By Raffique Shah
May 24, 2025

There was almost unison in the plaintive cry in the appeals for national unity by a significant section of the population. This festival of nation building and patriotic songs and music, that was a treat by itself. I know this country is gifted with a prolific compilation of rich ballads, lyrics and music that can “make mih pores raise”, as Trinidadians and Tobagonians are wont to say.

The occasion was the inaugural meeting of the 13th Parliament of the Republic. Time was when this was a routine parade for the military and other top brass who paraded. When Independence Day coincided with such sitting, pomp and ceremony oozed out of the uniforms of service officers and other ranks.

For a nation that does not have an extensive tradition of parades of uniformed services’ organisations, we need every opportunity to make up for that shortage. Most soldiers like to exhibit their persons, their uniforms, shiny, clean, and tunics starched to stiffness, their eyes furtively scoping out the dignitaries who attend. This time around, many participants will have been excited by the drills that gave them the opportunity to show off their uniforms, and their talent with many photo opportunities that even the colonels, brigadiers and sundry sergeant majors, all decoratively packaged in braids, oblige to. I was happy to look on via television as the corps of drums and bugles touched some of the military DNA that, I get, will go around with me until the “Last Post”.

As you grow older having served in the military, you become part of a club whose members, according to lore, never die—only their privates do. In the ranks deployed for the parade were many very young soldiers and sailors, and seated or standing in the vicinity were scores of new parliamentarians. Some of them also very young.

I thought: these must be members of the new political directorate. The thing about all these young people is they must carry dreams as to what and where they may be in life 20 years later.

The politicians may all wish to move up, hell to be prime ministers or otherwise hold senior offices in the governance structures. If they stuck around long enough, the politicians could learn some unpleasant truths about that career path.

In the administration sworn in to hold high office on Friday are men whose names have been tarnished by the brush of corruption. Few have been charged with anything and even fewer found guilty. According to lore they are clean, hence the reason they can hold high office.

In the eyes of the public, though, they will have been accused. If they seriously examine the allegations made against what would now be much older men (few women have been accused, far less charged with corruption in Trinidad), they might be concerned about their own future. In the services, more so the police and the army, allegations of criminal conduct are numerous.

People of my generation who were ourselves reluctant to enter the arena would easily support others in electoral battles. It is a pity that as the younger ones step forward they must first clear their names, in a manner of speaking; it’s as if they were entering criminal gangs, not politics. This is the tragedy of our time.

We, on the one hand, work hard to get others interested in politics because we know how important it is to have politicians fight for the entire nation to enjoy better lives. At the same time we make the passage of rites complicated and risky affairs. Maybe all of this will change.

Maybe I am wrong in my assessment of the dangers that young people entering politics must face. I would be a happy man if I make my exit, leaving the political field cleansed of the kind of debris we saw in our lifetime.

The extent to which corruption has permeated the soul of this nation and, more importantly, how it has affected the civil society, leaves little room for promoting national unity that we yearn for. It is sad that patriots like calypsonian Merchant have gone to the hereafter without realising their dream of national unity.

I posit that henceforth the electorate will demand higher standards from their politicians and not just desire people of their own race to hold the reins. Until we can think and understand that type of thinking and that mindset are hurting the nation and, by extension, the electorate themselves, we can have no national unity.

Unite what?

Nuff said.