Dr Austin Jack Warn­er

Broth­er Valenti­no sang it years ago in one of those ca­lyp­sos that nev­er re­al­ly gets old be­cause the truth in­side it keeps re­new­ing it­self with every gen­er­a­tion: “Life is a stage, and we are all char­ac­ters...every­body has a part to play…”

To­day, as I sit al­most ful­ly re­tired from ac­tive pol­i­tics, I find my­self re­flect­ing on just how ac­cu­rate those words re­main for Trinidad and To­ba­go. Age and dis­tance have a way of sharp­en­ing per­spec­tive. When you are no longer fight­ing elec­tions, man­ag­ing par­ty ma­chin­ery or de­fend­ing every po­lit­i­cal po­si­tion, you be­gin to see the coun­try dif­fer­ent­ly. You start to see be­yond the head­lines, be­yond the speech­es and be­yond the care­ful­ly chore­o­graphed per­for­mances that dom­i­nate pub­lic life.

And make no mis­take, Trinidad and To­ba­go to­day feels like one gi­ant the­atre pro­duc­tion. Every­body is per­form­ing. Gov­ern­ment per­forms. Op­po­si­tion per­forms. Me­dia per­forms. Ac­tivists per­form. Even or­di­nary cit­i­zens per­form ver­sions of them­selves every day on so­cial me­dia. Every­body has a role; every­body has an au­di­ence and every­body is try­ing to con­trol the nar­ra­tive.

The prob­lem is that the au­di­ence - the pop­u­la­tion it­self - is be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly tired of the pro­duc­tion.

One day, we are told the econ­o­my has “turned the cor­ner.” The next day, the IMF ar­rives and, in its care­ful diplo­mat­ic lan­guage, re­minds us that eco­nom­ic growth re­mains frag­ile. Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials point to signs of re­cov­ery while cit­i­zens point to gro­cery bills, util­i­ty pay­ments and the ris­ing cost of liv­ing. Econ­o­mists de­bate, of­ten in lan­guage they alone un­der­stand, while or­di­nary peo­ple de­bate whether they can af­ford an­oth­er in­crease in food prices or school ex­pens­es.

That is the dis­con­nect that now de­fines much of na­tion­al life. There is the of­fi­cial Trinidad and To­ba­go that ex­ists in speech­es, press con­fer­ences and care­ful­ly craft­ed state­ments. Then there is the lived Trinidad and To­ba­go ex­pe­ri­enced dai­ly by cit­i­zens try­ing to sur­vive.

The IMF re­port may dis­cuss lofty eco­nom­ic is­sues, but or­di­nary cit­i­zens are deal­ing with what I call the emo­tion­al econ­o­my. It is the econ­o­my of frus­tra­tion, un­cer­tain­ty and qui­et fear – one in which the ed­u­cat­ed young grad­u­ate is con­stant­ly ap­ply­ing on­line at mid­night be­cause they no longer be­lieve op­por­tu­ni­ties ex­ist at home. It is the econ­o­my in which the small busi­ness own­er is sur­viv­ing month to month but is afraid to ex­pand be­cause con­sumer con­fi­dence is weak and crime re­mains high. It is the econ­o­my in which the sin­gle par­ent is qui­et­ly de­cid­ing which bill can wait an­oth­er week and which can’t.

And de­spite all the grand lan­guage about fair­ness and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, many cit­i­zens are be­gin­ning to ask an un­com­fort­able ques­tion: fair­ness for whom?

Be­cause in­equal­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go is no longer sub­tle. Cit­i­zens are in­creas­ing­ly notic­ing that jus­tice, ac­count­abil­i­ty and even pub­lic sym­pa­thy of­ten ap­pear un­even­ly dis­trib­uted. One in­di­vid­ual faces the full and im­me­di­ate weight of the law while an­oth­er ap­pears to re­ceive un­der­stand­ing and ac­com­mo­da­tion, “giv­en the cir­cum­stances.” In one mat­ter, charges dis­si­pate with re­mark­able speed. In an­oth­er, even in the pres­ence of wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed video ev­i­dence and pub­lic scruti­ny, charges are still laid against on­ly one in­di­vid­ual.

The pop­u­la­tion is watch­ing all of this very care­ful­ly. Peo­ple may tol­er­ate hard­ship. Trinida­di­ans and To­bag­o­ni­ans are re­silient peo­ple. But what cit­i­zens rarely tol­er­ate for long is in­con­sis­ten­cy. Once peo­ple be­gin be­liev­ing that there are dif­fer­ent rules for dif­fer­ent class­es of cit­i­zens, pub­lic trust be­gins to erode very quick­ly.

That ero­sion of trust is be­com­ing one of the defin­ing fea­tures of mod­ern Trinidad and To­ba­go. There is grow­ing mis­trust in pol­i­tics, in­sti­tu­tions, me­dia and in­creas­ing­ly in polic­ing and the jus­tice sys­tem it­self. This is dan­ger­ous ter­ri­to­ry for any democ­ra­cy be­cause in­sti­tu­tions ul­ti­mate­ly sur­vive not on­ly on laws and reg­u­la­tions but on le­git­i­ma­cy. Cit­i­zens must be­lieve in­sti­tu­tions op­er­ate fair­ly, con­sis­tent­ly and in­de­pen­dent­ly.

The ten­sion be­tween sec­tions of the pop­u­la­tion and the po­lice ser­vice re­flects this broad­er cri­sis of con­fi­dence. Let me say clear­ly that po­lice of­fi­cers in Trinidad and To­ba­go op­er­ate un­der ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult con­di­tions. They con­front heav­i­ly armed crim­i­nal gangs, ris­ing vi­o­lence and so­cial break­down that would chal­lenge law en­force­ment sys­tems any­where in the world.

But polic­ing de­pends not on­ly on force. It de­pends on trust. It de­pends on le­git­i­ma­cy. It de­pends on the pub­lic be­liev­ing that the law ap­plies equal­ly to every­body re­gard­less of sta­tus, in­flu­ence or po­lit­i­cal align­ment. Once that trust weak­ens, every po­lice in­ter­ac­tion be­comes more po­lit­i­cal­ly charged, more emo­tion­al­ly charged and ul­ti­mate­ly more dan­ger­ous for so­ci­ety as a whole.

At the same time, the phys­i­cal con­di­tion of the coun­try is re­flect­ing a deep­er na­tion­al de­te­ri­o­ra­tion. Dri­ve across Trinidad to­day and one of the most vis­i­ble re­al­i­ties con­fronting cit­i­zens is garbage. Garbage along high­ways. Garbage near rivers and drains. Garbage piled up with­in com­mu­ni­ties as though dis­or­der it­self has be­come nor­malised.

This is not sim­ply an ad­min­is­tra­tive prob­lem or a lo­cal gov­ern­ment prob­lem. It is al­so be­com­ing a cul­tur­al prob­lem. We are grad­u­al­ly be­com­ing com­fort­able liv­ing amid dis­or­der, and that should con­cern us deeply be­cause phys­i­cal dis­or­der of­ten mir­rors in­sti­tu­tion­al and so­cial dis­or­der. When pub­lic spaces de­te­ri­o­rate, pub­lic spir­it de­te­ri­o­rates with them.

So­ci­eties rarely col­lapse dra­mat­i­cal­ly. More of­ten, they de­cline grad­u­al­ly, lay­er by lay­er. First stan­dards weak­en. Then ac­count­abil­i­ty weak­ens. Then trust weak­ens. Even­tu­al­ly, hope it­self be­gins to weak­en. And hope is per­haps the most im­por­tant re­source any na­tion pos­sess­es.

Yet de­spite all of this, Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues per­form­ing. We con­tin­ue pro­duc­ing speech­es, press re­leas­es, slo­gans and care­ful­ly man­aged nar­ra­tives. So­cial me­dia has in­ten­si­fied this cul­ture of per­for­mance, turn­ing na­tion­al life in­to a con­stant cy­cle of out­rage, counter-out­rage and po­lit­i­cal the­atre.

Broth­er Valenti­no un­der­stood some­thing pro­found long be­fore Face­book, Tik­Tok and In­sta­gram ex­ist­ed. He un­der­stood that life it­self is per­for­mance. Peo­ple wear masks. Peo­ple play roles. Some play hero, some play vic­tim, some play sav­iour and some play judge. And in pub­lic life es­pe­cial­ly, many peo­ple be­come so con­sumed by their role that they even­tu­al­ly con­fuse per­for­mance with re­al­i­ty. But even­tu­al­ly every per­for­mance ends. The cur­tains close on all of us one day, and what re­mains are con­se­quences.

That is why Trinidad and To­ba­go to­day faces a cri­sis deep­er than eco­nom­ics alone. We are fac­ing a cri­sis of cred­i­bil­i­ty. Cit­i­zens no longer know who to trust. Of­fi­cial op­ti­mism in­creas­ing­ly com­petes with lived frus­tra­tion. Crime sta­tis­tics com­pete with pub­lic fear. Eco­nom­ic in­di­ca­tors com­pete with house­hold strug­gles. In­sti­tu­tion­al as­sur­ances com­pete with dai­ly ex­pe­ri­ence.

And once cit­i­zens stop be­liev­ing that in­sti­tu­tions are fun­da­men­tal­ly fair, even good poli­cies be­come dif­fi­cult to im­ple­ment be­cause le­git­i­ma­cy is the foun­da­tion up­on which gov­er­nance rests.

At this stage of my life, I have al­so come to recog­nise that Trinidad and To­ba­go does not suf­fer from a short­age of in­tel­li­gence or tal­ent. We have bril­liant peo­ple in every sec­tor of na­tion­al life. What we in­creas­ing­ly lack is hon­esty - hon­esty about the true state of the econ­o­my, hon­esty about in­sti­tu­tion­al weak­ness­es, hon­esty about cor­rup­tion, hon­esty about in­equal­i­ty and hon­esty about the grow­ing frus­tra­tion many cit­i­zens feel to­ward the sys­tem it­self.

Un­til we con­front those re­al­i­ties hon­est­ly, we will con­tin­ue treat­ing symp­toms while ig­nor­ing the deep­er dis­ease. Still, de­spite every­thing, I do not be­lieve this coun­try is be­yond sav­ing. Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains filled with de­cent, hard­work­ing and re­silient peo­ple. There are still hon­est po­lice of­fi­cers risk­ing their lives dai­ly. Still, teach­ers sac­ri­fic­ing qui­et­ly for chil­dren. Still, nurs­es hold­ing frag­ile health­care sys­tems to­geth­er. Still, en­tre­pre­neurs fight­ing to sur­vive against dif­fi­cult odds. Still, com­mu­ni­ties help­ing one an­oth­er in times of hard­ship.

There is still good­ness in this coun­try. Still pa­tri­o­tism. Still hope.

But pa­tri­o­tism can­not sim­ply mean wav­ing flags dur­ing Car­ni­val or foot­ball tour­na­ments. Pa­tri­o­tism must al­so mean de­mand­ing bet­ter from our­selves and from those en­trust­ed with lead­er­ship. It means de­mand­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty, con­sis­ten­cy and fair­ness. It means strength­en­ing in­sti­tu­tions rather than weak­en­ing them for tem­po­rary po­lit­i­cal ad­van­tage.

Be­cause if life tru­ly is a stage, then every gen­er­a­tion must even­tu­al­ly an­swer the same ques­tion: What role did you play when your coun­try need­ed courage? Did you de­fend truth or mere­ly de­fend tribe? Did you strength­en in­sti­tu­tions or weak­en them? Did you help heal di­vi­sions or deep­en them?

His­to­ry even­tu­al­ly asks those ques­tions of every so­ci­ety, and his­to­ry is rarely in­ter­est­ed in ex­cus­es.

So yes, Broth­er Valenti­no was right all those years ago. Life is a stage, and Trinidad and To­ba­go to­day of­ten feels like one long pro­duc­tion in which every­body is im­pro­vis­ing be­cause no­body ful­ly un­der­stands the script any­more. Per­haps that is ex­act­ly why the coun­try now needs less per­for­mance and more prin­ci­ple; less act­ing and more hon­esty; less trib­al noise and more na­tion­al pur­pose.

Be­cause even­tu­al­ly, au­di­ences stop ap­plaud­ing con­fu­sion. And when cit­i­zens lose faith in the pro­duc­tion it­self, even the finest ac­tors can­not save the show. The cur­tains even­tu­al­ly fall on every so­ci­ety.

Dr Jack Austin Warn­er

For­mer MP/Min­is­ter/FI­FA VP