A pebble sealed away in a sterile, static, vacuum chamber for 59 years would look, weigh and feel the same as it was on the day it was placed in storage. On the other hand, if the pebble was under dramatically-altered paradigms, it would be whittled down considerably, or even turned into dust, probably inside the first 59 minutes.
Time alone does not bring about change. Other forces must intervene to impact upon a situation as time progresses. The news that thousands of citizen farmers have finally received leases or licences for state lands must be trumpeted. The fanfare would again underscore the Kamla Persad-Bissessar administration has the willpower to search out novel ways when confronted by seemingly intractable challenges.
The People's National Movement (PNM) arrived in 1956. It promised to turn rural T&T into a beehive of sustainable activity. Food production was to be the main enterprise. Technical and commercial trades and other downstream and upstream activities–such as roadbuilding and tourism–were to have been encouraged to provide able support. Lands dedicated to sugar were to have been supplanted by a full range of familiar and exotic tropical and sub-tropical food items. Dr Williams even talked of exporting topi-tambo to compete with water chestnuts. The idea was aimed at boosting a taste for independence through food security.
The reality was quite different though. PNM's shambolic oversight for 25 consecutive years ensured that, by the time it demitted office in 1986, the agricultural sector and rural T&T were in a tailspin.On reflection, it was never the will of any PNM administration to boost rural T&T. Despite windfall petrodollars, under PNM rule T&T simply lost its way. Undoing and reversing entrenched ignorance are always extremely difficult propositions: it might take seven days to form a habit, but seven times seven days to break it...unless where the willpower is very strong and on the right track.
When the PNM was removed in 1986, there was a marked improvement in food production under the forward-thinking National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR). The household food bill plummeted. Citizens' appetite for locally-grown produce skyrocketed. T&T came close to being self-sufficient. Sadly, but not unexpectedly, in 1991, it all unravelled due to a stop-order issued by the PNM tag team of Manning and Rowley the instant they displaced the NAR.
Rural development did not revive until the United National Congress (UNC) came in, in 1995. Just as the fruits of UNC's labours started to make T&T look rosy again, treachery intervened and allowed the PNM tag team to retake charge, in 2001. They promptly resumed where they had left off in 1995, this time with a vengeance. Rowley became lead surgeon in a very precise, anti-rural operation which saw huge swaths of cultivated, fertile, arable lands in non-PNM constituencies being carved off to make room for poorly-designed, high-density, pro-PNM, concrete jungles.
Anyone standing in the way was throttled. In 2008, for instance, UNC's Khadijah Ameen was arrested and charged while rallying displaced farmers in Spring Village, Curepe. Back then, she was their local government representative. The case was dismissed. Which PNM representative has ever gone all out in that fashion to champion the cause of rural T&T?
PNM spokesmen have been very critical of the Persad-Bissessar administration's emphasis on upgrading rural T&T. What further proof is needed that Rowley and company are still stuck in a mindset that literally held back proper development of the majority of T&T's physical landscape for more than 50 years? What further proof that it's best to keep the PNM where it's at since May 24, 2010?
Richard Wm Thomas,
Five Rivers