And so, the chil­dren of the for­est in this beau­ti­ful land were out in their num­bers to cel­e­brate and wish all a pros­per­ous New Year. Pa­pa Bois, Anan­si, La­ga­hoo, Soucouyant, La Di­a­b­lesse, Ma­ma D’leau and oth­ers made their way from El Tu­cuche.

Un­der a silk-cot­ton tree they sat around, telling sto­ries. Laced with babash and gan­ja-laced sor­rel, their ole talk turned bac­cha­nal, and the lev­el-head­ed Pa­pa Bois ketch he tail to keep them in check. In par­tic­u­lar, Di­a­b­lesse, the big-mouthed dev­il woman who liked to cuss. And doh ask about the pip­squeak jumbie kiss­ing Ma­ma D’leau’s foot.

Soucouyant asked, “So, what all yuh think ‘bout de raider?”

“Wha yuh talk­ing ‘bout?”

“The ma­co thing in To­ba­go to track drug traf­fick­ers.”

“You mean the radar, fool,” snapped Di­a­b­lesse. “Track what? Whey you from?

“First, it’s the lies—that the Yan­kees had left af­ter train­ing our sol­diers.”

Next, we were told they were here but fix­ing roads, like if we chupid. Next, they claim it was we who re­quest­ed the ma­co thing for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. They want us to be­lieve the world’s biggest war­ship and ar­ma­da came to stop drug traf­fick­ers? Now we learn the Yan­kees set up camp in To­ba­go to mon­i­tor the radar. If on­ly the radar could de­tect lies, it would soon jam up a lot of peo­ple.

We don’t need a tech­no­log­i­cal ma­co to spot the re­al of­fend­ers—dem out there in plain sight.

“Stop right there,” said Pa­pa Bois. “No ac­cu­sa­tions.”  

“I didn’t ac­cuse any­body,” Di­a­b­lesse said. “Who de MA­GA cap fit, let dem wear it. Look what’s hap­pen­ing. Many be­lieve the po­lice end­ed up de­fend­ing the in­de­fen­si­ble. Just imag­ine the log­ic we were be­ing asked to swal­low—that killing al­leged drug traf­fick­ers would some­how re­duce the sup­ply of il­le­gal nar­cotics and dri­ve up prices. Then de com­mis­sion­er claims that a radar had de­tect­ed mil­lions of dol­lars’ worth of mar­i­jua­na in the Ca­roni Swamp. Folks, it didn’t de­tect the traf­fick­ers. He couldn’t send his men to catch the crim­i­nals be­cause mos­qui­toes would have bit­ten them—a rea­son so ab­surd it could on­ly be of­fered in a coun­try ac­cus­tomed to swal­low­ing non­sense.

Big drug hauls. No­body ever gets ketch. They say mur­ders de­cline, which should be ex­pect­ed un­der an ever­last­ing state of emer­gency. Now even the crim­i­nals are used to it, be­cause there are mur­ders every day, home in­va­sions, armed hold-ups and kid­nap­pings are in­creas­ing.” Di­a­b­lesse ste­ups and stamps she cow foot.

“But oh gawd!” ex­claimed Anan­si. “Good things are hap­pen­ing; the Home In­va­sion and Fire­works Bills, Cou­va Chil­dren’s hos­pi­tal re­opened, which the last gov­ern­ment left to waste.”

“Doh go there,” Soucouyant shout­ed. “Dem politi­cians al­ways shut down each oth­er’s mil­lion-dol­lar projects, and it’s de peo­ple ar.. to ketch wit tax­es up­on tax­es, suck­ing dey pock­ets dry. Dem more soucouyant than me. Dey shut down the mil­lion-dol­lar rev­enue au­thor­i­ty and de prop­er­ty tax, on­ly to bring back de tax to hurt a few. Guess who? Peo­ple who can’t af­ford a home and must rent. Then they talk chupid­ness about it’s a land­lord busi­ness sur­charge, as if they didn’t know it’s de ten­ants who would ul­ti­mate­ly pay. Busi­ness­peo­ple must cov­er costs to sur­vive. They ob­scured the re­al bud­get deficit. Imag­ine any se­ri­ous gov­ern­ment or busi­ness not show­ing a bud­get for work­ers’ salaries, giv­ing an asi­nine ex­cuse about wage ne­go­ti­a­tions still hap­pen­ing.”

Anan­si, sens­ing what was com­ing next, fixed his two rows of four eyes on Soucouyant, who said, “Who dey think dey fool? Anan­si, it’s you who tricked them in­to do­ing that.”

“Who me? Many peo­ple be­lieve dem lied. Dey talked loud­ly about a for­eign-ex­change ‘car­tel’. Mind you, a car­tel must be hap­pen­ing un­der­ground by La­ga­hoo’s cof­fin. If they could shut down CEPEP for cor­rup­tion, why didn’t they shut down de whole place? Now I hear that dey have a project called PUPS to clean up de place and some oth­er pro­gramme, and in­stead of call­ing de work­ers grass­cut­ters, dey say dey “main­tain­ing veg­e­ta­tion”, no more in­for­ma­tion, who got hired, and at what cost?”

Di­a­b­lesse shiv­ered. “Uri­ah Buzz But­ler turn­ing in his grave. The voic­es of men who once roared for so­cial jus­tice, who marched against in­ter­fer­ence in oth­er coun­tries’ busi­ness all silent. I hear some of dem get di­rec­tor­ship on “mer­it”. Thou­sands of hum­ble grass­cut­ters be­came their col­lat­er­al dam­age. Dem firetru …

“Stop right there,” said Pa­pa Bois. “Go and wash your mouth in the East Dry Riv­er be­fore say­ing any­thing more.”

 “I on­ly wash­ing mih mouth on dem,” re­tort­ed Di­a­b­lesse.

Up jumps a pip­squeak jumbie. “Al­lyuh un­fair. Look how much dou­bles dey bought for work­ers this Christ­mas. It’s all pro­pa­gan­da …”

“‘Propa … wha?’ snapped La Di­a­b­lesse. ‘Why yuh doh be­have yuh damn self. Pure hypocrisy—cosy­ing up with pow­er­ful peo­ple, tar­iff­ing lit­tle coun­tries and tak­ing away visas from those who speak truth to pow­er. They say they’ll cov­er this coun­try’s ar..? It nev­er need­ed cov­er­ing be­fore their cow­ard­ly fail­ure to state their in­tent be­fore de peo­ple vot­ed.” Di­a­b­lesse curled her full lips, raised her skirt and turned her back on jumbie.

Si­lence. A chilly breeze blew the flow­ers of the silk-cot­ton tree away. The set­ting sun sig­nalled the pass­ing of day.    

Pa­pa Bois stood up. “Folks, lis­ten well. Tru­ly brave and strong peo­ple have moral radar. They’re smart enough not to break down the re­gion­al bridge their in­no­va­tors and en­tre­pre­neurs must cross dai­ly. The same cul­tur­al bridge along the arch­i­pel­ago our ear­li­est folks crossed, a path root­ed in re­sis­tance by the African Ma­roons, Carib Taino and the Arawaks tribes against in­vaders seek­ing to con­trol these is­lands. They were unit­ed, not like to­day’s re­gion­al unions, but in ac­cor­dance with their ge­og­ra­phy and com­mon needs. They had their quar­rels, but they re­spect­ed each oth­er’s bound­aries and the over­rid­ing com­mon good. Those who came to di­vide and rule sent their mis­sion­ar­ies with gifts. Mil­i­tary fol­lowed.

“To­day, these jew­els of the Caribbean arch­i­pel­ago are build­ing their civil­i­sa­tion, hav­ing es­tab­lished re­gion­al le­gal, eco­nom­ic, se­cu­ri­ty, in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions, health, ed­u­ca­tion, sports and cul­tur­al foun­da­tions un­der the Cari­com union. It’s not a per­fect union. No union is ever per­fect. And now, chil­dren, it’s the same old di­vide-and-rule strat­e­gy aid­ed by a lo­cal tribe pur­su­ing an un­stat­ed so­cio-eco­nom­ic ide­ol­o­gy. But the mis­chief is ev­i­dent in the con­tempt for the in­ge­nious in­ven­tion by de Ham­mer and dem boys.

“So, mil­i­tary might fol­lowed the La­gos li­brary and the USNS Com­fort Navy med­ical ships bear­ing gifts. In 2018, the La­gos ar­rived with gifts be­fore the at­tempt­ed regime change to in­stall Juan Gui­do. It’s all about re­shap­ing the ex­ist­ing struc­tures, ex­pand­ing the pow­er sphere. It’s not on­ly about the black gold of Venezuela they want. It’s about the Bear and the Drag­on. It’s glob­al do­min­ion. Per­haps it’s the hu­man con­di­tion, safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty bound with pow­er in a con­stant strug­gle be­tween good and evil.”

“All yuh, I go­ing back in mih cof­fin,” said La­ga­hoo. “It’s the safest place to be these days. Hap­py New Year.”

And so, the gold­en orb fad­ed, and a glo­ri­ous moon lit their way back to El Tu­cuche.