Dr Garvin Heerah
It was around 6.30 am and the mist was still blanketing parts of the luscious green grass of the Queen’s Park Savannah. A group of innocent second formers from the majestic Queen’s Royal College hurried across the busy road.
We stopped by “Saucer”, an old heavy-set Indian lady who sold fruits opposite the college, to buy “pootigal” and then continued all the way inwards into the Savannah to the edge of the racehorse track. We used to do this every morning before school started, to watch the race horses train and gallop. You could hear the echo of their hooves beating an adventurous rhythm on the Savannah floor as the horse and jockey teams trained. We used to enjoy these escapades. I remember it like yesterday.
I would often do this trek in honour of those precious memories and great times with my Blue Brothers.
Today was one of these mornings. It was cool, and the dew still clung to the grass as it did so many years ago. Port-of- Spain was just beginning to stir, the rhythm of life picking up in distant sounds of cars, joggers, and vendors preparing their stalls. I walked slowly, deliberately, savouring the rare calm before the day’s hustle.
As I reached the stretch facing the Belmont hills, the first rays of sunlight began to push through. The magnificent Tower of QRC behind me as I walked slowly across the greens. The horses had long gone, faded away into just a memory, sadly.
The sky was painted in gold and soft orange and the hills themselves seemed to glow. It was at that moment that a memory stirred, a song from one of our great calypsonians, Singing Sandra. Her voice came back to me as clear as if she were standing in the Savannah herself, “Nobody wins a war…”
The words from her calypso The War Goes On lingered in my spirit, as though the rising sun was illuminating more than just the horizon. It was also shining light on the struggles of our region, on the tensions that once again place T&T at a delicate crossroads. Singing Sandra never wrote for entertainment alone. Her calypsoes were parables wrapped in melody, truths delivered with rhythm and wit. In The War Goes On, she sang of devastation inflicted “time and time again by man against fellow man.”
The message was not confined to tanks and bombs, but to every form of human conflict, political, ideological, social. At the heart of the chorus is the bitter truth, victory is always incomplete because the agony of defeat lingers for generations.
Standing there watching the sun climb over Belmont, I could feel the weight of that chorus: “Nobody wins a war.”
In our present day, the echoes of Sandra’s song are louder than ever. T&T finds itself in the middle of a complicated dance between two larger forces, our neighbour Venezuela to the west, and the United States to the north, whose shadow stretches across the hemisphere.
Venezuela, struggling with its internal crises, speaks of sovereignty and warns against foreign interference. The United States, with its vast resources and reach, presses forward with sanctions, naval patrols, and counternarcotics missions in Caribbean waters. Here we are, a small twin-island state, caught between giants, trying to preserve neutrality while still safeguarding our economic survival.
Energy projects that once held promise for us, the chance to tap Venezuela’s gas fields, have been stalled or revoked by US sanctions. Migration has become a lived reality, with Venezuelans seeking refuge on our shores. The ever-present risk of being drawn into military or diplomatic conflict hangs like a cloud over our horizon.
As I walked, I realised Sandra’s song was no longer just about distant wars, it was about us, now, in real time. When Sandra sang that line, she was not being poetic alone, she was being prophetic.
Venezuela suffers under economic sanctions, political isolation, and social strain. The United States spends resources, projects power, but risks moral standing and creates resentment among its southern neighbours. T&T loses opportunities, faces pressures, and sees its people bearing the strain of economic uncertainty and migration.
Yes, each nation may claim tactical gains. The US might speak of curbing illicit flows. Venezuela might speak of defending its sovereignty. T&T might try to balance the scales diplomatically. But the bigger picture is clear, everyone is left wounded in some way. Nobody wins a war.
One of the most haunting lines in Sandra’s calypso is her lament that leaders play chess games with human lives, turning ordinary people into pawns. As I gazed out at the Savannah, I thought of how true that is for us.
Ordinary Venezuelan families, mothers, fathers, children are pushed across borders in search of survival. Ordinary Trinidadians wonder about job security, rising costs, and whether energy projects will ever materialise. Ordinary Americans pay little attention to these policies, yet their taxes and votes fuel the engines of intervention.
At every level, the pawns bear the cost.
The sun rose higher, warming the morning, and I found myself reflecting on Sandra’s deeper message. She insisted that war cannot truly end with treaties or ceasefires unless the war inside the human heart is addressed. Greed, ambition, the thirst for power, these are the true battlefields.
Perhaps that is the lesson for us in T&T. Our role should not be to amplify the conflicts of larger powers, but to act as a voice of reason, a place of balance, a reminder that peace in the region must be nurtured, not imposed. If we can hold firm to diplomacy, to neutrality, and to the well-being of our people, then perhaps we can honour Sandra’s vision of a “spiritual revolution.” The rising sun seemed to whisper that hope is still possible, but only if we remember the chorus: “Nobody wins a war.”
As I completed my walk across the Savannah, the city was now alive with traffic and activity. The calm of dawn had given way to the busyness of another day in Port-of-Spain. Yet Sandra’s song stayed with me.
We are at a moment in history where decisions will ripple far beyond immediate politics. T&T must navigate carefully, remembering that our survival depends not on being pawns of others, but on asserting our sovereignty and humanity. We must press for dialogue, not division; for regional cooperation, not confrontation.
Perhaps, in holding to this path, we will honour the calypsonian who warned us so clearly, wars may go on, but they cannot be won.
As the sun blazed fully over Belmont, I whispered a silent prayer for our region that the leaders of today might learn the wisdom in her chorus before it is too late. Because truly, nobody wins a war.
(Memories dedicated to some great Blue Brothers who walked the Savannah to watch the horses, Christopher Azar, Andrew Ali, Kevin Sankar (deceased), Neil Elliot, Dave Jardine and Gaindo Sooklal).
