time ways.
We need to no longer be willing to do each other wrong to further our own ambitions. That is for other people.
Other cultures.
Other places.
We are ‘Trinis’, we are nicer than that...we could do much better.
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