Maybe it’s time to see if we can connect the dots between the violence we’re inflicting on our children and the likelihood that those children will grow up to be violent or fall victim to violence.
Trinidad and Tobago is having a tough time right now. The world is slipping into a recession, COVID refuses to acknowledge our collective efforts to pretend it doesn’t exist, and our government is besieged by a combination of microphone malfunctions and an “irritated” population.
The more I listen to certain government ministers and their defenders, the more I realise that a lot of people have never stopped to wonder about their purpose. Naturally, these government ministers are relying on this lack of curiosity to get away with the bare foolishness they say and do. So long as it never crosses our mind to consider why we employ a group of representatives or how they should be representing us, they can do as they please. Which, of course, is precisely what many of them are doing.
Instead of blinged-out TD Jakes and Creflo Dolla telling us that we can get like them if we give them all we’ve got, we have a growing cast of well-fed characters working overtime to convince us that to sacrifice is noble and to starve is divine.
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.