Theo Fer­gu­son

Every­one seems to be wait­ing on the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and his troops to solve the crime prob­lem, when the so­lu­tion does not lie with the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice or even with the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. They are all in­volved in try­ing to re­strain neg­a­tive be­hav­iours that are not of their mak­ing. They are like a clean-up crew mop­ping up a huge spill, the source of which is out­side of their ju­ris­dic­tion and reach. Of course we ex­pect them to do their best in their clean-up ef­forts, but they are in no po­si­tion to con­tain the spill. The so­lu­tion lies with grow­ing the pos­i­tives of the peo­ple of T&T such that we have a more self-dis­ci­plined and re­spon­si­ble cit­i­zen­ry. It is on­ly by deal­ing with the scourge at the source that we will be able to abate the flood of ir­re­spon­si­ble be­hav­iours spilling across the T&T so­ci­ety. As I wrote in my col­umn of De­cem­ber 3, 2010: "We can­not con­tin­ue to deal with this na­tion­al scourge by just try­ing to re­strain the neg­a­tive be­hav­iours of peo­ple, which is the re­mit of the po­lice and the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. We have to be­come se­ri­ous about grow­ing the pos­i­tives in our cit­i­zen­ry.

It is on­ly by rais­ing the next gen­er­a­tion to be dis­ci­plined and re­spon­si­ble in­di­vid­u­als that we can be­gin to ad­dress the prob­lem at its source. The cry for greater lead­er­ship to ac­com­plish this goal is deaf­en­ing. I chal­lenge the pow­ers that be to adopt a sim­ple pol­i­cy-for every dol­lar al­lo­cat­ed to re­strain­ing the neg­a­tive-po­lice, de­fence forces, crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, etc-to al­lo­cate an equiv­a­lent amount to grow­ing the pos­i­tives in our cit­i­zens." I have re­peat­ed this chal­lenge in lat­er columns. Over the last few years we have wit­nessed two com­mis­sion­ers of po­lice and an act­ing com­mis­sion­er ha­rangued out of of­fice. The in­com­ing Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er should take note, and de­spite the un­rea­son­able ex­pec­ta­tions that peo­ple may have of him, not promise to de­liv­er more than is re­al­is­ti­cal­ly pos­si­ble. In that col­umn, I wrote: "In T&T im­moral­i­ty, vi­o­lence and crime are dri­ven pri­mar­i­ly by the ir­re­spon­si­ble, im­moral and crim­i­nal be­hav­iours of those from whom lead­er­ship is ex­pect­ed-politi­cians, trade-union lead­ers, po­lice of­fi­cers, busi­ness peo­ple, doc­tors, cler­gy, me­dia peo­ple, teach­ers, se­nior pub­lic of­fi­cials and par­ents. The in­dis­ci­pline is sys­temic. It is like a flu virus that per­vades the whole body, leav­ing you in­ca­pac­i­tat­ed and feel­ing weak and help­less. You blame oth­ers for giv­ing you the flu while be­ing blind­ed to the fact that your lifestyle and eat­ing habits may have weak­ened your im­mune sys­tem, thus leav­ing you vul­ner­a­ble to re­peat­ed at­tacks.

"I see vi­o­lence and in­dis­ci­pline in our Par­lia­ment in the abu­sive lan­guage, 'gun talk,' ques­tion­able con­duct and abuse of pow­er by many of our min­is­ters and par­lia­men­tar­i­ans. I see it in our busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in the cor­rupt, greedy and ex­ploita­tive cul­ture that has be­come nor­malised. I see it in our mo­tor-ve­hi­cle dri­vers in the self­ish­ly reck­less way they dri­ve on our roads. I see it in our com­mu­ni­ties in the vi­o­lent ways they protest-road-blocks and fire seem to be the norm. I hear it in the crude lan­guage and anger of many of our ra­dio talk-show hosts. I see it in the doc­tors who rou­tine­ly is­sue bo­gus med­ical cer­tifi­cates. I see it in the so­ci­etal ac­cep­tance of buy­ing stolen mo­tor-ve­hi­cle parts as good sense and not a crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. I see vi­o­lence and in­dis­ci­pline in the un­law­ful and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties of many mem­bers of our pro­tec­tive ser­vices. I see it in the wide­spread and so­cial ac­cep­tance of the abuse of al­co­hol and oth­er stim­u­lants. I hear it in the vul­gar, crude and risqu&ea­cute; lyrics of our ca­lyp­so, so­ca, and chut­ney songs... "Fur­ther, many in our midst glo­ri­fy promis­cu­ity and greed. Many are lost in a plea­sure-seek­ing world of al­co­hol, drugs, sex and van­i­ty. Many say it is our cul­ture and cel­e­brate it, thus pro­mot­ing a so­ci­ety of ni­hilism and he­do­nism. The re­sult is grow­ing hu­man deca­dence in­to which our chil­dren are silent­ly in­doc­tri­nat­ed. Vi­o­lence and crime form the vis­i­ble tip of this grow­ing ice­berg of so­cial deca­dence." The so­lu­tion lies in proac­tive­ly build­ing the pos­i­tives of our peo­ple. Dif­fi­cult? Yes! Long-term? Yes! But we must at least try. The re­sults will sur­prise us. Folks, this is my 131st and fi­nal col­umn. An out­come of this col­umn is my book Writ­ings on Lead­er­ship: Shar­ing the Phi­los­o­phy of Lead­ing From Above The Line, pub­lished by the Arthur Lok Jack Grad­u­ate School of Busi­ness. It is now avail­able at the school and at lead­ing book­shops. I wish to thank the many read­ers who have en­cour­aged me in my at­tempt to pro­mote a more pos­i­tive ap­proach to build­ing a bet­ter T&T through greater per­son­al and so­ci­etal lead­er­ship. I wish to thank the Trinidad & To­ba­go Guardian for pro­vid­ing me with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to share my ideas, and in par­tic­u­lar the phi­los­o­phy of Lead­ing From Above The Line, which I prof­fer as a way of grow­ing the pos­i­tives in our so­ci­ety. Thank you all.