As we celebrate our 53rd anniversary as an independent nation and prepare to celebrate our 39th anniversary as a Republic, can we truly say that our social, cultural, political and economic systems has adequately served the people of T&T?
A careful analysis would reveal that we are no way closer to First World status as we were in 1962, the year of our independence.
One just has to look at the state of our Public Service, our educational system, our justice system, our health system, our crime-fighting initiatives, our road and transport systems, and most importantly our political system, in order to determine what little we have achieved as a nation in the provision of adequate public services on demand to all our citizens so that everyone could feel counted.
A conversation with the ordinary man on the street would reveal that most of us are enthralled by the dependency syndrome. We believe that it is the duty of the Government to give us everything–including a job.
That should not be so as it is not the duty of any government to give us anything, inclusive of a job. In the free market it is each person's duty to market his or her job skill and labour for whatever they are worth. As citizens we have been spoilt over the years, largely by a dependency syndrome, which pays us a stipend to join a "make work" programme that in the long-term actually keeps us in a poverty trap. The Government however has a duty to provide good governance with efficient public services and amenities for all the citizens.
But is it intentional that they keep us in a dependency syndrome? It appears so, as this is a means for those in authority to keep us in mental bondage in order to ensure that they maintain their status as so-called owners of the nation, when we in fact put them into office as servants of the people.
So as we embark on another exercise to once again elect "servants of the people," we need to reflect on the state of our political, cultural, social and economic systems and determine if they have really meaningfully served us in an independent, Republican nation. In my view they have not.
Additionally the big three–inequality, violence and corruption–continues to plague our society regardless of which political machinery is in office. But the choices for solutions to our societal problems are not immediately available to us as citizens. Those who are now offering themselves to serve are cut from the same cloth and can best be described as "birds of a feather that flock together." In other words those political machines that portray themselves as political parties are really different sides of the same coin as can be evidenced by the presence of political grasshoppers, opportunists and band-wagonists, especially within recent times on the various political platforms. Additionally, these political machines only become activated at election time in order to hoodwink us to vote for them.
So we are left proverbially between a rock and a hard place. In that regard, until we unite as a people and identify ourselves as Trinbagonians and not as "PNM or UNC till ah dead" or "Indians and Africans," we will continue to spin top in mud and every year around this time we will put up national flags, emblems and buntings and participate or witness our Independence Day parade at the Savannah.
In the meantime we will continue to struggle to achieve true independence so that we can enjoy the real benefits of an independent, Republican nation. It is time that we give real meaning to words we proudly display on our Coat of Arms–"TOGETHER WE ASPIRE, TOGETHER WE ACHIEVE." That will only happen however, when we do the necessary work to transform and build a society where everyone would count and there would be social justice and equity for all. It is only then we will be able to celebrate our nationhood together as one people and in the process we would be able to tell the politicians who facilitate those political machines that "THE PARTY DONE!"
Bryan St Louis
La Brea