Understanding the Problem... (Fixing We)

As the electorate gets more and more vote savvy we are seeing more negotiations in exchange for support taking place, leading us to a situation where political parties sell their soul to competing interests for power and end up unable to please anyone completely, fueling protests and bringing real development to a halt. Henry Ford, the man who is almost single handedly responsible for making the automobile the ubiquitous mode of transportation it is today is noted to have said: - “If I had asked the people what they needed they would have told me a faster horse.” By its very nature real leadership does not necessarily take people where they want to go but where they need to be. It is this that the electorate should be most enamored with, the demonstrated vision to see beyond the horizon and a willingness to stand against the tide in pursuit of it. Instead, and like most things else in this teacup sized republic, corruption and access replaces common sense and social responsibility to the frustration of any real development. Our laws are archaic but cannot be changed due to these competing interests. Our social breakdown is a function of our inability to confront and resolve issues that have been pressing against each other even before independence but, instead of working towards resolution, successive governments through pandering and promising have made the situation worse.

Now our one size fits all education system fits very few, and besides the ones who go on to success in spite of that failing system, the rest are left to live lives of quiet desperation. Our health care system provides very little health and even less care, and our social development remains mired in the hand out mode of exchange of state patrimony for party support.

Watching the Mayor of Port of Spain Louis Lee Sing (who appears to have long moved away from  pandering to the masses) engaged in a continuous struggle to rightsize a capsized city frustrated and torn apart by special interests all focused on their own selfish agenda is an exercise in all the right moves in a place only interested in what's in it for me. The vendors' fight for their right to obstruct the sidewalks and pedestrians in order to ply their trade is overshadowed only by the merchant association's unbelievable insisting that no new traffic regulations can be enforced if it comes at the expense of their present sales. This is what special interest politics looks like up close. The residents of Woodbrook and environs are being squeezed out by a 'monetizing' of the community and their turn to his office for help is being frustrated by central government for cheap politics. Opportunistic bar owners and illegal food vendors are taking advantage of this confusion between local and central government and making the matter overwhelmingly worse. The Attorney General's decision to have the Dangerous Dog Law (finally) proclaimed is being met by an uproar from the breeders who make a killing (no pun intended) on the specified breed's notorious reputation, and they seem to be willing to throw anyone and everyone under the bus to get their way. I hope for the nation's sake that he (the AG) has the line and length for this battle as it could well be a high point of his Ministerial career. The Commissioner of Police has made great strides in changing the way policing appears and is carried out in T&T but is himself embattled and under siege from without and within in a place notoriously resistant to change. Were it not for his equally foreign Deputy Commissioner who appears to at least be willing to stand up for himself, he may well have packed up and left us to our own devices a long time ago.

There are other examples I know, but the point is made as diversely as I can. The fact remains that we are in a mess of our own making and we need to grow up and get beyond our selfish, destructive ways if things are ever going to improve. Throwing our support behind people who are willing to enable our bad ways should be a clue as to how off course we are, but introspection seems not to be the forte of a people heading further and further into the realm of odour over substance.