No saviour for T&T, just poor leadership and acceptance

In the wake of last week’s inauguration, the world’s media is awash with the hope born of a world power displaying the maturity to choose, from the campaign trail, the person that appeared the best candidate for the job of President. The world’s populace now anticipate that this maturity will spread to other nations. Of course, given the deplorable state of leadership in T&T, commentaries point to hopes for our nation of an Obama-type leader to emerge and magically rectify matters. This is the result of frustration and despair with what passes as leadership and cannot be scoffed at when there is no true progress regardless of how many buildings we construct or how many international conferences we host.

If we recall that matters became so dire under the previous regime in the US to allow the clarity that led to maturity at the polls, it would certainly appear that T&T, with serious issues in every aspect of its society, bears a mirror image to the American situation. In fact, considering our current circumstances, with for example, the simple fact that nationals cannot enjoy the basic tenet of a secure environment, then we surpass the US situation. Regardless of whether history records the Obama presidency as a success or failure and long after the references to his ethnicity subsides, the step has been taken to choose based upon the character content that has been portrayed along with the clear structure of plans to resolve the nation’s problems. Loathe as I am to encourage mimicry other countries, the best example that we can take from last week’s events is that we stop accepting what passes for leadership in T&T and become a country that moves beyond tribal lines for the sake of our evolution.

We may call for a saviour yet we do not recognise that our astonishing lack of tolerance is what creates the wide parameters of misrule for our government and opposition. Our acceptance and shrugging of shoulders that T&T is just the way it is, shapes our leaders actions and allows them to get away with the nonchalance they display towards the public.

We have become a society based on the aesthetic instead of the mechanic – those fundamentals that form and drive the society that we know T&T has the potential evolve into. We speak of escalating crime rates but hardly baulk at the fact that we all recognize, despite the best efforts of Acting Comm. Philbert, that our Police Force cannot develop into the unit required to dent our horrendous felony rate while their infrastructure keeps our crime fighting techniques in the 1960s. We ‘steupse’ about the ineffectual blimp while reading of the daily crime statistics that erode our own people while a Prime Minister barely utters a word regarding the situation. We believe the tripe of being a rainbow country when true unity would mean proper outrage at the deaths and abduction of our own people.

We are a nation immersed in the gimmick and not the specific – plans for grandiose projects litter the governments agendas while they literally erode the landscape without accountability and cause the same disasters that these Government departments are meant to prevent. We leave matters in the hands of political parties whose approach to critical issues is an endless circle of infantile banter in Parliament yet they attempt to distinguish themselves with the title ‘Honourable’. That self same political landscape has left parties a mirror image of each other so that the major discerning factor is ethnicity. We let our money be thrown into wasteful pits to satisfy egos and then do not demand accountability or even the details as to the amounts spent. What a generous people we are! We up the ante of our complaints in the quiet aftermath of Carnival, then allow ourselves to be distracted by whatever the puppet masters throw into the limelight while crucial documents such as a new constitution that determines our governance sneak through the door. We speak of gangs creating the bulk of our crime then employ their members for voter loyalty rather than rehabilitate them through proper cohesion with our struggling yet commendable NGOs. We pursue the ultimate gimmick of Vision 2020, which is so laughable when we all but eradicate our food self-sufficiency because energy resources are deemed the sole priority. Yet, I write this because the action/inaction is common knowledge to the populace.

We have failed to be honest with ourselves that whatever successes we have achieved are mainly in spite of our various guises of government and not because of it. Our economic prosperity has always been determined by world market forces rather than our own endeavour; yet our current PM in the year 2008, truly expected us to swallow his ego-maniacal statement that we were immune to a global economic crisis. The heads of the main parties believe that the term 'leader' means that power must be absolute, when a true leader of men should be a unifier, getting the best people suited to relevant roles to work together for the common good, with the checks and balances derived from a sound system of accountability. While our people have their lives brutally snuffed out, these so called leaders cannot even bring themselves to unite around a table to attempt tackling the runaway crime issue.

The old analogy "build it and they will come" lends itself to theory that if those that we elect begin laying meaningful foundations then we will be on our way towards formulating a sound and civil society through the knock on effects of a purposeful environment. However currently there is nothing to suggest that any decisions for our nation are anything other than whimsical and if they posses a purpose then we the population are not deemed worthy of that revelation. As such, this is part and parcel of the disrespect with which our elected leaders treat us in the grab for power (we only matter every 5 years).

So T&T, are you ready to grow up as a society or continue the life of constant complaint? Do you remain in the divide nurtured by the leaders and practised by ourselves and not realise that what affects one portion of our society eventually affects us all? Are you going to remain envious of the scenes of US unification last week, by a nation steeped in divide since a civil war, or are you going realise that you are the catalyst that can bring our own form of change to our unique and wonderful nation? Continue the acceptance and we continue to regress, become tolerant and our society’s maturity will grow; it will grow towards your neighbour, boss, employee, child and student. We have to demand purpose in what our leaders do with our lives and we have to begin last week because we are that far gone and by the time you read this another one of your countrymen will have lost their lives. We have to see key realistic indicators in the plans proposed by leaders and simply stop accepting the lack of transparency. And guess what, there is no saviour to resolve T&T. Obama is not the saviour of the US but he is a forward thinking individual that outlined his plans and backed it up with purpose, surrounding himself with the best people suited to the roles they have been given.

The same system that led to the change witnessed last week, also allowed previous years where an unsuitable leader was at the helm, proving that both extremes can make it into leadership; we are now burdened with this regime for at least another 3 years, it’s what we accept while they are governing us that now matters.

Sheldon Waithe