07 March 2002, 847 words
I don't think anyone could truthfully describe Trinidad as a successful society. The gung-ho patriots always point to our harmonious race relations as a lesson we have to offer the world. But that success is relative only to worst-case scenarios of official racism (like the Indesh state once recommended by our more bigoted Indo-Trinidadians) or racial killings.
To besides, I'm not sure if we can take any real credit for having avoided these extremes. That would imply a moral and ethical sensibility which Trinidadians do not display in any other facet of national life. Rather, I think it is our small geographical area and oil wealth which account for the relatively peaceful co-existence of the races on this island.
(The small land space ensures that the two racial groups have been unable to retreat into hermetic enclaves where prejudices could harden, while the oil and gas dollars have prevented the economy from becoming so parlous that demagogues could appeal to racial violence as a method of solving social problems.)
But, given the natural resources of this country, and given the intellectual and creative abilities of a significant number of individuals born here, it is fair to say that our society is a definite failure. That is, it is a failure relative to the levels of prosperity and social stability which our wealth and native talent should have created.
We see this most clearly by a comparison with the East Asian countries. As recently as the 1960s, there was little to choose economically between the Caribbean region and East Asia. Now, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore are main players in the world economy, while the Caribbean remains a sun-and-sea backwater.
Since a country like Singapore has fewer natural resources than we, it seems fair to say that our failure is essentially one of politics. I'm talking about politics in the widest sense: not only in terms of our politicians' obvious deficiencies, but also the deficiencies of average citizens which have allowed persons like Patrick Manning and Basdeo Panday to become national leaders.
We cannot even argue that our political problems were so different. Singapore, after all, has three ethnic groups. But divisiveness has been subsumed in Singaporean society which, though not democratic in terms of practical governance, is democratic in its adherence to rule of law and in its open economic system.
Here is the crucial difference between a post-colonial leader like Dr. Eric Williams and Lee Kuan Yew. Williams turned a blind eye to the rampant corruption which took place during his 30-year rule. Lee Kuan Yew dealt with official corruption decisively. The result was that business people, local and foreign, felt confident about Singapore in a way that wasn't true about Trinidad, despite our oil wealth.
This, I think, is the defining failure of our politics: a lack of ethical principles. We see this up to today, in Patrick Manning hiring his wife as Education Minister, in his administration giving itself salary increases in the absence of Parliament, and in the eagerness of several members of the bloated PNM Cabinet to buy expensive cars.
Let us not imagine, though, that this is PNM culture. The corruption and incompetence of the Panday regime, most recently highlighted in revelations about the Ms. Universe pageant and the Biche School construction, demonstrate that our politicians are corbeaux of a feather.
Let us also not fool ourselves into thinking that the lack of principle among our politicians exists separate from the wider society. I find it instructive, for example, that none of the daily newspapers has been able to object to the Manning government giving itself salary hikes, because all of them had previously supported pay increases for Parliament.
The reasoning was that Ministers were responsible for as much resources as executives in the private sector and should therefore be paid commensurably. It was also argued that high salaries would help prevent corruption. But this reasoning was - and is - specious. The issue is not how much resources Ministers handle, but how efficient they are and how liable to sanctions if they prove to be incompetent or corrupt. As for high incomes preventing corruption, well, excuse me while I sneeze.
In the absence of an effective Parliament - i.e. one where MPs aren't completely beholden to the Prime Minister and where the Senate doesn't have a built-in government majority - high salaries are ethically wrong. But the media owners also buy into the materialist ethos of our culture, which defines status by position rather than achievement, and which defines both by money alone.
This absence of ethics operates in every context, whether it is Richard Afong seeing no problem with his involvement in a decision that gave his own band a prize or Pastor Cuffie living like a highly-paid CEO or intellectuals placing ideology above data.
It is an integral part of our culture, and a key factor in the failure of our politics. And, until ethical principles start to inform our public life, this society will always be Third World.
Copyright ©2002 Kevin Baldeosingh