23 April 2002, 865 words
This country is run by stupid and greedy people. There are exceptions, of course. But, for the most part, our leading citizens are neither smart nor principled.
The political deadlock has made this truth more obvious that it was before. Except for their hardcore supporters, nobody is fooled by the PNM and UNC rhetoric about democracy and legality and morality and what-have-you. Both sides are solely concerned with, as Sprangalang puts it, "getting a wuk": the PNM to hang on to the cash register for as long as possible, the UNC to get back the register as soon as possible.
The 18-18 tie has revealed our politicians for what the non-hardcore citizens always knew they were: money-hungry, self-aggrandising, bereft of ideas. But, since it is we who make them our leaders, what is true for the politicians must be true for most of us. In the weekend's sick-out by doctors, for instance, one medical spokesman made a comment I found particularly instructive. When told that Health Minister Colm Imbert had urged doctors to exercise responsibility, the aptly named Dr. Angelo Fortune said that he didn't think in the present political climate, any politician had the right to urge responsibility on others.
While it is true that no active politician in this country has any moral authority, Fortune's response just boils down to two wrongs making a right. The fact that our political leaders are about to ruin the country makes it more, not less, important that leaders in other spheres act responsibly.
The doctors clearly do not understand this. But neither does any other elite group in the society. In a developing nation, it is axiomatic that progress can happen only through sacrifice. But that sacrifice has to be made by the nation's leading citizens, not its average ones.
There are two reasons for this. One, the sacrifices made by ordinary citizens rarely, if ever, change the institutions or ethos of a society. Two, no one should reasonably expect an individual to take action which could result in his death, or which might cast him into dire financial straits.
But, certainly, if a person has to give up having a third car or getting a million-dollar contract or being appointed to a State board, that is not too much to ask. But it is an irony of our culture that those who are best placed to make sacrifices are usually the least willing to do so.
The main reason for this is simple conservatism. In any society, the people who are most successful are naturally those who are most interested in preserving the status quo. And the key word here is "status". It is quite revealing that the doctors' strike is not really about money, but about the senior public service doctors being upset that RHA doctors are paid more than they.
This fragility of ego infects all our elite groups. A congenital insecurity is a common characteristic of elites who have attained their positions through circumstance (right class, right connections) rather than through ability and hard work. This is true of all our elite groups, save perhaps our best artists (but our best artists certainly aren't treated like any elite, though the worst sometimes are). Such hollow superiority is why Manning and Panday place so much emphasis on displays of wealth, for people who have no other attributes of self-worth can only display power through material goods or brute force or moral platitudes.
But Panday and Manning are leaders because they embody those attributes which define our society. The UNC regime brought to the fore the insidious relationship between business and government. It is therefore no coincidence that the Chamber of Commerce supports capital and corporal punishment and the zero-tolerance crime campaign, since these are all measures which particularly oppress poor people. (Also, the fact that none of these measures reduces crime naturally escapes the Chamber's collective brains.)
This basic incompetence and self-interest is what we saw played out in the Red House on April 5. But such obsession with status is not confined to business people or professional politicians or doctors: just recall OWTU president Errol McLeod's half-million dollar car a few years ago, or consider Education Officer David Abdullah's present insistence that the Cipriani Labour College's board is legal.
In the same vein, Pastor Cuffie's $10 million dollar church shows that religious faith does not encourage people to place less value on material things as a sign of status: and what is true of Pastor Cuffie is also true of Sat Maharaj and Abu Bakr.
There's nothing wrong with wanting the finer things of life. But, if that is all you want, then you are a severely limited human being. And if money is the only definition of status in your society, then your society is a horribly limited one. This is the condition of Trinidad and Tobago now, as it always has been. And the only way that ethos can change is if enough of our elite individuals show that they are willing to make the necessary sacrifices to carry our society forward. I'm not holding my breath, though.
Copyright ©2002 Kevin Baldeosingh