In Coun­tries with a func­tion­al two-par­ty sys­tem there is co­op­er­a­tion in times of Na­tion­al cri­sis.

In the Unit­ed Stat­ed of Amer­i­ca, De­mo­c­rat and Re­pub­li­can joined against Al Qae­da af­ter the 9/11 at­tacks. In Britain the op­pos­ing Labour and Con­ser­v­a­tives par­ties worked to­geth­er in help­ing to de­feat Hitler in World War 2.

In Ire­land Po­lit­i­cal par­ties the Fi­an­na Fail and Fine Gael agreed to en­ter dis­cus­sion for the first time ever re­gard­ing the Coro­n­avirus COVID-19.

In Grena­da, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the two main Po­lit­i­cal par­ties held dis­cus­sion on fos­ter­ing greater col­lab­o­ra­tion ad­dress­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and its im­pact on Coun­try and its peo­ple. Un­for­tu­nate­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go, that co­op­er­a­tion does not ex­ist in na­tion­al emer­gen­cies. The op­po­si­tion must op­pose on every is­sue for­mu­lat­ed by the rul­ing par­ty, the Gov­ern­ment in at­tempt to bring their demise. Why has there not been any con­sul­ta­tion with Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion?

The Coro­na Virus – COVID-19 is rag­ing across the world, ram­pant in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The present gov­ern­ment has pre­sent­ed at least four (4) dif­fer­ent vac­cines to the pop­u­la­tion, yet af­ter al­most one year less than 50% of the pop­u­la­tion is vac­ci­nat­ed. Af­ter the re­sound­ing loss of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Elec­tions in ear­ly De­cem­ber 2021, op­po­si­tion to a vac­ci­nat­ed so­ci­ety is un­der threat from all quar­ters of so­ci­ety, an­ti­vaxxers have come out to play.

Manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tion has ex­ist­ed for decades in Trinidad and To­ba­go, per­mis­sion for a child to en­ter pri­ma­ry school de­mands that a five year old be vac­ci­nat­ed with a bat­tery of vac­cines and their boost­ers in­clud­ing, Measles, Whop­ping Cough, Po­lio, Rubel­la etc. re­fusal by par­ents/guardians to al­low their tod­dlers to be vac­ci­nat­ed pro­hibits their en­try to the Pub­lic School Sys­tem.

On­line school­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly for 5 to 11-year-olds does not work and is do­ing more dam­age than good. Ab­sence from phys­i­cal school is mak­ing them phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly ill.

The idea that chil­dren sit for four to six hours is not plau­si­ble. In years gone by we chas­tised par­ents for al­low­ing chil­dren to watch to many hours of Tele­vi­sion. Ever won­dered why with­in the last few years the op­ti­cal busi­ness has been flour­ish­ing.

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and it’s vari­ant rel­a­tives has rav­aged the earth with more than five (5) mil­lion deaths, pan­dem­ic fa­tigue, brain fog has caused us af­ter near­ly two (2) years to be un­car­ing, no longer hor­ri­fied, shocked by the death of love ones, it’s as though we have sur­ren­dered.

In 1972, Trinidad and To­ba­go was threat­ened by Po­lio, Prime Min­is­ter Er­ic Williams took the dras­tic step of post­pon­ing Car­ni­val, protests were plen­ty, Dr. Williams de­clared, Car­ni­val post­poned, “Mas in May”.

Car­ni­val orig­i­nat­ed di­rect­ly from the Chris­t­ian re­li­gion, cen­turies ago Ital­ians of the Catholic Church be­gan hold­ing cos­tume fes­ti­vals/Par­ties be­fore the on­set of the Lenten Sea­son, there is ab­sten­tion of meat con­sump­tion, and this pe­ri­od was re­ferred to as CARNEVALE.

Carnevale be­gan spread­ing through­out Catholic coun­tries in Eu­rope. When the Eu­ro­pean ex­plor­ers be­gan to Col­o­nize the world they brought the tra­di­tion of Carnevale with them.

Car­ni­val as it is known to­day was in­tro­duced to Trinidad by French Set­tlers around 1783.

The wealthy farm­ers/planters took part in fan­cy fes­ti­vals, danc­ing the nights away. Over the many hun­dreds of years Trinidad Car­ni­val has evolved pub­lic opin­ion is di­vid­ed for bet­ter or worse.

In­den­tured labour­ers from In­dia be­gan ar­riv­ing in Trinidad in 1845 bring­ing with them their Re­li­gion and Cul­ture. One of the an­tic­i­pat­ed days in Hin­duism is Shi­va Raa­tri.

Shi­va Raa­tri is ob­served on the four­teenth day of the lu­nar month of Phal­gun, in the dark half of the moon phase. In 2022 Shi­va Raa­tri ob­ser­vance will be on Mon­day 28th Feb­ru­ary. The Car­ni­val pe­ri­od for 2022 is 28th Feb­ru­ary and 1st March with Ash Wednes­day be­ing 2nd March, the first day of lent start­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly six (6) weeks of fast­ing and penance be­fore East­er.

It is dif­fi­cult to imag­ine two events with such marked con­trast be­ing close to­geth­er. Car­ni­val, an event over two days ap­peal­ing the na­ture of hu­mans be­ings, while Shi­va Raa­tri ap­peals to the Re­li­gious be­hav­iour, a night cel­e­bra­tion, this solemn event re­mem­ber­ing Shi­va with prayers, fast­ing and med­i­tat­ing over a twelve hour pe­ri­od.

As the world strug­gles to re­spond to the coro­n­avirus COVID 19, deaths is around every cor­ner, we are left to won­der, are our lead­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go work­ing to­geth­er to de­feat this com­mon en­e­my.

Can we not now re­fer to the phase Sur­vival Of The Fittest (Dar­win­ian evo­lu­tion­ary the­o­ry) now ap­pro­pri­ate­ly be re­ferred to as “Sur­vival of the Vac­ci­nat­ed”?