Dear young peo­ple of Trinidad & To­ba­go,

We are all up­set. We are all as equal­ly hurt and out­raged by all the things that are hap­pen­ing in so­ci­ety and that we have been forced to live with all our lives as any of our peers in the US.

The Co­conuts dis­crim­i­na­tion, the di­vi­sion of races every elec­tion pe­ri­od, the lies we were taught in school about Colum­bus and how good it was that the Spaniards brought Je­sus to the those prim­i­tive Amerindi­ans. And we have al­so seen huge sums of mon­ey lost; politi­cians’ bank ac­counts bloat­ed; no move to di­ver­si­fy; the one per­cent laugh at the re­main­ing 99 per cent of us; a lack­lus­ter ap­proach to strength­en­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s stand­ing in the CARI­COM and wider re­gion.

We’ve been vic­tim­ized by su­per­fi­cial pol­i­tics which scream “free roti”, “free lap­tops”, “free light­bulbs”, and nary a squeak about eco­nom­ic and con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, re­al in­vest­ment in ed­u­ca­tion, or at­tempts to heal cen­turies of racism and di­vi­sive pol­i­tics in this coun­try.

For me, my vote mat­ters. I have en­sured my name is on the EBC list. Do the same. Let’s shake things up. You want to protest? Vot­ing is the most po­tent form of protest we can do. This is the on­ly form of protest that every politi­cian in this coun­try is afraid of, be­cause, to quote the dear douen him­self, “They ain’t ri­ot yet.”

So let’s do just that. Let’s protest with proud ink-stained fin­gers at the bal­lot box on Elec­tion Day: let’s make the politi­cians and the sta­tus quo quake as we cast our votes with sheer num­bers that will bog­gle their minds.

Cam­bridge An­a­lyt­i­ca (al­leged­ly) came in­to this coun­try in 2010 and con­vinced an en­tire swathe of our pop­u­la­tion to get off their tails and vote, and it con­vinced an­oth­er set of us to not vote.

We can­not let our choice be tak­en from us.

And this is where I urge you: vote in­de­pen­dent.

Put a spoke in the wheels of the nasty pol­i­tics that has plagued our coun­try for decades and make the politi­cians trem­ble. Show them that we are fed up of these two mea­ger choic­es that are con­sis­tent­ly pa­rad­ed be­fore us and, in­stead, vote whichev­er in­de­pen­dent man or in­de­pen­dent par­ty you want to: but do NOT vote red and do NOT vote yel­low, be­cause nei­ther of these op­tions will al­low the stat­ues of their ego and their de­sire for pow­er and their lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty to be torn down.

Vot­ing in­de­pen­dent may not re­move ei­ther of these par­ties from the halls of the Red House; it may not even end with a sin­gle in­de­pen­dent can­di­date be­ing giv­en a seat in Par­lia­ment, but you know what it will do? It will show them - in the af­ter­math of elec­tions - with the big da­ta that will roll in to both the hous­es of the Ris­ing Sun and that of the Bal­isi­er: the young peo­ple are fed up, and are get­ting in­volved, and re­volt­ing.

Stop be­ing de­fined by these two sym­bols - a ris­ing sun and a bal­isi­er - be­cause these are not your sym­bols. Your sym­bols are the Scar­let Ibis, the Hum­ming­bird, the Cocrico, the Cha­co­nia and a flag that is al­to­geth­er Red, White and Black, and an over­ar­ch­ing par­ty named “Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Your loy­al­ty lies to the Re­pub­lic, all that it stands for, and all that it can be.

But even if you dis­agree with me, just call EBC - get your names on that list. And vote. Just vote. Just make your voice heard, make your opin­ion count. You want to con­tin­ue prop­ping up the old cronies? That is your birthright and your choice - so reg­is­ter to vote. Ri­ot with the pens on Elec­tion Day and mark that X with pride. But come out in your num­bers; show them that we - as the younger gen­er­a­tion - are not go­ing to be cowed in­to stay­ing home; that we are a bloc - and that they need to take us se­ri­ous­ly. Be­cause they will see; they will see af­ter the elec­tions that the change that is hap­pen­ing the world over is al­so hap­pen­ing here. That the younger gen­er­a­tion is com­ing out, is clam­or­ing to be heard and de­ter­mined to make them lis­ten to us scream.

Call the EBC - get your names on the list and your ID cards up­dat­ed.

Vote 2020.

Nicholas Shane Jagdeo

Au­thor of “The First Jew: The Res­ur­rec­tion of Abra­ham”

www.nicholas­jagdeo.com