Failing Grades....

Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court Louis D. Brandeis said “...government teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.“

History has taught us that no country becomes a 'failed State' overnight, it creeps up in degrees. Social norms have to be discarded, the population has to be dehumanized and authority and rule of law challenged and vanquished. Based on current trends Trinidad & Tobago is going to be an excellent case study one day and perhaps it may be prudent to document the decline. For a state to fail the people need to lose respect for each other, for every system of governance, for life and death, and, most importantly, for themselves. When life becomes meaningless and the 'other' is seen only in terms of pathways to increase or obstacles to progress there is nowhere left to go but down. Countries like Somalia, Iraq, Syria and Haiti do not happen without the misguided will of a misguided people, and while much of Haiti's woes came as a result of being pressed down by external forces, the destruction wrought on its people were mainly the result of cruel acts perpetrated by those with power over those without, of taking advantage wherever it could be found regardless of the consequences of such actions on others or on the nation as a whole. If this sounds anything like Trinidad & Tobago it is because this is exactly where we find ourselves right now, and where we go from here is anybody's guess.

The continuing and raging inferno that Section 34 has become and the ensuing fall out that seems to be threatening to engulf the entire nation is showing no let up in sight anytime soon, with the leader of the Opposition finding ready comrades in the Joint Trade Union Movement who are mobilizing the population to march in answer to lies, half truths and clumsy cover ups. If the enemy of my enemy can be considered my friend, then this government seems to have made an enemy of the people in two and a half short years. Civil society has weighed in on the issue on the side of the opposition and is drawing the ire of the de-facto leader of the UNC government, it's Chairman and the country's current 'strongman and Minister of Everything Jack Warner. His 'release' to the media that took civil society to task is another one of his 'tongue in cheek while foot is in mouth' silly tantrums and someone ought to tell him how stories that start this way usually end.

The people are upset and rightly so. All systems seem to be failing, and the Acting Commissioner of Police and the Acting President both agreeing to disagree with the rest of the country that the wrong that was done through the legal misuse of Parliament does not warrant further investigation is not making things any easier.

The brewing fiasco of the make work scheme that the legal profession seems to have become since May 2010 has caused the pounding of siege guns by legal luminaries to be heard in court rooms far away from this society as men and women of silk caliber and heavy reputations step into the gayelle. Accusations of questionable briefs and even more questionable ethics are being tossed about, and it may be fair to surmise that the coming storm is not going to be confined to the gutter.

Things are beginning to fall apart. Murder after bloody murder continues to dominate the headlines interrupted only by tales of new violence between people; home invasions, rape and buggery have become common terms and this country is chalking kills that would be the envy of a nation at war. George Washington, the father of modern democracy himself said “Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” Trinidad & Tobago seems to be at the mercy of such forces, a victim of government gone wild and governance gone woefully wrong.