Lately, it seems like the politicians are firing shots at their own people—scoring own goals, if you will—and I’ve begun to wonder who they’re actually speaking to.
Surely my time and energy would be better spent trying to figure out how to migrate to the kind of fantasy world populated by T&T’s people of means and influence. Only there could a person be so invested in maintaining business (and traffic) as usual that they’d completely ignore the fact that we just spent two years proving that a national work-from-home policy is possible.
I feel fortunate to be a Trinbagonian. Our culture is rich and varied; our music is pure joy, our cuisine is undefeated and our history is inspirational. Our islands are gorgeous and blessed with abundance in ways other nations can only dream of. Our people—when we’re at our best—are mind-bogglingly creative and brilliant.
The fact is, school is the axle on which our Capitalist societies turn. There are a lot of parents out there who need childcare in order to work full-time. When those parents disappear because they’re at home with the kids, things get sticky in a lot of places.
The public sector not-a-mandate seems to have quietly fizzled at the same time that the Ministry of Education has reaffirmed its commitment to bringing the lower Forms and Standard 5s back out to school early next month.
In a society in which people cared about each other, preparing to live with a deadly virus would mean doing what’s necessary to protect each other from it. A society founded in common sense would recognise that individuals can’t prosper if society collapses.
It’s revealing that a person responsible for representing a community’s interests would feel comfortable excusing themselves with the fact that that community’s infrastructure is approximately as old as the nation itself.
The truth we conveniently ignore as we roll up our windows and roll down the Beetham Highway — the truth we use our addresses, degrees, job titles and, if we’re lucky, assets to hide from — is that the gap between us and the people we like to look down on is A LOT smaller than the gap between us and the people who are supposed to be serving us.
We can pretend the decision to send unvaccinated children to school with maybe-vaccinated teachers has nothing to do with the steadily increasing caseload, but that doesn’t make it so. As much as I want my daughter to return to a life that allows her to interact with her peers and actually physically meet and spend time with her teachers, I’m not prepared to play dotish just to see the (much-needed) end of digital school.
Omission just gives fearmongers a chance to wrap their sensationalism around a tiny kernel of truth, putting the authorities on the back foot and undermining their efforts to do what needs to be done.