East­er is the most im­por­tant hol­i­day in the Chris­t­ian cal­en­dar. It cel­e­brates life and death, and through the res­ur­rec­tion, the promise of eter­nal life. It is a re­new­al, a re­birth that fol­lows a pe­ri­od of self-de­nial and fast­ing, joy that comes af­ter sor­row. It re­flects the self­less­ness of sac­ri­fice and the val­ues of faith, hope, and char­i­ty. It is a cel­e­bra­tion that is full of pow­er­ful sym­bol­ism and im­por­tant lessons to guide the liv­ing. This re­li­gious fes­ti­val al­so oc­curs at a time when the sea­sons change, when the yel­low poui blooms, a nat­ur­al metaphor.

These are pow­er­ful lessons about life and dai­ly liv­ing that are wel­come guide­lines at any time. They are even more im­por­tant to T&T now, as the coun­try con­tin­ues its in­de­pen­dence jour­ney. This East­er peo­ple will be able to con­gre­gate and en­joy ac­tiv­i­ties de­nied them dur­ing the last two years be­cause of the ex­i­gen­cies of COVID-19.

The COVID-19 threat has not dis­ap­peared as is ex­em­pli­fied by mu­ta­tions that have caused new out­breaks in oth­er coun­tries, Chi­na in­clud­ed. Re­turn­ing to nor­mal re­quires vig­i­lance, care and con­sid­er­a­tion for our fel­low cit­i­zens as we go about our ac­tiv­i­ties ad­her­ing to the ba­sics by wear­ing masks, wash­ing hands reg­u­lar­ly and main­tain­ing so­cial dis­tanc­ing.

As so­ci­ety re­turns to a lev­el of nor­mal ac­tiv­i­ty, vi­o­lent crime nev­er far away has re­turned. It is hoped that the mur­der rate will not re­turn to or sur­pass the 2019 lev­el. Com­plaints about the weak state of law en­force­ment are rou­tine. Even more un­set­tling was the rev­e­la­tion by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter that more than forty-one per cent of the CCTV cam­eras, so im­por­tant in the fight against crime were non-func­tion­al. One would ex­pect a nor­mal rate of five per cent or less. This shock­ing state of dis­re­pair in the elec­tron­ic sur­veil­lance sys­tem rais­es oth­er is­sues about dis­ci­pline and or­der and the util­i­ty of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre. That no date was giv­en when this sit­u­a­tion would be cor­rect­ed rais­es oth­er is­sues.

New fu­el prices at the pump will take ef­fect im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the East­er cel­e­bra­tions on Tues­day. A glob­al in­fla­tion­ary trend had al­ready emerged as a re­sult of the glob­al sup­ply chain im­bal­ances that caused lock­down mea­sures to re­duce the spread of the virus. The hos­til­i­ties of the Rus­sia-Ukraine war have added to this in­fla­tion trend which will con­tin­ue for some time af­ter the hos­til­i­ties cease. These are un­known. In­fla­tion has a desta­bil­is­ing ef­fect and chal­lenges from sec­tions of civ­il so­ci­ety ap­pear im­mi­nent if we are to judge by the com­ments em­a­nat­ing from the union lead­ers.

These com­pli­ca­tions will test the co­her­ence of civ­il so­ci­ety and the met­tle of lead­ers to keep the sit­u­a­tion calm while treat­ing with the un­der­ly­ing is­sues. Arch­bish­op Gor­don in ad­dress­ing his con­gre­ga­tion on Holy Thurs­day not­ed that T&T’s lead­ers do not serve their fol­low­ers. In keep­ing with the East­er theme of the virtues of self­less­ness and ser­vice, it is an im­por­tant re­minder that the re­al pur­pose of lead­er­ship is to serve the needs of the pub­lic. We hope that the les­son of this East­er will en­dure.