Pao­lo Ker­na­han

The year elapsed was one of dashed hopes, bro­ken promis­es, and un­remit­ting scan­dal in­fre­quent­ly in­ter­spersed with ephemer­al mo­ments of soar­ing na­tion­al pride. The past year will not be re­mem­bered for the eu­phor­ic feel­ings ger­mi­nat­ed by the stel­lar show­ing of T&T's con­tin­gent at the Lon­don Olympics, the de­li­cious sur­prise of Keshorn Wal­cott's vic­to­ry or George Bovell's awe-in­spir­ing medal run at var­i­ous swim meets af­ter the Olympics.

2012 will be for­ev­er em­bla­zoned in our minds as the year Sec­tion 34 was per­pe­trat­ed against the peo­ple of this coun­try, an ir­re­versible brain le­sion caused by the fevered am­bi­tion of a despot­ic few to usurp our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process­es in the name of an ob­jec­tive most per­verse. It be­gan with an amend­ment to Sec­tion 34 to have the statu­to­ry ten-year lim­i­ta­tion run from the date on which an of­fence was com­mit­ted. It was the iso­la­tion of this amend­ment for procla­ma­tion ahead of the par­ent leg­is­la­tion which opened the flood­gates.

The hur­ried re­peal of this amend­ment could scarce­ly fool the pop­u­la­tion. It was clear to most that this would trig­ger le­gal chal­lenges and ap­peals by those hop­ing to take ad­van­tage of this "mo­men­tary lapse of rea­son," at least that is how it was be­ing sold to the pub­lic: "All ah we bep in Pal­li­ment!"

For­mer jus­tice min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney was made to fall on his sword and did not stop talk­ing un­til the hilt braced his chest. If we are to be­lieve the re­ports, there's more to come from him on the mat­ter, not seat­ed in front of the warm­ing glow of his fire­place, but un­der the warm­ing glow of the Di­manche Gras stage lights.

The head­line sug­gest­ing that Vol­ney and Crazy are team­ing up to do a Sec­tion 34 ca­lyp­so is amus­ing con­sid­er­ing that for the pub­lic, Vol­ney and Crazy are the same thing.

Nat­u­ral­ly, it was the fer­vent wish of this ad­min­is­tra­tion that the Sec­tion 34 de­ba­cle would be ex­punged from the na­tion­al psy­che by our nine-day men­tal­i­ty. The dis­unit­ed Op­po­si­tion co­a­lesced around this per­ceived act of trea­son and par­layed pub­lic out­rage and PNM en­mi­ty in­to a mas­sive march. Those un­fit for the sear­ing tem­per­a­tures, walk­ing about and way-too-syrupy sno-cones were hap­py to march on Face­book.

No mat­ter how many ham­pers were hand­ed out this Christ­mas, the Sec­tion 34 scan­dal has been giv­en life anew with a Jack Warn­er-fu­elled im­broglio with Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards hinged on talk of a leaked let­ter on the is­sue. There is al­ways Car­ni­val though, so there is still hope.

The spot­light was stolen tem­porar­i­ly from the Sec­tion 34 feed­ing fren­zy by the non-feed­ing of Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh, de­ter­mined to halt the ad­vance of bull­doz­ers, graders and ra­pa­cious con­trac­tors at the Debe to Mon De­sir sec­tion of the Point Fortin high­way.

De­ter­mined to cor­ral the at­ten­tion of the large­ly ob­tuse pub­lic, Dr Kublals­ingh adopt­ed a strat­e­gy which he felt (and he was right) the pub­lic would more read­i­ly di­gest: a pub­licly-staged hunger strike. At his "death camp" out­side the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, the ac­tivist was hap­py to up­date the em­bed­ded me­dia on his health: de­clin­ing potas­si­um lev­els, trou­bling weight loss and im­pend­ing kid­ney fail­ure. Dr Kublals­ingh got an un­ex­pect­ed fil­lip from a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing staged by the ad­min­is­tra­tion to con­vey the "facts" to the peo­ple.

So hor­ri­ble were the in­sults hurled against this man that many who were pre­vi­ous­ly on the fence threw their sup­port be­hind the dis­ap­pear­ing doc­tor (even if they ac­tu­al­ly sup­port­ed the dis­put­ed high­way sec­tion). Thank­ful­ly, his life was spared and a re­view com­mit­tee set up to make him eat some­thing will rub­ber stamp the fait ac­com­pli.

There isn't enough pa­per in the trees of the North­ern Range (those which haven't yet been felled by quar­ry­ing or il­le­gal log­ging) to analyse the scan­dals of 2012. The ques­tion is when will we set­tle down and take gov­er­nance of this coun­try se­ri­ous­ly? When will we as cit­i­zens ac­cept that we have as much re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the fate of this na­tion as those whom we've ap­point­ed to helm our des­tiny?

There have been ab­solute­ly no mean­ing­ful at­tempts at ad­dress­ing eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion. We have gone back to putting all of our eggs in­to the fos­sil-fu­els bas­ket and as long as every­one gets their bloat­ed gov­ern­ment con­tracts, most are hap­py to let the next gen­er­a­tion make the best of what's left.

The right-think­ing peo­ple in our so­ci­ety are left to as­sume that the ma­jor­i­ty are sat­is­fied with the state of crime in T&T and that hound­ing the Cana­di­an com­mis­sion­ers out of town was the right move. Those who con­tin­ue to be killed and robbed are an­noy­ing sta­tis­ti­cal anom­alies.

We must de­mand more of the Gov­ern­ment in 2013. We can on­ly do so if we de­mand more of our­selves. It is my sin­cere wish that Trinidad and To­ba­go breaks free of the bonds of ir­re­spon­si­ble gov­er­nance but, more im­por­tant­ly, breaks free of self-im­posed bonds. On­ly then can we have the sort of na­tion we all know is right with­in our grasp.