Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions are on Au­gust 14, and you will be nom­i­nat­ed on June 26. So it be­gins, the ral­lies and walk­a­bouts, your sit­ting on raised stages with plas­tic wa­ter bot­tles, look­ing out at the help­less au­di­ences be­fore you. You may pre­dict dis­as­ter if peo­ple vote ‘for the oth­er side’ and sleep easy think­ing of pow­er and perks. That’s the hus­tle. I’m sure most of you are not griev­ing over the dai­ly dead, the thou­sands falling in­to the un­der­bel­ly of so­ci­ety, strug­gling to live.

I think of my friend and jour­nal­ist, the late Raoul Pan­tin, who quit smok­ing when his lungs were col­laps­ing by look­ing straight at a lit cig­a­rette with a **** Y** and nev­er lit one again. He died with PTSD ill­ness and a bro­ken heart for the coun­try he loved, a coun­try he near­ly died for with the bar­rel of a gun to his skull for six days of the at­tempt­ed coup of 1990.

When I get that jad­ed feel­ing, I hear him, “Math­ur, tell them not to **** with the peo­ple.” I would re­ply, “Raoul, that top spin in mud so many times. I’m jad­ed.”

 “Look, Math­ur,” he would re­ply, “Do the peo­ple’s work. Rage in­to the dy­ing of the light.”

I called up an­oth­er jour­nal­ist who, like Raoul, risked his life for this coun­try. Den­nis Mc­Comie bar­ri­cad­ed the doors of Ra­dio 610 in 1990 against in­sur­gents and was the na­tion’s voice dur­ing the me­dia black­out, keep­ing democ­ra­cy alive un­til the re­prieve. Mc­Comie, who was named the Ex­press In­di­vid­ual of the Year in 1990, is still suf­fer­ing from PTSD, still un­rec­om­pensed, still a pa­tri­ot, ob­serv­ing and qui­et­ly de­spair­ing for our coun­try. I’ll let Mc­Comie speak for us all.

“In the last years of Raoul’s life (like most sur­vivors in the line of fire, in­clud­ing par­lia­men­tar­i­ans like Jen­nifer John­son, who died in Feb­ru­ary 2023) Raoul was ut­ter­ly de­stroyed men­tal­ly, emo­tion­al­ly, eco­nom­i­cal­ly, and ig­nored by the State. Every­one re­treat­ed. Ad­min­is­tra­tions have not pub­licly ad­dressed that event. It is not in our his­to­ry books. Peo­ple un­der 33 know noth­ing of it. They don’t un­der­stand why we live in a cul­ture of death and in­dif­fer­ence.

 “1990 trau­ma­tised every cit­i­zen, even if you were home safe. There was no heal­ing. It has got much worse. 1990 start­ed the in­flux of arms, am­mu­ni­tion, and drugs. Now we are all scream­ing, shout­ing at one an­oth­er. Are we lis­ten­ing to one an­oth­er? We don’t re­spect con­sen­sus. We are not com­mu­ni­cat­ing. Hu­man needs, shel­ter, food, safe­ty and health are un­met. Peo­ple are shout­ing and killing as cit­i­zens are pan­ick­ing and break­ing down. It feels as if our de­fence was for noth­ing.

“When I was go­ing to work on Ju­ly 27, 1990, a taxi dri­ver told me peo­ple were be­ing vi­o­lent with one an­oth­er over small things. To­day is an echo of that vi­o­lence but worse. Since then, many more guns have been used to kill peo­ple. If you are walk­ing on the wrong road, you could get shot. That one event has turned in­to a dai­ly oc­cur­rence. We have dis­in­te­grat­ed. There is no re­spect for one an­oth­er. We’ve for­got­ten the sa­cred­ness of life and the val­ue of peace.

“The mor­tal coil ab­sorbs the trau­ma, and you try to sur­vive, af­fect­ing all of us in ter­ri­ble ways. If we de­cide to re­main peo­ple of de­nial, the wound will fes­ter, and we will con­tin­ue to suf­fer trau­ma, con­tin­ue to shout at one an­oth­er, and kill in­stead of com­mu­ni­cat­ing.

“When can­di­dates get elect­ed, we get hubris, ar­ro­gance, greed, lies, cor­rup­tion, and ego. Can they see their goal not as pow­er but as a sa­cred du­ty to be above board, un­der­stand they are paid to gov­ern, up­hold in­sti­tu­tions, and gov­ern with good­ness? Do they want to be like ban­dits who wish for what oth­ers have, or do they like to re­store heal­ing in a coun­try where blood is shed reg­u­lar­ly?

“We are busy try­ing to pay bills and ab­sorbed with our anger with oth­ers. We will im­plode if we don’t change. We must think of who we are, and how we feel about shared civic val­ues, cul­tures, and di­ver­si­ty, and ask our­selves if we care about T&T’s nat­ur­al and built her­itage.

“We must push past that to be­come au­then­tic cit­i­zens to erase this cul­ture of death and in­dif­fer­ence. If you are giv­en re­spon­si­bil­i­ties at any lev­el, as a politi­cian or cit­i­zen, you must be held to ac­count, and if not in this mor­tal world, the uni­verse will take its due. We must seek truth and beau­ty in all we do.”

Truth and beau­ty in all we do. An ide­al, yes, but the on­ly weapon there is against death and in­dif­fer­ence. And yes, as Raoul Pan­tin would have said, Don’t **** with the peo­ple. Al­so. Learn from his­to­ry. You have the pow­er. Use it for a na­tion that has tak­en a beat­ing over decades.

Ira Math­ur is a Guardian colum­nist and the win­ner of the non-fic­tion OCM Bo­cas Prize for Lit­er­a­ture 2023.