Allyuh know I does speak my mind, controversial or not. I have a rather long rant to let off my chest. It’s been bugging me for awhile now. I know people will disagree.
Why is Trinidad in the state it is in? Let me count the ways:
1. How do you expect the crime situation to be dealt with by police, when same said police are most times taken from the very bottom of the barrel of our society. How can you take men, who have minimum qualifications, and usually questionable character, to become the guardians of society just because they tall or big bodied? What do you expect? They will be inept, they will be corruptible, they will get into their own lawless activities on the side. And how can you uphold the law, when you don’t know it? I say all police recruits should do at least one year of law studies before passing out of training. Too many police get into service just to ensure a paycheque, with no real desire to “protect & serve”.
2. As long as we continue to be a transhipment point for drugs from South America, there will always be crime and violence. As long as lil youth men seeing these “businessmen” driving they expensive cars, running women and living the life as a result of their willingness to deal drugs or launder for the drug lords, there will be crime. All these youth dying every other day in gang warfare over turf are trying to be like the big boys. Some start out only as a means to survive, but greed is a human weakness.
3. As long as laziness and lack of ambition continue to dominate the culture of certain youth, there will be crime. When they see all the money flowing in Trinidad at the moment (and it is flowing) but they themselves have no means of legally attaining it, then we have trouble. They will despair, or turn to crime. They see it as their due, taking a lil of what you have. To these types it never occurs to them to study and get an education, whether academic or vocational, and make a career for themselves. They are not willing to work hard, to sacrifice, to fight. The way of our forefathers – eat little, live long – are long gone. They want the easy way out, the quick buck, the instant success. And that ladies and gentlemen is not something that any government can do anything about. That can only be instilled in youth by their parents/family and communities.
4. Unlike a snake, with the crime and gang culture, removing the head does not kill the beast. It only results in chaos. Take Iraq for example. They removed Sadam, de bad man who was keeping all dem warring factions in check, now look what happening. Chaos! Everybody fighting for a piece of the pie. When the UNC executed Dole Chadee and company, that was the start to a very wide spread gang war, as every criminal worth his salt tried to be the new top man. But why is this happening in the first place?
5. There is a serious problem with deportees from the US at the moment in Trinidad. It is not something that is widely discussed. Everybody harps on and on about the crime situation getting worse, and de government eh doing nothing about it. But as usual nobody trying to find out why. The US government has been deporting criminals of Trinidadian birth for years, WITHOUT informing the government that they were doing so. Two years ago that figure reached just under three hundred. And it was discovered that this figure was about average FOR EVERY YEAR OF THE LAST THREE!
6. Nobody cares or wants to get involved. We are allowing the criminals to rule because we allow them to do what they want. People see things, hear things, and say nothing. There is such a thing as an anonymous phone call. But everyone just wants to mind their own business and say as long as it eh happening to me, me eh care. Until it does happen to you, then is when yuh start blaming the government, de police, everybody.
Everybody is talking about the government, waiting on the government to fix it, to deal with it. I put it to you that it starts with you. It starts in the home, with parents instilling discipline and respect in their own kids. It starts with neighbours who see young boys involved in activities and turn a blind eye. It starts with teachers who see and hear things and don’t care as long as they get paid. It starts with the individual policeman hearing who’s doing what, and turning a blind eye cause he eh want no trouble. Too many people know too much and do nothing cause they don’t want to become involved, then moan and groan about the crime. Lie everything else, a life of crime starts out small, and grows with every act committed. Someone speaking up early on can prevent it getting worse
What happens when you put hard core “1st world” criminals in a small country with simple structures and security but lots of money? Absolute madness takes place. The police and security structures cannot cope. Whilst you might say this has been going on for years, what has the government done about it, get rid of the PNM, blah, blah, I might remind you that all this started under the UNC’s watch and they were even worse than the PNM in respect to crime.
This is not a government thing. It is a system thing, a structure thing, a matter of adapting to the new way things are done by the criminal element, and changing our policing structure, our laws, our methods of implementing said laws, everything. And that people cannot happen overnight. It will take time. Yes, you might say in the meantime the criminals continue to run amok. They are not really. The average citizen is fine. Those living in certain areas, or involved in running private businesses are most at risk.
People telling me they cannot go back to Trinidad, they kidnapping everybody, blah, blah. To them I ask… are you a business owner, a millionaire, a drug dealer, a drug-money launderer? Then what do you have for anybody to kidnap you. Do you think they will kidnap you to try and see if you have money? No people. They have their snitches working in the banks etc telling them who has money so they know who to target. The average working class joe has nothing that would be worth these modern criminals’ time.
These “1st world” hardened bad boys, gangsters, career thieves, gun runners, etc are very good at what they do, and for them it was akin to letting a kid loose in a candy store. They had a good run, which hopefully is coming to an end. Unfortunately they have recruited a good number of youths into a life of crime.
But all is not lost people, there are countries in a hell of a lot worse situation than TnT. We, the younger generation, have it within our power to take the country and turn it around. Just like the economy of TnT could be turned around after the devastation that was the recession years of the 80’s, so too can we turn the crime situation around. It took almost 20 years for us to be financial power house that we are today. Remember everybody cuss Robinson when he took drastic measures? The only question is how long will it take to turn the crime situation around. I pray it takes no where near that long.
