Why do we pretend to be outraged by crime in T&T? Why do we pretend to get all vex with Nicki Minaj talking, with newspapers showing severed heads on front pages, with reading about burnt bodies covered in barbed wire, with seeing photos of bloodied tourists in the Savannah, with watching a child being raped on national television?
The "outrage" is getting old, almost as old as the crime wave itself. The myth of T&T as some kind of blemished paradise, some nostalgic lyric of a vintage calypso, some Cazabon painting of stately houses, is false. There is no paradise in a place where almost daily violence, crime, corruption and mayhem constitute the "top of the news tonight."
Nicki Minaj is not the brightest bulb. Few people outside our shores will ever recall her brief comparison of T&T and Liberia and "making it out (of T&T) alive." But, even so, is her statement entirely untrue? Could T&T somehow be reasonably compared to Liberia? The answer is no: T&T is worse. And there's proof.
Let's get some perspective here. Everyone is outraged by the high crime numbers in our little twin-island nation. Yet: Scores of people watch as a tourist is assaulted and robbed and left bloody on Carnival Tuesday in the heart of Carnival activity. That's scores of people plus a music truck whose DJ repeatedly calls on police to deal with a "situation", plus cameras clicking away, plus more people in the stands and on the stage watching.
Weeks after the brazen crime photos "surface" all over the Internet. People are busy sharing it, expressing their outrage as they "search for the criminals"–outraged Trinis like those who stood by and watched not 10 feet away.
People were outraged by massive, full-colour photos of a severed head on the front pages of two dailies. Yet: the papers sell out. Was there some kind of lofty, philosophical reason for breaking unwritten codes of ethics and taste in splashing that yellow journalism in everyone's face? No. For the media, crime is helping to get ratings; it is a commercial windfall. And consumers are lapping it up.
Trinis were outraged by Nicki Minaj's "ridiculous" and "unfair" comparison of Liberia and T&T as though we have some kind of pristine international reputation to maintain. Yet: celebrities come here...and get robbed like Queen Latifah in 2008 and Miss Universe Sushmita Sen in 1994.
T&T is worse off than Liberia. That's the truth. And here's the proof. Today, you are three and a half times more likely to be a homicide victim in T&T than in Liberia. Did anyone research this? Or did our instinctive, defensive "outrage" take the place of facts? It is far more likely you will be murdered in sweet, sweet T&T than in a country still reeling from years upon years of bloody civil wars.
T&T's murder rate ranks 11th in the world (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime), higher than that of South Africa, Sudan, Brazil, Russia, Pakistan... There have been around 4,400 reported murders since 2000. T&T's rate of homicide by firearm is 27.3, higher than that of Colombia, Gaza, Congo, the USA...
T&T's murder rate increased five-fold over a single decade, faster than the spread of local HIV infection (which Minaj also misquoted; incidentally, our HIV prevalence rate is the same as Liberia's: 1.5 per cent). Recently, Planning Minister Dr Bhoe Tewarie conceded that crime was "out of control." Indeed it is. There were 42 reported murders in May of last year. How many were "detected?" Four. Twenty-five reported murders in October. Detected? One.
Crime has been out of control for well over a decade. So it took only 10 years for such an admission from a government official.
Yet just one year ago, Attorney General Anand Ramlogan accused the Opposition of creating "hysteria" over the murder figures. According to the T&T Guardian news report: "Ramlogan dismissed that (that the January 2012 murder rate was the highest in several years) saying it was the lowest in three years. He said the murder rate was 38."
Apparently the AG was proud of a murder rate of 38. Today, the murder rate stands at 35, the 11th highest in the world. Should we have a parade?
In the past few years, we've gone through police commissioners and national security ministers faster than an AG can fly off the handle. It seems every politician is saying something incorrect or out of proportion or ludicrous when it comes to crime. And we, the people, likewise, haven't figured out whether we're truly outraged or indifferent or scared or coping.
The facts are listed in this column. If those numbers are not outrageous I don't know what is. Clearly the time has come and gone for us to be "outraged." We've long sullied whatever reputation we had. We've long decimated any fanciful notion of ourselves. We've long become so used to crime that we no longer know what to think or how to feel. Because for too long we've been living with a delusion of ourselves.