... Among those who commented was Ira Mathur. ... She also drew attention to the cultural malaise of modern T&T, a theme she also wrote about in a recent article http://guardian.co.tt/columnist/2013-03-03/breaking-silence. ...
Not long ago I expressed sentiments on this forum that I would hazard to say are somewhat akin to the President's. Among other issues, Trinidad and Tobago is faced with 2 problems, a crisis in leadership and a destructive culture as both the government AND the people are dysfunctional. The former has been discussed ad nauseam and there is enough fodder to around. My pessimism about Trinidad and Tobago has more to with the latter however as this is significantly harder to change than a government. Notwithstanding the poor regulation and management by the State, many of the problems we face are self created. This is in my view the croix of the President's contribution on that issue.
I am happy with the speech because the President said things that needed to be said. Even as the Opposition must prepare itself beyond the campaign and towards the path governance, a revolution of not just ideas but of values must occur for even an inkling of national turnaround. Perhaps the President on this occasion was best placed to make that assertion. The tone of the speech was extraordinary , even more so than the former President's last speech to Parliament during Patrick Manning's regime. Despite his lack of executive power this President clearly understands that he has authority. It will be interesting to observe how he uses it.
As yuh wrote that, leh we go down Memory Lane ...
Songs of DavidVaneisa Baksh
Jan 19, 2012
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/commentaries/Songs_of_David-137650668.htmlAmidst the laments about our wicked, corrupt ways, there must surely be some sort of recognition, no matter how nebulous, that this country is mentally unwell. However manifested at the individual level – who chopping, shooting, robbing, defrauding, hoodwinking – it should be obvious that the collective mental health is poor; brittle at best.
But who would want to say that we've all gone mad? The victims traumatised by abuse of one form or the other; the increasingly terrified onlookers: friends, families and followers of news items (designed to increase the burden of fear); the perpetrators themselves – we add up to a nation in need of therapy. We've looked back in anger for a considerable amount of time, appending sodden rage to grief that doesn't know how to let go, and it has done little but left us marking time in a rancid pothole. We have not yet learned to turn our eyes to the future, so mesmerised are we by superficial incantations that theatrically invoke the past without learning anything from it. Sixteen years ago, David Rudder's "Madman's Rant" spelled us out explicitly, grimly and so forebodingly that it is more chilling to hear it with the passage of time. For every year that has passed since, the rant would have been equally relevant. A close study would be enlightening.
Anywhere you turn somebody chanting to we/ Somebody promising jobs for all/ Some renting gun to make other people bawl/ But somebody promising more police car/ Somebody going to take the country far/ Somebody putting all the bandits away/ We say, 'If they do the crime, they going to damn well pay!' /But somebody promising human rights/ While somebody threatening to put out your lights/ The mortuary full with little Trinidad boys/ A bullet start to whine and put an end to their joy/ Now they lying tall for dey Mama to mourn/ Dey Nike gone, dey gold teeth gone.
I miss David. Miss the way his poet's soul proffered intelligent and sensitive analysis. I remain convinced that when he migrated too many years ago he left a chasm that altered the annual rites of release and renewal that was Carnival, and more. He and Peter Minshall soaked the atmosphere with
conscience and character, enough to elevate the transient thing (it has become) to something far more profound. Who else but the two of them could have injected that special dimension into Carnival with the band Hallelujah or the song "High Mas"?
The madman from Tales from a Strange Land of 1996 delivers
an analysis of a society crumbling under the weight of its debauchery and becoming dysfunctional at every turn. Like a doomsday prophet he chants:
"This is it! This is it! This is it!"
This it is where we are. In an environment disconnected from the norms that were once the toast of what it means to be a "Trini" we live schizophrenically with ourselves, incapable of grappling with the surrounding reality. We are quick on the draw, wildly pelting blame at the feet of every Johnny-come-lately – arrive and everything is your fault – and
we don't even apprehend how deeply the disorders overrun us. All. The pressure has built to an unprecedented incendiary level. It is not just expressed in the organised world of crime. A man responds to a dispute over home ownership by burning down the place knowing people would die. Another one flings a baby through a window for crying. Trade unions brawl for power. Women are still being maimed and killed for perceived domestic shortcomings or for leaving abusive partners. Road hogs are the most common animals and road rage erupts at the slightest provocation.
We look for leadership, expecting that leaders exist outside of the din and chaos and have not themselves been shaped by it. Yet, in the bizarre actions of those occupying those positions we must surely discern the same mad afflictions. How else to explain the torrent of inexplicable events? And yet whether it is to apportion blame or to beg for help, we continue to rest our fates entirely within their incapable hands. And they seem more confused than we. Conflicted voices are coming at them from every niche – people shouting for their rights, whispering for their interests, people emailing their spleens without pause.
Is it any wonder we keep moving between zig and zag? And the anger just keeps mounting and getting more destructive.
It calls for recalibrating our instruments of analysis to seek solutions that offer healing as well. All this anger has a source; all this anger has to come out, but
we need therapeutic ways to enable ventilation. Violence cannot be the way.
It would be worth diverting resources towards providing counselling and therapy, for schools, offices, community centres, prisons, police stations and political parties. For everyone.
The existing facilities for mental health care are obviously stretched, though I was told that they have come a long way when I tried to ascertain the scope. The major hospitals offer inpatient and outpatient services and there are about 30 psychiatrists available. The system is slowly building itself, but will not grow at anything like the rate required unless it is jolted into action.
It won't be easy to find the human resources to help with counselling (and they too might be in need!), but
I think we have to turn our attention to understanding that the problems are not all spawned by evil, but come from a society that has been living on the edge of a nervous breakdown for too long. It might help us to see a different way forward.