Vi­jay Ma­haraj

At the end of every year, a mood of in­tro­spec­tion takes over and the thoughts every­one usu­al­ly bat­tles with are, where has the time gone. “Oh! Just yes­ter­day was last New Year’s Day. I re­mem­ber it so clear­ly.” The im­me­di­ate year gone by feels like it was the fastest pe­ri­od of time to have elapsed. Think­ing back about the ma­jor events which oc­curred, you now feel as if you were loaf­ing while the world went on about its busi­ness.

We, the cit­i­zens of this land, should be con­cerned about what 2026 holds for us all. What dreams we hold for the un­fold­ing New Year and the res­o­lu­tions we make is an an­nu­al sto­ry.

The post-Christ­mas spir­it, which con­tin­ues to be felt, ought to can­cel out any feel­ings over fu­ture un­cer­tain­ty. How­ev­er, con­sid­er­ing the state of our na­tion, the rum­bling in Cari­com, the volatil­i­ty of armed con­flict, and the threat of war in the Caribbean and South Amer­i­ca, the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go must be con­cerned and their un­easi­ness is ob­vi­ous.

Crime sta­tis­tics may be down, but heinous homi­cides and the man­ner in which they have been car­ried out speak of a coun­try that is pop­u­lat­ed by evil souls who have not dis­crim­i­nat­ed against their vic­tims. From new­born ba­bies to very old per­sons, they are raped, tor­tured and butchered! We must ar­rest this sit­u­a­tion.

We have a new Gov­ern­ment with an over­whelm­ing ma­jor­i­ty that must get down to work, im­ple­ment­ing poli­cies and de­ci­sions fear­less­ly for the bet­ter­ment of the na­tion. Hark­ing over the fail­ures of the past decade is fu­tile.

Proac­tive steps must be tak­en by min­is­ters of Gov­ern­ment in deal­ing with spi­ralling un­em­ploy­ment, which of­ten leads to pover­ty and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. Na­tion-build­ing and unit­ing our peo­ple need to be done.

A ma­jor chal­lenge to the so­ci­ety re­volves around our chil­dren - pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary stu­dents’ in­volve­ment in gangs and bul­ly­ing, threat­en­ing the coun­try’s great­est nat­ur­al re­source.

There is an alarm­ing rise in ju­ve­nile delin­quen­cy and crim­i­nal be­hav­iour. So­cio-eco­nom­ic dis­par­i­ties, lack of men­tor­ship, role mod­els, skill de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes, fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty in­volve­ment in rais­ing a child are crit­i­cal.

Coun­tries around the world are pre­vent­ing ac­cess to so­cial me­dia for stu­dents un­der 16 years. Aus­tralia, Den­mark, New Zealand, France, Spain and Nor­way have done this. In 2026, Ire­land, UK, Swe­den, In­done­sia, Sin­ga­pore, Brazil and Malaysia will al­so be en­act­ing sim­i­lar mea­sures.

Recog­nis­ing the ma­jor con­cerns of chil­dren’s men­tal health, cy­ber­bul­ly­ing and ex­po­sure to harm­ful con­tents, pro­tect­ing their child­hood and al­low­ing them to fo­cus on their stud­ies in schools.

Once again, I make the plea to fol­low a sim­i­lar un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to adopt for our chil­dren’s fu­ture.

World pol­i­tics will have a ma­jor im­pact on Caribbean economies. Trade dis­tri­b­u­tions are eas­i­ly dis­rupt­ed, trade wars and tar­iffs are af­fect­ing sup­ply chains and re­sult­ing in ris­ing costs. The squab­bling be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Cari­com re­gard­ing the Caribbean be­ing a “Zone of Peace” in­evitably caus­es a down­turn in tourism in the re­gion, a key rev­enue source.

An­ti-mi­grant poli­cies in de­vel­oped coun­tries cre­ate fear and in­sta­bil­i­ty, af­fect­ing mi­gra­tion, re­duc­ing vi­tal fi­nan­cial re­mit­tances to fam­i­lies in the Caribbean, there­by wors­en­ing pover­ty. A di­vi­sion with­in the Caribbean blocs, in par­tic­u­lar Cari­com, weak­ens col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing pow­er against glob­al forces.

In 1958, there was a short-lived West In­dies Fed­er­a­tion, a po­lit­i­cal union of British Caribbean colonies, head­quar­tered in Trinidad. Mem­bers in­clud­ed Ja­maica, Trinidad and To­ba­go, An­tigua, Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, Montser­rat, St Kitts-Nevis and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

In 1961, due to in­ter­nal con­flicts, Ja­maica with­drew from the Fed­er­a­tion, cit­ing the dis­tri­b­u­tion of pow­er tax­a­tion and the cap­i­tal’s lo­ca­tion. Trinidad and To­ba­go with­drew in 1962, caus­ing the Fed­er­a­tion’s col­lapse in four short years.

On Ju­ly 5, 1972, the Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas was signed and the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) was found­ed, led by Trinidad and To­ba­go, Guyana, Ja­maica and Bar­ba­dos.

The Caribbean Free Move­ment of Work­ers al­lows Cari­com na­tion­als to seek work and live in oth­er mem­ber States with­out per­mits. Full free move­ment was ef­fec­tive­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ed in Oc­to­ber 2025 be­tween Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Do­mini­ca and St Vin­cent & Grenadines.

Free move­ment does not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly grant per­ma­nent res­i­den­cy or cit­i­zen­ship. It does, how­ev­er, al­low work, ed­u­ca­tion and health­care, al­low­ing for op­por­tu­ni­ties and re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion.

To­day, Cari­com’s ex­is­tence is un­der threat!

In 2026, main­stream me­dia and so­cial me­dia will be un­der a mi­cro­scope for al­leged­ly spread­ing “fake news.” News­pa­pers in par­tic­u­lar will be bought off or bul­lied in­to self-cen­sor­ship.

Rais­ing our stan­dard of liv­ing by care­ful­ly ex­e­cut­ing well-thought-out plans and poli­cies and the pru­dent use of our nat­ur­al re­sources to en­sure sus­tain­abil­i­ty for the fu­ture, is crit­i­cal.

Our 2026 New Year’s res­o­lu­tion should be fo­cused on work­ing hard, hav­ing pa­tience, and be­ing our broth­er’s keep­er.

Hap­py New Year!