Gillian Lucky

There are sev­er­al peo­ple who have in­di­cat­ed that while they share the con­cerns raised in my var­i­ous ar­ti­cles and agree with the so­lu­tions put for­ward for ma­ture and in­de­pen­dent con­sid­er­a­tion, they do not feel that there is any hope on the hori­zon for a bet­ter T&T. Some peo­ple have gone so far as to give a pat on the back for my ef­fort to stim­u­late and im­ple­ment pos­i­tive change but re­main pes­simistic about in­tel­lec­tu­al en­thu­si­asm be­ing con­vert­ed in­to mean­ing­ful re­sults.

Their po­si­tion is that the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion is so hell bent on do­ing its own thing with­out any thought be­ing giv­en to the prin­ci­ples of fair­ness, trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty that the views of those who op­pose bla­tant acts of im­pro­pri­ety by this regime are ba­si­cal­ly ig­nored or treat­ed with se­ri­ous con­tempt. The ob­vi­ous in­ten­tion is to ridicule, hu­mil­i­ate or frus­trate those in­di­vid­u­als who are chal­leng­ing this Gov­ern­ment on jus­ti­fi­able grounds.

Wrong and strong

And be­cause this regime has set a prece­dent of show­ing lit­tle or no re­spect for the opin­ions of recog­nised, as op­posed to anony­mous, ex­perts in spe­cif­ic fields, they have in­spired oth­ers who hold high of­fice to ar­ro­gant­ly re­fute crit­i­cism in in­stances when the in­di­vid­u­als are in­du­bitably wrong. To make mat­ters worse, the trans­gres­sors re­ly on words of com­fort and sup­port from politi­cians who preach on plat­forms and are pre­pared to com­pro­mise truth if it en­sures that leg­is­la­tion will pass when brought to the Par­lia­ment. That is the lev­el of com­pro­mise that has oc­curred in the re­cent past and in­stead of heads be­ing hung in shame over the in­ci­dent, we are bom­bard­ed with su­per­fi­cial smiles on the faces of those who have con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed the in­de­pen­dence of their of­fices.

Not in­to temp­ta­tion

So what are we to do, those of us who gen­uine­ly put coun­try first and act in the best in­ter­est of the State? Should we suc­cumb to temp­ta­tion and be se­duced by the dark side which would al­low per­son­al gain to dic­tate the de­ci­sions that we make? Or must we con­tin­ue to fight in the name of God and coun­try even if the odds are high­ly stacked against us? Of course the gov­ern­ment jesters would claim that we are liv­ing in the best of times and that cit­i­zens who are un­hap­py with the cur­rent state of af­fairs are in the mi­nor­i­ty.

Chief po­lit­i­cal clowns might even seek to con­vince the pop­u­la­tion that things are not as bad as they seem and that it is on­ly a hand­ful of mis­chief mak­ers who are de­trac­tors of this ad­min­is­tra­tion who are re­spon­si­ble for spread­ing the myth that we are liv­ing in trou­bled times. But for those who are dis­cern­ing and not eas­i­ly led astray by the ram­pant po­lit­i­cal rhetoric and the well-oiled pro­pa­gan­da ma­chin­ery of this regime, it is clear that we are in dire need of good lead­ers, he­roes, men­tors and ca­pa­ble ap­pren­tices. For the thou­sands who ap­pre­ci­ate the Star Wars epic, if the wicked Em­per­or and his loy­al ser­vant Darth Vad­er were to vis­it us, they would be rub­bing their hands in glee with the rot that has set in the core of this re­pub­lic.

Stop­ping ea­ger beavers

With very few places left to turn in or­der to be in­spired, from where can we gain the in­spi­ra­tion and sta­mi­na need­ed to press on in the fight to cre­ate pos­i­tive change? Easy ac­cess can be had to the words of fa­mous lead­ers who proved their worth by their no­ble acts and tremen­dous ac­com­plish­ments. But in a coun­try in which there is no sanc­tion for those who act in breach of their oaths of of­fice or dis­play gross in­com­pe­tence in the per­for­mance of their du­ties, there is very lit­tle in­spi­ra­tion for those who want to raise the bar or set high stan­dards.

The ea­ger-beaver, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed over-achiev­ers are be­ing stopped in their tracks be­cause this ad­min­is­tra­tion can ill-af­ford to let them run loose in case they ex­pose all the atroc­i­ties that the mass­es are pre­pared to for­give be­cause of par­ty af­fil­i­a­tion. And those who lead the op­pos­ing fac­tions are no bet­ter be­cause their per­son­al agen­das are giv­en prece­dence over what would be best in any giv­en sit­u­a­tion. The main op­po­si­tion par­ty is busy deal­ing with in­ter­nal con­flict that has been giv­en pub­lic cov­er­age and this is ad­verse­ly af­fect­ing its abil­i­ty to op­er­ate as a for­mi­da­ble watch­dog of the Gov­ern­ment. The par­ty in wait­ing which has no seats in the Par­lia­ment is led by a man who is so heav­i­ly guard­ed by syco­phants that any ad­verse com­ment about his weak­ness­es is met with im­me­di­ate furor. This re­al­i­ty how­ev­er does not de­tract from the com­mit­ment and ded­i­ca­tion of the rank and file which con­sists pri­mar­i­ly of men and women de­sirous of mean­ing­ful change.

What next?

So what are we left to do when all is said and done? To those who read this col­umn, be as­sured that my pa­tri­ot­ic bub­ble has not burst and like many oth­ers who love our coun­try, there will be no com­pro­mise of in­tegri­ty, in­de­pen­dence, jus­tice and truth. Ad­mit­ted­ly, it is be­com­ing more dif­fi­cult to con­vince peo­ple that they should not de­spair and that things will im­prove in the not too dis­tant fu­ture. And while there is noth­ing wrong with be­ing op­ti­mistic, look­ing on the bright side with­out more will not ad­vance our po­si­tion. It is for this rea­son we must be pre­pared to act at all times in ac­cor­dance with good con­science. To the many who take time from their busy sched­ules to com­mu­ni­cate their ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the ar­ti­cles writ­ten, I use this op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­press heart­felt thanks. At the end of the day know that you are my in­spi­ra­tion.