Opposing Sensibly...

If the People's Partnership Government were to declare war on cancer tomorrow, Sunity Maharaj would find a way to defend cancer, Keith Rowley and Faris al Rawi would suggest that, by targeting cancer more people are now going to get it, and David Abdulah would say that cancer is good for healthy societies in the long run.

What am i spoofing?

That these people are so consumed by their agendas and zeal for relevance they repeatedly throw the issue out with their biases and oppose for opposing sake time and again.

Not every thing must be politicized, not every policy attacked in the name of opposing for opposing sake. At some point we must be able to be mature enough as a nation to come together to confront the real issues, the negatives that plague us if we are ever to improve to where we want to be.

Take crime as an example. This government through this Minister of National Security is fighting a war against crime on a broad array of fronts never experienced in this country before, and putting statistics and specifics into the national conversation creating by extension an entire generation of armchair criminologists.

We have 'found' the link between state contracts and the organized crime of the ghetto gang culture now that it has been exposed and brought to heel. We 'stumbled upon' the link between the ridiculous number of illegal aliens living among us, people with needs who, unable to get meaningful employment due to their lack of documentation would be left with little choice but to engage in criminal activities, yet when the Minister raises this at a regional level he is accused of 'muddying the waters' of integration. How can defending your nation against unlawful invasion be considered an attack against integration?

Or when the idea of terrorism and zealotry is raised, when links to globally sponsored terrorism are exposed, cheap politics convolutes the thing to the point that when Jamaica deports a notorious son of this soil long linked to radical extremism and who led a bloody assault against this nation's Parliament, politics allows this issue to become anything other than what it is and the individual given mind space to rewrite history and recast himself as some sort of national leader.

How do we grow past this?

Did we take Westminster from the British only to make a joke of it and a laughing stock of ourselves?

Yes the Opposition's job is to oppose, but not for opposing sake but to offer the public real alternatives so that informed choice could determine elections. What we have here is instead is a mockery of that, where opposition forces only have to malign and ridicule, where issues and policies are cast aside and personalities and reputations attacked mercilessly in the name of opposition, leaving the people more confused and less informed, and even more jaded where politics and politicians are concerned.

Surely at some point we must want more. More information. More representation. More service from these elected officials regardless of on which side of the aisle they sit.

If the Minister of Food Production tells us that food inflation is being reversed we should want to know what that means, what are the implications to prices and what should we expect to encounter on the grocery shelves. But by engaging in ad hominem politics that targets the Minister and ignores the issue the information gets lost and the public left exposed to the unscrupulous among us simply because they still have no idea what a peeled back food inflation rate means.

We need to desist choosing wrong for our misconceived right reasons. Wrong can only be wrong. Religious fervor is great until it picks up a gun to shoot you for disagreeing. Political fanaticism is fantastic, until it creates a newspaper built on lies designed to sensationalize character assassination in place of real news. The media itself needs to come up higher. We as a people must avoid becoming ensnared by the desire for more power that we abuse what little power we have. We are all here for a relatively short time, and when given an opportunity to affect public life we must do so with high ideals and a desire to leave this nation better for us having been here. As the old saying goes, when we set out to slay monsters we must make doubly sure that we ourselves do not become monsters along the way. The opposition has a role, but they need to figure out what that means in this context and start contributing to the national development if they want to be even considered as relevant to the equation.

Environmentally Speaking....

When Columbus first landed on these shores there were no roads. Everything that we have done since then has disturbed the environment to some degree, but where would be developmentally without our roads and highways? The good people of Westmoorings, where they live today was mangrove and swamp just thirty years ago. There is a mountain across the road from West Mall that literally bears the scars of being cut in half to reclaim those lands.The Foreshore Freeway also called the Audrey Jeffers Highway that turned the daily commute to the west from hours upon hours to fractions of hours was once beach front property and more mangrove. The Caroni swamp, the same Caroni that thrives and is teeming with wildlife today was cleaved in two many years ago to make way for the north south connector highway that united this island for the first time and paved the way for much of the development that contributes to the quality of life we all enjoy. The Point Lisas Industrial Estate that fuels our industry, what was it built on? All of our homes, didn't nature give way to that? We have altered water courses, reclaimed land, built reservoirs, quarried for aggregate that gave us the roads that gets our children to school, all of this is development, all of this is progress.



Now no one is saying that we are to decimate the environment in the name of development, but if we were to be honest, questions should be asked why so much of our development failed to reach our brothers and sisters in the south and deep south? On whose edict were they cut off and isolated and left to fend for themselves? The Highway that is being built to Point Fortin that passes through Mon Desir, Penal and Siparia ironically will have the least disturbance to nature and the environment than any of the other civil works projects mentioned before. Someone asked and made the point, if it didn't already exist, would we be allowed to cut a road through the rain forest to get to Maracas beach? 
Would our world famous shark and bake exist?


Yes we are maturing as a people and yes we are learning to live in harmony with nature, to preserve our environment and to hand over to future generation better than what we ourselves received. This little country leads the world in such matters. It is why we established an Environmental Management Authority charged with the responsibility of making sure our development does not cost us the earth in the long run. That same Environmental Management Authority was satisfied with all of the plans for this project and gave it the green light to proceed. Why is this not being discussed?

The good people of Diego Martin, who used to spend hours in morning and evening commute, who have now been given those hours back as a gift to spend with their loved ones because of the Diego Martin Highway, the people of Valencia, Toco, Sangre Grande and environs, to whom the Valencia bypass comes like life saving surgery, the people of the far south, cut off from the rest of this country, who have spent years of their lives sitting in traffic, all were and are entitled to relief.



I hold no brief or bad blood for Dr, Wayne Kublalsingh and I respect the passion of the people of the Highway Reroute movement, but I have watched as this environmental protest morphed into a political attack against the government, I looked on as those with political ambitions joined forces to hoodwink the population even as the nation's courts threw out each and every successive claim made against the highway.



There is a place for politics, but it must not be at the expense of the people. It is hypocritical to fix your communities regardless of cost to treasury or environment and then turn around and accuse others who want what you have of being unpatriotic. How unnerving it must be to be a resident of Mon Desir, Penal or Siparia, to be watching this theatre unfold knowing that it could snatch the highway you want so badly away from you, and feeling powerless to stop it. Have those protesting gone there to see how those people feel? I doubt it. Many who overflowed out of their homes and went to give support in St. Clair left homes that destroyed the environment to be built, travelled on roads that trampled it to get there, and then chanted piously, firmly gripping proverbial stones without understanding that the admonishment is let he who is without sin cast it. Let us  demolish Westmoorings and dump it into the sea. Roll back every highway and allow nature to reclaim and replenish itself. Otherwise, to add your voice to a cause that threatens to prevent others from achieving what you yourself already enjoy is nothing more than political bullying and hypocritical in the extreme.

My Advice to the PM...

I am not an advisor to the Prime Minister, but if i were i would be guiding her towards the grand gesture this last year of her first term, so that her governance would not only be done, but it would be seen to be done, and it would be remembered for having been done. Madame Prime Minister, as the election season begins to heat up, those who are interested in replacing you and your government in office are challenging your track record and I daresay you must respond if you are to win. I have made a few suggestions in the past, I respectfully make a few more now that, if enacted, could well show that yours is a serious government worthy of at least another term.

In no particular order:

- Enact travel restrictions from countries with Ebola. Fast track quarantine facilities at the airport that can accommodate plane loads of people should the need arise.

It is far better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Imagine the situation should an infected person actually get on board an enclosed plane? What do we then do when that plane touches down on Trinbago soil? This one's a no-brainer, and we need to get out in front of this Ebola thing now.

- Cancel the Carnival.

As the previous point intimated, Ebola is not one of the concerns we are going to want to be juggling anytime soon. The national festival is going to present an immediate challenge simply because it is a moving petri dish of cross contamination.

- Hang the next fifteen prisoners duly prosecuted and sentenced to death.

Criminals seem to think that Justice is not only blind, it is dumb and toothless as well. We need them to rethink, and nothing like the threat of execution to cool a murderous climate down.

- Impose a bottle tax on plastic bottles to save the environment and use it to fund a 'reward' to encourage the homeless and the desperately poor to scavenge in exchange for cash.

Plastic bottles do more harm to the environment on a daily basis than just about anything else. As the point suggests, a twenty five cent per container produced tax should be levied and used to reward those who become the plastic bottle scavenging industry, the obvious solution to the problem.

- Bring referendum legislation to the Parliament and pass it into law. Quickly.

We are growing up as a nation and the people want to have their say. Give it to them. Referendums make the democracy work as it brings the big decisions closer to the people. This is a win win as, any government willing to be guided by the wishes of the voters is sure to continue to get their votes.

- Use new referendum legislation to ask the public to weigh in on the Point Fortin Highway, on the decriminalization of homosexuality and the decriminalization of marijuana for personal use.

This nagging and contentious re-route nonsense has been overplayed, yet it continues on like an annoying hum. Forget mediation or confrontation, give the people the opportunity to decide on what is the best way forward, and make sure all parties agree to abide by that result. While we are at it shouldn't we give up the pretense that we are a chaste and sober society and stop penalizing people for their lifestyles and personal choices? Marijuana use seems widespread through all sectors of society, so why not ask society to decide on its fate? The criminalization of homosexuality is another hot coal issue that could be removed from the political directorate and given to the people to decide. Depending on that outcome we could all be guided by how the public at large really feels about the issue.

- Zero tolerance on illegal guns.

My pet peeve. For the life of me I do not understand why it is so difficult to build a dedicated gun court complete with gun jail to deal with gun issues. A dedicated gun court would take the burden off the existing Magistrates Courts and encourage the police to go after illegal guns knowing that the prosecution would be swift. Illegal gun legislation need to be amended to include a maximum three month stay at His Excellency's pleasure for first offense, doubling for the next three offenses and topping off with a fifteen year stay for third strikers.

- Free the prisoners.

Not all, just those who have had cases before the courts for more than ten years. Not to include rape, murder and other blood and white collar crimes of course, but both the Director of Public Prosecutions and his Excellency the President could be approached to vacate the backlog of matters clogging the system, a measure that would free many who have served sentences far in excess of what they could have been awarded had their matters been prosecuted to conclusion. Unclogging the case load and easing the overcrowding at the nation's prisons would go a long way toward paving the way for a far more just society.

- Fix the Courts.

I have suggested for years and I suggest again, we need to create an 'Old Case Court' staffed and manned to handle every matter from today going back into perpetuity. The High Court can then be freed to handle every matter that comes before it from today going forward. This is of course an over-simplification of what is required but it makes the point and has serious merit that is worthy of consideration if what we want is speedy justice in he best interest of all and the nation as a whole.

Of course there are many other ideas and suggestions worthy of implementing and like those I believe that these will have a massive impact on the majority of this beautiful nation. At some point we are going to have to make all the tough calls, rip those bandages off and free this country from the artificial restraints and petty fears that binds it and set it free to bigger more meaningful development. This is as good a place as any to start.

Politics, Religion, Sex & Drugs...

Oscar Wilde wrote “Everything is about sex. Except sex. Sex is about power.”

The Prime Minister, in response to a direct question on her government's position on the decriminalization of homosexuality in Trinidad & Tobago stated categorically that the environment for the conversation does not yet exist due to the position being taken by religious bodies on the issue, specifically the Catholic Church, which prompted a scathing response from the same Catholic Church denying that statement but which notably omitted to state, if she was wrong, then what exactly the church's position on the matter is.

Now before we tear in to the matter and have our say it is worthy to note that no other group in society risk prosecution over sexual expression like homosexuals do, despite this being an overtly sexual society described in some quarters as a hyper-sexualized environment. The issue is reduced to how they have sex, as if this is anyone else's business. From there the matter becomes cloudy with inflamed passions over what is right or wrong, moral or immoral or even what is detrimental to the society as a whole, and while I try my best to stay out of bedroom politics, this matter is actually worthy of a discussion if only to prove that we are mature enough to be seeing after our own affairs.

Questions need to be asked and chief among these should be, why should this matter? Without getting into the nitty gritty as to how sex is practiced on all sectors of society, do we really believe that how consenting adults interact sexually can have an impact on the development of society?

And what of the other sacred cows such as marriage and child rearing, do we really believe that the sanctity of heterosexual unions can somehow be undermined by the fact that homosexuals want to also commit to one person for the rest of their lives? Or that unclaimed orphans are much better off languishing in orphanages rather than be given the opportunity to grow in a home environment because we disagree on how those people express themselves sexually?

I for one have been trying to be very mature about this, and while still do not understand a lot of what makes a person homosexual, whether it is in fact nurture, nature or genetics at play, I find that the issue has become one of human rights, and for me to be the social activist I believe myself to be then I am going to have to have to at least weigh in on the human rights aspect of the matter.

The criminalization of homosexuality is wrong on multiples of levels and should be undone. Human beings should be free to express themselves sexually and we as a society need to grow up to that point.

Hoping not to inextricably link the two, I cannot avoid the comparison with this issue and the issues surrounding the decriminalization of marijuana for personal use. Again, this is not a matter 'dear to my heart' as it is another cause for which I am outside the affected group, but here again is another example of legislation failing to keep up with the times. It is a publicly known fact that many, many people smoke marijuana on all levels of society for different reasons. As recreation to get high (as compared to drinking to get drunk), for medicinal purposes (suppression of pain and other negatives associated with chronic disease) or for other reasons, and while we are legally allowed to drink ourselves into a stupor, the use of marijuana has been linked to the opening of the gates of hell and the unleashing of the demon hordes to destroy society.

Seriously?

If you have ever had to engage people who take their marijuana use seriously the first thing you would notice is the almost passionless lack of zeal. It has been scientifically noted that marijuana suppresses urge and perhaps may be a useful thing if harnessed and put to good in our penal institutions, but that is a topic for a whole other discussion. Noteworthy to the discussion, the ill effects of smoking are well known, yet more people die from the avoidable consequences of smoking cigarettes than any other cause and are allowed to do so legally. The facts outstrips the fiction now associated with the drug, and again this is something that requires national dialogue and perhaps a vote from which to make a decision.

Put the democracy to work and let the people decide. Call a referendum on the two issues, giving all sides three months to 'campaign' for their cause, phrasing the ultimate questions as simple yes or no:

Do you think homosexuality should be decriminalized yes or no?

Do you think marijuana for personal use should be decriminalized yes or no?

Guided by the results, laws should be either enacted or repealed to reflect the will of the people. That is the way mature societies should address polarizing issues and in the process create a space for the harmonious enjoyment and celebration of each other's differences in my humble opinion.

Reading Rowley Right...

Translated from Spanish to english, Las Alturas means 'The Heights,' and clearly there were some serious 'heights' (as the young people say) at play in this entire fiasco that is now crumbling down without ever having been used. Adding to the legacy of mistakes that included the purchase of a boat that never float, building homes that could never be used and that had to be torn down is going to be a damning indictment on anything the People's National Movement says from here, but of all the 'heights' that one has to deal with where this latest scandalous fiasco is concerned, I am surprised that so many people missed Dr. Rowley in his defense of his track record, stated that this was just the latest in a series of attacks, that Kamla Persad Bissessar was now 'Baby Uff' to former Prime Minister Patrick Manning's 'Pappa Uff.' What was his message here? Clearly a sotto voce 'play' comparing the two to the Duvalier clan of the Pappa Doc and Baby Doc regimes that were famous for the Tonton Macoute extermination of tens of thousands of Haitians, but forget his hatred for the current Prime Minister, isn't he now calling out his former leader who he just finished lionizing and deifying as the best Prime Minister we have ever had only last week? So which is it? Is Patrick Manning the corrupt thief, guilty of enabling with full knowledge the wholesale looting of the nation's treasury through bid rigging and corruption for six long years under Calder Hart? Or is he, as we were told, such a blessing that a nation is fortunate if it produces one such stalwart in its history, we having been blessed to have spawned a legend whose shoes he admitted he would never fill, so how does he now come to refer to the same man as a brutal dictator and a murderer?

Will the real Keith Rowley please stand up?

And what about his defense of his spin doctor in chief Faris al Rawi, whose stint on the Housing Development Board should be the foil from which we draw comparison for his eager ambition to high office? The same Rowley and al Rawi who insisted that the sins of Lifesport were the responsibility of the line Minister who 'ought' to have overseen the activities of his Ministry and any of its charges and agencies, yet fail to see the irony, the culpability of Faris in his failure of his fiduciary responsibility over the same Las Alturas heights? Shouldn't Keith Rowley be dismissing Faris as we speak so as to walk the talk he walks so heavily? Isn't Faris at the very least materially responsible for the failure and because of such, unfit for public office? Where are the mea culpas? The outpouring of connected responsibilities that the opposition uses to hang the government from?

Again, the almost karmic irony here is almost laugh out loud funny, because, had the PNM been in office right now, this same Las Alturas fiasco would have been enough to pull them down from office if the same standard that they want to hold out to others were applied.

Keith Rowley's immediate replacement at the Housing Ministry Emily Dick-Forde said in her brief statement on the issue that she inherited 'a mess' and was 'appalled at the backward approaches being employed at the Ministry,' again not the most noble or stellar of endorsements for the man who has his heart set on running an entire country.

The cold hard facts that seem to dog Keith Rowley no matter how hard he tries to outrun them through distraction, deflection and misdirection is the abysmal failure of his own track record in office. The fact that not one but two major multi-million dollar projects failed under the People's National Movement over geological issues, Las Alturas and Tarouba despite that administration being led by two supposedly qualified geologists, one of whom was no less a person than the then Prime Minister, the other the focus of this Commission of Enquiry, Keith Christopher Rowley, the man one assumed would be able to read and understand the implications of a geological report on the suitability of a site, who has held the most loftiest standards for others to uphold, seems to have once again catastrophically flubbed his lines.

Will the multiples of millions spent on Las Alturas, like the multiples of millions spent on the 'unfloatable' MV Sue and the unstable, unusable Brian Lara Cricket Academy at Tarouba be also written off as just others in the numerous already written off as the cost of a PNM government? From the Caroni Racing Complex that cost billions without even a foundation to show for it to the latest 'heights,' how much will be enough for the people languishing in squalor and poverty of the shrinking PNM die hard communities, feeding flour pap as milk to their babies, dodging bullets, living hand out to hand out, defending a party long on theft, mismanagement, mistakes and corruption, and woefully and abysmally short on any people centered, country focused policies? How much before they too say enough?

Keith Rowley, you said once that we as a nation should judge you on your track record. Which track record were you referring to?

Diplomacy, Controversy & Recognition...

Awards serve two purposes: they recognize the contributions of the awardee deemed worthy of public acclaim, and they use that recognition to broadcast to the widest audience those qualities that we think admirable and deserving of note so as to impact the society as a whole through emulation.

With that said, this column was almost entitled 'The Theatre of the Absurd.' It is no overstatement to say that this year's national awards ceremony has been dogged by needless controversy and mishandled to the extreme, creating fiascos where none needed to be. Putting aside the human resource responsibility of dismissing those responsible for the cluster faux pas, we need to take urgent and positive steps here to undo the damage to such an important national institution so as to prevent the awards themselves becoming tarnished and devalued.

The fact that no one received the Order of the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago this time around seems only to underscore the point being discussed on all levels of our society that, all controversies aside, no one was more deserving of such recognition than Dana Seetahal. To hear her family speak, accolades and awards meant nothing to Dana unless it was something that she was actively striving for through dint of sheer effort and hard work, in which case one would be advised to get out of her way.

The real reality here is that granting her the Order of the Republic does nothing for Dana, in fact it takes more than it gives. She does not need it to complete her or her legacy as a legal and social champion or as a reliably strong voice and clear mind through cloudy times, if anything, as a recipient she now contributes to the value of the thing. Perhaps this is what those charged with the responsibility failed to understand, the organic, almost ephemeral nature of issues such as these. That judged solely on the pantheon of those who have received the award for contribution deserving of the highest of national recognition raises the value of the award itself or, conversely, handing it out too cheaply devalues and diminishes the contribution and even the reputations of those others who have gone before.

It is for this reason that I have said that neither Basdeo Panday or Patrick Manning deserve such a prestigious recognition for simply doing their job. Neither of them were so extraordinary a leader that we are bound to immortalize them, if anything both seemed to suffer from the same feet of clay that grounded them and robbed them both of their individual legacies. That is stuff for another discussion, what we need to do right now is find a way forward that restores the reverence and the lustre of the national awards and puts the wrong things done here right.

The public will not be satisfied with anything less than the Order of the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago for their reluctant hero, and the government has the power to agree and acquiesce. The family and custodians of her memory have graciously agreed to accept the award at a future date, so why not use that opportunity to reflect on the life of Dana Seetahal to see if an error was in fact made, one that cannot be put right as a win for everyone?

It is regrettable that the process itself could have been so cheapened by this mishandling of what should have easily been a public relations coup for a government badly in need of a victory where public opinion is concerned, that they could hardly afford another misstep of any kind at this point is itself an understatement, especially one this avoidable. I have said before and am prompted by these events to say again that the Prime Minister seems to be almost a victim of her own advisors as some of these unforced errors seem almost designed to make the good lady look bad.

As no other leader in recent history has so mastered the art of accepting consequence in hindsight and then doing the right thing as this Prime Minister has, we can at least rest easy knowing that the solution, when found, can be said to be in good hands. That her leadership style has become one of sober thought and decisive leadership where and when required is without question, so if anyone can fix this with a decision shared with the public, she can.

In this case Madame Prime Minister, and with an abundance of respect I suggest that you play to your strengths and demonstrate that now trademark quality that promises to define your own legacy. I implore you to reach across the limitations of this mortal plane and bring Dana back to life. Engage this most devoted and giving daughter of the soil and bless us all by awarding her the highest accolade that we all can give, in tribute and recognition of a life so richly lived.

Independence 2014

Forged from the love of liberty is the opening line to this country's national anthem, and while we may cherish our liberty, it is as much an overstatement to say now as it was then that the independence we know today has been forged as in iron, melted to the quick to be reformed and repurposed. No, our nation was not forged but negotiated into being on the collapse of the Federation of Caribbean states that perhaps, if we had today, would have us soaring among the great nations, twenty five million souls strong, food and energy independent, able to punch way above our weight and class.

In the fires of hope and prayer we hope on and pray for the selfless guidance that would transform this nation into something more in keeping with what something this blessed should be fifty two years along on its journey

With boundless faith in our destiny speaks to a unified vision, something that we have glimpsed twice, maybe three times over the course of our history. The raising of the red, white and black in 1962, the surrender of the Jamaat al Muslimeen in 1990, and the qualification for the World Cup in Germany in 2006. Other unifying moments may have occurred but they slip my mind now, I name these three as contrast to the chaos of our normal, one nation divided under God.

Side by side we stand, islands of the blue Caribbean Sea is sung with such pride if for nothing then celebrate your geographical location, this our native land, for many of us, three and four generations in we are still reminded that we are not 'Trini' enough (whatever that means), we pledge our lives to thee.

Here every creed and race continues to fight for an equal space, with the dream of the proportional representation that might make that a reality if only politically now paused perpetually in the name of a second ballot run off that is supposed to give smaller groups a magical voice somehow, we lurch and lumber on.

Many things come to mind when celebrating independence, in our case all we have to give thanks for is that we get to make our own decisions, regardless of how reckless that process might sometime seem to be.

Fifty years on we are still no closer to racial harmony, still have no working model to really share the wealth of this nation among the creeds and races that we boastfully claim in our rainbow, and we still have not found the self awareness to understand that in a nation this wealthy, any ghetto, regardless of the make up of its inhabitants, is an indictment of failure against us all.

We are a nation of contrasts and contradictions that have struck up an uneasy peace lubricated by the petrochemical dollars that keep us all employed. Until we can develop an economy that can survive the shock of an oil and gas market collapse we remain ironically dependent on foreign consumption to pay local bills.

That we have no collective understanding of those bigger problems while we magnify and make a mess of the small ones shows that perhaps we have not yet developed the maturity level required to be running our own affairs. An estimated fifty percent of this country's revenues have been lost to mismanagement and outright theft over the years, with not one single solitary soul ever having to shoulder the burden of consequence of actions.

We will gather to ooh and aah at the annual celebratory fireworks display and cross another year older off our collective calendar, but writing this I find myself confused as to what we as a nation are celebrating at all.

Be that as it may, happy independence 2014 Trinidad & Tobago.

And may God Bless our nation....