I have read a blog by Arthur Snell, the Ox­ford-ed­u­cat­ed British high com­mis­sion­er to T&T (blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/snell/). He made Oc­to­ber sig­nif­i­cant for T&T be­cause this coun­try's dream of be­com­ing a "de­vel­oped coun­try" was achieved in that month. His rea­son for this as­ton­ish­ing state­ment is that T&T was re­moved from the OECD's (Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Eco­nom­ic Co-op­er­a­tion and De­vel­op­ment) De­vel­op­ment As­sis­tance Com­mit­tee's list of coun­tries el­i­gi­ble to re­ceive of­fi­cial de­vel­op­ment as­sis­tance in that month. His blog stat­ed that "the pre­mier in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion that makes a judg­ment on such mat­ters con­sid­ers T&T to be a de­vel­oped coun­try." By Snell's rea­son­ing, T&T is now a more de­vel­oped coun­try than Ar­genti­na, Chile, and Cos­ta Ri­ca, coun­tries that re­main on the list.

I am not of the view that GDP and per capi­ta gross na­tion­al in­come are ap­pro­pri­ate in­di­ca­tors of de­vel­op­ment, and I be­come very scep­ti­cal of such ut­ter­ances. I be­lieve that a de­vel­oped coun­try will pro­vide ac­cess by all its cit­i­zens to potable wa­ter and to qual­i­ty health­care; that op­pres­sion by the po­lice and oth­er forces will be low; that pover­ty lev­els would be low; that crime would be at a low lev­el; and that every­one would be pro­duc­tive­ly en­gaged in de­cent work. If T&T were a de­vel­oped coun­try there would be less cor­rup­tion, the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem would demon­strate qual­i­ty, and a mer­i­toc­ra­cy would pre­vail over po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion in state ap­point­ments. Can this coun­try be de­vel­oped when peo­ple defe­cate on the streets of the sig­na­ture city in broad day­light? When peo­ple can vend on the open high­ways?

When large ar­eas of land are oc­cu­pied by squat­ters? When schools are in­fect­ed by bul­ly­ing? When the en­vi­ron­ment is strewed with lit­ter? Can we re­al­ly be a de­vel­oped coun­try when there is so much child abuse? Can we re­al­ly be a de­vel­oped na­tion when plans for a full over­pass at a busy road junc­tion were aban­doned be­cause the de­sign in­cor­po­rat­ed an arch? I now have a quite dif­fer­ent un­der­stand­ing of diplo­ma­cy. It seems to be about telling peo­ple what you be­lieve they wish to hear. Please, Snell, do not let us lose our re­gard for Ox­ford.

David Sub­ran

Mon­trose, Ch­agua­nas