?I am not a UNC, but I have great ad­mi­ra­tion for Bas­deo Pan­day in his role as a for­mer trade union leader. I am not a UNC, but I have great ad­mi­ra­tion for Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in her dar­ing to take on the UNC "big boys."

I do not hold any UNC par­ty af­fil­i­a­tion, but I have great ad­mi­ra­tion for the strength of its mem­bers and for their vi­sion of putting par­ty be­fore an in­di­vid­ual. I am not a PNM, but I have great ad­mi­ra­tion for the in­tel­lect of Dr Er­ic Williams. I am not a PNM, but I have great re­spect for Dr Kei­th Row­ley in his dar­ing to stand up to the oth­er PNM "big boys." I do not hold any PNM par­ty af­fil­i­a­tion, but I have great ad­mi­ra­tion for the con­cept of equal ac­cess of ed­u­ca­tion for all. I am not a COP, but I have great ad­mi­ra­tion for the pa­tri­o­tism of Win­ston Dook­er­an. I am not a COP, but I have great ad­mi­ra­tion for the en­cour­age­ment of youth in pol­i­tics. I do not hold any COP par­ty af­fil­i­a­tion, but I have great ad­mi­ra­tion for the ini­tia­tive of its mem­bers in the dri­ve for Haiti. What am I then? Sim­ple, I am Trinidad and To­ba­go. Whether we agree or not with the call for all op­pos­ing par­ties to come to­geth­er to oust the PNM, that is not the big pic­ture. The big pic­ture is that those call­ing for this move recog­nise that many of us see the im­por­tance of set­ting aside per­son­al, po­lit­i­cal agen­das to come to­geth­er and ral­ly for coun­try.

Whether we feel this move is a waste of time and be­lieve that the PNM is a great and mighty par­ty is not the big pic­ture. The big pic­ture is that our sys­tem al­lows for free­dom of choice and voice and this is a right we must re­mem­ber we are en­ti­tled to use. When we get caught in the small pic­ture, we al­low our­selves to be dis­tract­ed from the big pic­ture, we al­low our­selves to be close-mind­ed and we do not make de­ci­sions based on the right rea­sons. Most of all, if we fail to see the big pic­ture, then we fail to see our­selves as the vi­tal force that can change the big pic­ture. In­stead we see us and them and we are en­cour­aged, by small pic­tures, to see our­selves as vic­tims rather than as stake­hold­ers. If we have noth­ing good to say about one par­ty be­cause we are mem­bers of an­oth­er par­ty, then we are see­ing the small pic­ture be­cause all par­ties have their strengths and weak­ness­es. The big pic­ture al­lows us to see all, have faith in the sys­tem and choose wise­ly who is best for this time, know­ing that the next time we may very well have to choose an­oth­er and that is per­fect­ly fine.

If we al­low our politi­cians to dri­ve a whole cam­paign based on pi­cong and in­sults and we cheer as oth­ers' rep­u­ta­tions are taint­ed, that is the small pic­ture. The big pic­ture al­lows us to walk out of po­lit­i­cal meet­ings that have no sol­id dis­cus­sions on crime, health, ed­u­ca­tion etc. Let us not be dis­tract­ed by the NA­PA or the church or Calder Hart or the wa­ter woes. These are small pic­tures of the big pic­ture. The big pic­ture is that our voic­es are what brought Hart and the Ude­cott sit­u­a­tion to light, so then we can use our voic­es to boy­cott shows at NA­PA un­til we see a space for our Car­ni­val. The big pic­ture is that we can ques­tion and place pres­sure on our sys­tem un­til we see some jus­tice. The big pic­ture is that it is on­ly now when wa­ter woes af­fect us all we ad­dress is­sues of in­com­pe­tence, mis­man­age­ment and con­ser­va­tion. Yet places like Moru­ga have been liv­ing with sim­i­lar wa­ter woes for the last 40 years. So we are as guilty as the politi­cians of in­sen­si­tiv­i­ty and in­di­vid­u­al­i­ty. This big pic­ture al­lows us to see that we, not the politi­cians, have the pow­er to ad­dress cor­rup­tion. We have the pow­er to put pres­sure on the sys­tem and de­mand re­sults. Our fail­ure to do so is based on self­ish­ness, small-mind­ed­ness and mis­placed al­le­giance, based on us fo­cus­ing our at­ten­tion on the small pic­ture.

Per­haps we con­tin­ue to see the small pic­ture be­cause we are not aware of our roles. The ca­lyp­son­ian, not the politi­cian, has the role of pi­cong; the re­li­gious bod­ies, not the Gov­ern­ment, have the role of re­in­forc­ing spir­i­tu­al­i­ty; the �peo­ple, not what­ev­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty is in pow­er, have the role of en­sur­ing that our coun­try moves in the right di­rec­tion. If we fail to use our voic­es, then we fail to use our pow­er. If we fail to use our pow­er, then we are vic­tims rather than na­tion-builders. If we choose to use our voic­es on­ly for the par­ty we are for, or on­ly when some­thing di­rect­ly af­fects us, then we are part of the very di­vi­sive, cor­rupt­ed pol­i­tics of which we com­plain. It's time for us all to see the big pic­ture. The big pic­ture is that there are no sides to speak up for or against and no races and colours for us to choose from. There is on­ly one side, there is on­ly one set of colours, there is on­ly T&T, there is on­ly the red, white and black.

?Joanne Haynes, via e-mail