Only in Trinidad...

Ever hear the saying 'Only in Trinidad?' Usually said in exasperation, it is commonly used to either defend or define something that would otherwise be implausible if not unacceptable anywhere else in the world, commonly added to bring the discussion on a particular topic to a close. Take the son of the high government official, whose stay in a foreign jurisdiction has been allegedly extended by those with the authority to do such things and rumored to be ongoing since December last year; only in Trinidad could the official in question be able to warn the media against reporting on that particular subject or risk being sued and the media accept it. Anywhere else in the world they (the media) would have been reporting on the matter front and back on a twenty four hour rotation with breaking news for good measure, here not so much. Here the contrast between political organizations, government and state resources are so blurred, people interchange political interference with government responsibility and don't seem to understand that there is a difference. Only in Trinidad could a government withhold state advertising dollars to punish private media houses or to keep them in line and get away with it; anywhere else in the civilized world the leaders of said government would have found themselves at the end of an equal opportunity law suit so fast their heads would be spinning.

Only in Trinidad could a Prime Minister go on national television and accuse one of her Ministers of what amounts to misbehavior in public Office, fire him for what she accused him of and he not become the immediate focus of a police investigation. Only in Trinidad could his accomplices be allowed to walk around free, safe in the knowledge that, well, this is Trinidad.

Only in Trinidad could the country's chief tourism product - its National Carnival - be so badly manhandled and mismanaged to be considered a complete fiasco by the population at large and all who were responsible for said fiasco still have their jobs. But then only in Trinidad could the National Carnival Commission Chairman's excuse for the dismal failure not be followed with a resignation letter or a removal. Where else but in Trinidad could a multi-million dollar production contract be awarded last minute to a friend using state funds and an investigation into such an impropriety not be launched immediately? Only in Trinidad could the line Minister (under whom the NCC falls) who saw it fit to put himself into any and everything he could be photographed in during the lead up to the catastrophic carnival now suddenly find himself invisible and mute, without having to answer so much as a question as to the ultimate responsibility for the debacle. And with a collapse of the Carnival on their hands and no excuse for the absence of visitors to the islands, only in Trinidad could the Minister of Tourism not have to account for what exactly his role in the government could be if selling junkets to a wild, five day drunken public orgy defeats him.

Only in Trinidad could the government launch a colorful make work program with a budget of three hundred million dollars and bring the same program to a close accounting for only seventy three million and there not be a call for an enquiry, here where the victims of violence have to sit and stew while their assailants get to walk away fan fare and frenzy. Only in Trinidad could there be allegations of a secret police squad being set up outside of the protections of the law and the issue be so easily swept under the proverbial rug, here where the government spokesperson could say with a straight face that even though murder rates were up, serious crime statistics were down.

No not anywhere else, here. This is Trinidad, and only here could the Minister responsible for National Security himself be a subject of investigations by departments of his own Ministry as well as law enforcement organizations around the world and that be okay. This the land of limbo, steel band, calypso and mumbo jumbo, where the Prime Minister could deny knowledge of the source of a brewing national scandal that she herself discussed publicly weeks before and the people could be cool with that. Anywhere else in the world lesser debacles might be grounds for marches, shut downs, even national strikes, but not here, this is Trinidad....