The most important qualification for writing a spectacularly original, incredibly inventive column is knowing where to steal your ideas and, in 1999, I stole one of the best from Robert Steinback, then of the Miami Herald, who, every year, around this time, wrote a column of predictions for the coming year and considered the accuracy of his predictions made the year before. It's a concept so brilliant you can pilfer it with pride, not shame. Too besides, as Sam Selvon would say, the best ideas were meant to be copied or we'd all be driving around in cars with square wheels, as I once heard Diana Mahabir say; or rather, repeat. All I stole from Robert, though, was the notion of soothsaying. Any prediction piece I wrote would have to be different from his because his column appeared in a thriving liberal democracy in which social leaders are exemplars and public figures are (at least theoretically) accountable to the public; and mine appears here; the difference is telling.
In the US, or any other real country, for example, if voters discovered your son had scalped tickets for a premier world sporting event, you'd get booted out of office on your a--; here, you get the Ministry of Works on a velvet cushion. In the USA, the President himself gets a mid-term cut-tail from his own party for trying to achieve universal healthcare; here, the Police Service Commission chairman tries to prevent traffic policemen from making him obey road traffic rules. As with the politics, so with everything else. The Americans have cinema; we have cinemas. The Americans have a publishing industry; we have a self-publishing industry. In America, musicals die on Broadway; in Trinidad, homeless people die on Broadway. In only one area do we match the Americans: they have no handgun control; we have no handgun control. Otherwise, the basic rule is: they have the real; we have the parody. Some of my predictions, then, are ludicrous, and are included only to make you laugh. Others are deadly serious and, if accurate, will make anyone with any sense weep; the challenge, as always in Trinidad, is to distinguish fantasy from reality, to tell what is thing to cry 'bout and when to stop laughing. Because I wasn't writing in the Trinidad and Tobago papers last January, I'm borrowing from my T&T predictions from 2009 and my Bajan ones from last year.
In 2009/10, then, I predicted: T&T will qualify for the second Concacaf round. Right; but no one could have foreseen that would lead to a first round Digicel Cup dismissal. The rich will get richer; the poor will get Bible class. One of those predictions that will always be correct in the West Indies. There will be an attempt to assassinate President Barack Obama; no, wait-that was 24, season one. Correct; but it came from the Tea Party in mid-term. The age of sexual consent with parental approval will be lowered to ten; imams and pundits will call it a victory for family values. Wrong; thank God. Someone will drive a new car out of the lot and have to park it up, since every inch of Trinidad's roads will have a car on it. Right, except it was a foreign used Kanye West will boast about something. Right; Patrick Manning will be humble about plenty. Wrong; he remained proud, except about nothing. Rihanna will appear wearing only a hairstyle (not even two) and duet with a similarly non-attired Lady Gaga. Largely right, I'm sad to say, except the duet featured her contemptible ex-boyfriend. No decent person should view the videos; and I didn't either. The world economy will collapse; starving Caribbean islanders will sneak into Guyana to plant yam. Not right; not yet, anyway. The West Indies Cricket Board will reduce the domestic first class tournament to a single Twenty20 match. Almost correct, except it was our Test cricket destroyed by Indian and Australian T/20 competitions, not our first-class by our board. Labour will win the British election. Wrong, but it took a fortnight and great political acrobatics to make it happen.
And here are my predictions for 2011: Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Jack Warner and Winston Dookeran will bludgeon one another unconscious with cricket bats live on TV and, next day, deny any rift in the People's Partnership. Jack Warner will be offered the post of Prime Minister but will have to turn it down as competing with his presidencies of Fifa, the IOC, the World Boxing Council and Federation, the English Premiership and the Toco Table Tennis Club. Patrick Manning and Basdeo Panday will both retire from politics but no one will notice. The price of doubles will double and Trinis will start optimistically calling them "dropples." Vybz Kartel and Movado will play at a Ministry of Sports HIV fund-raiser for only $7 million each, but will refuse to wear "them battyman ribbon." The WikiLeaks guy will get a movie deal but it won't get the green light because Lionsgate will want Johnny Depp in the lead and he'll want himself. All of Pakistan will convert to Judaism and all of Israel to Islam and they will swap real estate; Kashmiris will move to the West Bank and Palestinians to Kashmir so that the conflicts continue. Facebook will grow to have a greater population than the actual world. Brian Lara will come out of retirement but the WICB will beat him back into it. A natural disaster will incapacitate Trinidad; not flood, fire, hurricane or earthquake, just the usual government. The Pope will rescind the original 19th century dogma but will then realise he made a mistake and reaffirm his infallibility. The longest rope will have an end; the shortest distance between two points will be a straight line; the road to hell will be paved by a Trini construction firm. These predictions will stop before the end of this sent. There is no paper but the Guardian and BC Pires is its profit
