Recently, for the first time in my adult life, I've spent a significant amount of time in Trinidad and I have to say that trinis can be very inconsiderate.
Customer service is poor because too many people have no respect for other people's time and energy. A high percentage of drivers are assholes. People litter and don't feel badly about it. Garbage trucks passing multiple times per week yet it is easier to dump rubbish in the river.
The original poster may not have had things like this in mind but I think it's all indicative of a general kinda lawlessness/thoughtlessness that is now manifesting itself as violence. I can't really say if the underlying phenomenon is relatively new or not.
Maybe others will find this chain of reasoning far-fetched.
Not at all... I'm no sociologist but even from my one or two classes I remember there being a definite causative correlation between crime and "quality of life" factors. This is to say, yes crime reduces the overall quality of life for us all... but quality of life factors such as littering, loitering, graffiti, broken glass on playgrounds etc... these all conspire to foment a poor sense of 'community'. When you care little about where you live you're also likely to care little about the people who live there, as everyone is focused more on their own selfish (or self-centered, if you will) needs. From that lack of consideration for others it's an easy... naturally, really... progression towards beahvior which negatively impacts others, namely crime.
I don’t find such reasoning “far-fetched” either. “Littering, loitering, graffiti, broken glass on playgrounds etc”, that is, vandalism, is a widespread problem which seems to reflect a lack of appreciation and lack of community values, which brings me to Bake’s other point:
Many of our parents bought into the "spare the rod, spoil the child" edict wholeheartedly... largely because that is how their parents disciplined them. Listen to the stories told by our parents and you'd swear their parents were double hard (and heartless) in dealing with them. Some of this may be exaggeration, but I absolutely believe that in general as we progress further from our past we are more prone to accepting alternate ways of disciplining kids, bearing out what our parents say... we largely tend to not beat our kids as bad as we were.
There has been quite a protracted debate about this in Oz. Most of the “old timers” feel that a lack of discipline in the home and schools has led to the current social mess we are in. Lest any think that Oz (Australia) is a saccharin society free of significant social problems, I invite you to view the 60 Minutes clips posted at the end of this post. If “brute force” isn’t the solution (and I don’t believe it is for the long term), and is only a current stop gap measure (a reaction, or maybe an overaction, equal to the action), then the root causes have not been properly addressed. “An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure”, but it seems we have now reached the stage where a pound of prevention is necessary, as a reaction to the horse that bolted long ago.
We eh hadda tuh go tuh dat extreme. A good place tuh start would be to actually enforce the laws all the way through from police to judiciary.
Again, see the 60 Minutes clip below. If police and judicial corruption occurs at the highest levels, then we are basically done as a society. Might as well go back to the Wild West mentality. So it seems that this is a root cause of the current problems, from what I’m reading here anyway.
If emigrants stayed at home the criminal element would still be present in TnT and likely just as active as they presently are. Unless you can show the emigrants, had they stayed would have somehow prevented the criminals from robbing and killing then your contribution is as I declared it, nonsense.
I agree that the “exodus” has made no difference. I did see problems coming as far back as 1970, with the social unrest affiliated with the civil rights movement in the US, and the looming threat of communism in response to such inequality, which leads me to Bake’s further following observation:
If you look at every nation where slavery was practiced, not speaking of the European slave-holding states but the colonies, you'll see there's a high incidence of violent crime. Violence in many regards is learned behavior and over the centuries, one of the vestiges of slavery has been the violence that it has taught the descendants of slaves and others who grow in that society. You see it in the fact that we so readily embraced corporal punishment as a justifiable means of disciplining children... long after it has fallen into disfavor by other so-called "developed" nations. We are taught that to correct or influence behavior is by the use of force/violence.
But back to my central point, you look at the slave-holding colonies and look at the incidence of violence, particularly among people of African descent. Not only the violence taught, but the oppression and racial disparities attendant to the legacy of slavery have depressed these communities to the point where preservation of self takes primacy over community or fraternal concerns, everyone is out to get theirs even if at the expense of their fellow man. This of course occurs in every society, but the particularly violent strain, robberies resulting in murder, callous indifference to human life are seen primarily in two types of societies, those with a legacy of warring, such as the middle east, and those with a legacy of slavery.
As I made pointedly clear in my initial post, this is just one of several factors, which others have so ably pointed out. These include exposure to violent imagery/behavior from other countries... especially the US; along with decadence of the family unit; breakdown of social order/disregard for laws. One thing not mentioned is the proximity to South America and the cocaine manufacturing industry there. Cocaine from Colombia and elsewhere is funnelled up the caribbean islands by boat, destined for the North American markets. Inevitably some of that product finds a market within the islands, and invariably where there is drugs, especially highly-addictive drugs such as cocaine and heroin, there is violence. Dealers employ violence as a means of protecting their turf/market and enforcing discipline. Users employ violence as a way to get money to finance their habit.
As a consequence there's a side market for firearms, which ramps up the stakes significantly. Bearers of arms develope added machismo or "courage" as they know that they can act a certain way with the weapon within reach. People are also more willing to reach for a weapon as a means of resolving disputes... even if not their original intent. Some may draw a weapon only with the intent of intimidation, but if that other party is armed, or some other intervening factor presents itself (goading by others etc.) once drawn the weapon is used. Needless to say where a man might survive a black eye, buss head or chop... he's significantly less likely to survive a gunshot. Consequently we see a rise in the number of homicides, due to gun violence
I haven’t yet given serious thought to the connection between slavery and oppression with subsequent violence, but African-American incarceration in the US is out of all proportion to white incarceration, but how much of this is connected to slavery, or
current and on-going racism? (Incidentally, my next door neighbours are Africans, and so far African integration seems to be progressing relatively smoothly, though the migration numbers are still very small, so it’s too early to get an accurate indication of what may lie in the future. Racism is still a big problem here, but I think that’s something for more thorough treatment on another thread).
For those who care to take about 14 minutes to view the two clips, you’ll get a small picture of what it’s really like in Oz. There is a nationwide gun-ban, but I don’t believe this has halted the homicide rate, just the
way homicides occur. Nevertheless, I still think it’s better than America’s “right to bear arms”. Gun bans certainly haven’t stopped the social chaos. The 60 Minutes clips are a bit melodramatic, but they do convey a pretty accurate picture of what occurs in most Australian cities at nights, particularly weekend nights, and the problem goes back to alcohol, hard drugs, and underworld crime. Maybe not much different to Trinidad, minus the proliferation of guns. Note what Police Commissioner Scipione had to say,
“it’s a worldwide problem”, and includes “a lack of self-respect”. The retired detective opposed to the Riot Squad's “brute force” does have a point, which basically is that a riot squad
isn’t going to solve long-term problems. That will have to come back to how society is governed, and addressing problems that lead to “a lack of respect”, or the “Nobody gives a shit, so I don’t give a shit anymore” problem. I don't know if there's anything like this in Trinidad, but from what has been written, it appears that law enforcement is a major problem, and the quality of the law enforcers. The clips are not the best quality.
Brute Force: Part 1Brute Force: Part 2
Show Posts
.
