Unexpected Developments...

In the world of grand illusions nothing exceeds like excess, and the truly memorable and magical spectacles demand much fanfare to call them into being and a grand flourish of a bow when they're complete. Yet for some reason our latest epic miracle happened in such secret it seemed to slither its way onto the national scene unnoticed, causing the British High Commissioner to almost spill his tea in dismay. How dare we not notice the greatest thing that has ever happened to us as a country? 

Well, first off, nobody told us it was happening, and secondly, even if we did know, even if we were all crammed into the same room where the decision was being made, we would have all left the room skeptical and underwhelmed, simply because we've been hoodwinked so many times before. In Trinidad & Tobago the rule of thumb where these grand gestures are concerned seems to be the grander the gesture the greater the scheme behind it so brace for the backlash.

How could we not be jaded when quite recently, after being told on one day that we were declared the Number One Tourism destination in the world, we find out the next day it was all an elaborate hoax, a con, and that what we bought instead were three greasy guys in a Romanian back room printing out 'awards on demand' that turned out to be not worth the paper they were printed on. In a land where Politicians and political appointees aren't just impersonating professionals by fraudulently claiming simple degrees, they're in fact faking complex multiple doctorates to the point where if one of them were to stand up in Parliament and declare himself the Grand Old Duke of Earl, would we be surprised?

Cynicism comes easy to a people when awards are meaningless and titles are doled out for the silliest of things. Party support and a lack of personal integrity appears to be all that is required to earn you a national award these days, and one wonders what the value of a bestowed Doctorate is to any individual when one knows how cheap and easy they are to come by?

In similar vein, this Developed Nation Status story seems to reek of a scheme of the highest order. If it was real, wouldn't there have had to have been a build up to it on a national scale? Wouldn't we have been anticipating the announcement like we were the presentation of the final four on the runway? Surely there would have been some momentum leading up to the auspicious day, from a national education plan over months to prepare us for the eventuality and culminating in hundreds of thousands of people cheering in the streets, or a parade on a special day with a catchy name like ' D-Day, From Arrival to Arrived' or something like that, where the unsealing of the envelope and the accompanying fireworks in the sky would have happened amidst thunderous applause, don't you think?

Instead, what we got was nothing, and today's release comes across as too much of an anti-event to be be of interest to the people. Ignore the irony that this change in status is being sold to us during a State of National Emergency brought on by unmanageable levels of unspeakable violence among the natives, massive thievery by corrupt politicians, drug and money laundering on a scale that has the world's attention, deep systemic failure on all levels in all systems of governance and an endemic poverty that rivals...well, undeveloped countries; pay no attention to those things and you can almost believe our Developed Nation Status to be plausible, almost.


To me this whole thing comes across as more of a letting go of us rather than a bestowing of glory, almost as if we had no say in the matter or as if we were going to end up here regardless of what we did. Based on today's announcement the deal appears done and dusted and where we are is where we are, for the first time in our history, left to our own devices, cut off from aid and developmental support. No matter how we feel about it we had better get our collective acts together fast, because like it or not, we're in the big leagues now.