Bo­bie-lee Dixon

It was Eng­lish po­et John Mil­ton who wrote in 1634 that there is a "sil­ver lin­ing in every dark cloud." For many, the re­cent an­nounce­ment by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar that de­clared T&T un­der a state of emer­gency ac­com­pa­nied by an eight-hour cur­few has placed a "spoke in their wheels."For the most part, busi­ness own­ers are lit­er­al­ly bawl­ing, as they say the cur­few has placed a damper on the way they run their busi­ness­es-forc­ing them to al­ter their op­er­a­tions. Shift work­ers are now pulling longer hours of work, while some em­ploy­ers have even had to cut down on the hours of em­ploy­ees in or­der to keep their busi­ness­es afloat dur­ing this pe­ri­od.Even cul­tur­al, so­cial and re­li­gious ac­tiv­i­ties have been in­fringed up­on due to the im­posed cur­few.

For the holy month of Ra­madan the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty was un­able to per­form its cus­tom­ary Taraweh Prayer (ad­di­tion­al night prayer), usu­al­ly read from 7.45pm, last­ing an hour to an hour and a half. Yes­ter­day, Mus­lims cel­e­brat­ed Eid Mubarak (the hol­i­day is to­day). Thank­ful­ly cel­e­bra­tion ac­tiv­i­ties did not have to be al­tered as they took place dur­ing the course of the day on­ly.Eco­nom­i­cal­ly, it has al­so been grav­el in the foot for some pop­u­lar en­ter­tain­ment spots that cater to the limers who en­joy a late night out, as they have to "close up shop" ear­ly every night.What could prob­a­bly be de­scribed as one of the biggest in­fringe­ments thus far, was the re­stric­tion of yes­ter­day's an­nu­al In­de­pen­dence Day evening fire­works dis­play that usu­al­ly sees hun­dreds flock­ing to the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah each year to wit­ness.

In an in­ter­view with An­dre Abra­ham, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Fire­One Fire­Works on this is­sue, he said he be­lieved the sac­ri­fice this year was worth it, if that is what it would take to build back a safe and en­joy­able T&T."When we heard about the cur­few we were in the mid­dle of prepar­ing all our 'works'," said Abra­ham."We had al­ready or­gan­ised for our usu­al In­de­pen­dence Day shows and the re­tail as­pect, which caters to con­sumers. We were al­so sched­uled to start In­de­pen­dence Day sales last week, but as soon as we heard the PM's an­nounce­ment we took a cor­po­rate and com­mu­ni­ty de­ci­sion to sus­pend all sales both com­mer­cial and re­tail," ex­plained Abra­ham.He added that al­though the com­pa­ny has lost a con­sid­er­able amount of time with re­gards to prepa­ra­tion, and fi­nances spent are now tied up, pos­si­bly un­til next year, the safe­ty of our coun­try was more im­por­tant."As much as we would all like the cur­few to be lift­ed to make a dol­lar....we must re­alise that we have all our lives to make a prof­it. And in or­der to en­joy a more peace­ful, safe and se­cure life as Trin­bag­o­ni­ans then we must sup­port this ini­tia­tive."

A sil­ver lin­ing

Tak­ing all things in­to con­sid­er­a­tion, one man has a very pos­i­tive out­look on the Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to de­clare a state of emer­gency and cur­few. He even be­lieves it can be deemed as a bless­ing in dis­guise.Au­thor and Pas­tor, Frank M Porter sees an op­por­tu­ni­ty for fam­i­ly life to be re­in­stat­ed and for peo­ple to get clos­er to their God."A lot of peo­ple have not been com­mu­ni­cat­ing as fam­i­lies, with a cur­few now in­tact more or less every­one is home to­geth­er. I be­lieve it is the most op­por­tune time for fam­i­lies to bond and bond­ing is crit­i­cal in any fam­i­ly unit."No one has an ex­cuse now why they can't sit to­geth­er and have a meal or why they can't spend recre­ation­al time in­side the home to­geth­er."From what I know, the cur­few has sent some fam­i­lies in­to a place where, for the first time in a long time they could ac­tu­al­ly get to­geth­er and play a game of cards, domi­noes and oth­er board games as a fam­i­ly," said Porter.

"I think what this cur­few has done, it has al­lowed peo­ple to slow down and take stock of their lives."We have just been go­ing and go­ing....break­ing down our bod­ies, now we have a chance to even get a full eight hours rest. Trou­bled mar­riages al­so have a chance to be mend­ed as now it is the great­est time for peo­ple to draw clos­er to their God. There is more time to read the word and spend qual­i­ty time with Christ," Porter ar­tic­u­lat­ed.He added that we were priv­i­leged to be in a so­ci­ety where there is still an op­por­tu­ni­ty to put a hand on crime, be­cause the record shows that that we re­al­ly have been able to curb it over the few days. We were go­ing down a de­struc­tive path and peo­ple were los­ing hope just sit­ting around wait­ing to see who next would be killed. I think we ought to re­al­ly look for the sliv­er lin­ing in this en­tire sit­u­a­tion."