I cannot understand why our Government will not pause and give consideration to the general argument and the particular arguments.
The general argument is that we should try to escape from the plantation economics of selling your raw material and buying it back in processed and refined forms. Escape from the slave mentality.
The particular argument is that if we export crude and import refined products we will be subjecting our transport and electricity costs to fluctuating market prices, to the greed of those blessed with contracts to import, and to the logistics of supply (landing the products here from wherever) and distribution (making sure that all parts of the island are served promptly).
We have not even shown ourselves to be capable of distributing water which we do not have to import as yet, so we can expect rising prices and unreliable supply when it comes to fuels and oils. The problem is deep. To take a simple example: have the experts examined by how much the price of sugar has risen since we closed down Caroni and how the social dislocations brought about by this ‘market’ decision has disturbed our society?
Has anyone found an acceptable way of measuring the human costs of certain market-driven decisions and factoring them into what I call “the real cost”?
I despair. Year after year, rising prices, including the prices of imported commodities (check your drugstores), unsettle our personal budgets; and yet neither individuals nor Governments stumble into the realisation that we are continuously dealing with different symptoms of underlying malaise. If it's not one, is another.
We refuse to address the fundamentals relating to life and to our social arrangements. We regurgitate theories from abroad developed from other peoples’ perspectives to deal with their issues, but there is no original thinking coming out of our people on the issues of education reform, adult education, historical and philosophical understanding, and self-knowledge. There are questions to ask ourselves. What is the value of a human life? What meanings and what purposes can help us to make something satisfying from the inescapable fact of being in the world along with other people?
In more evangelical times I used to complain that our UWI did not prioritise a Department of Philosophy that would ground itself in the religious and philosophical traditions of our different peoples. We still don't have Philosophy at UWI and the last time I looked we were taking the origins of Western Philosophy as a starting point. So, I give up.
It is true that we have to deal with symptoms, and we might have to learn to live with some of them, but I am afraid that if we do not look bravely around us and use our minds to work on the fundamentals we will continue to regress into being heartless predators and hapless victims in a human jungle. Just like the Jangli Tola described in the novels of the late Sonny Ladoo.