{"id":11791,"date":"2019-09-16T10:27:57","date_gmt":"2019-09-16T14:27:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=11791"},"modified":"2019-09-16T10:27:57","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T14:27:57","slug":"crabs-in-a-barrel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=11791","title":{"rendered":"Crabs in a barrel"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Raffique Shah
\nSeptember 16, 2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Raffique Shah<\/a>I had no prior information that the Express<\/em> had commissioned a poll on Dr Keith Rowley’s performance as Prime Minister after holding office for four years, far less that publication of the results would coincide with my return as a columnist in last week’s Sunday Express<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So you can imagine my shock, having written on the propensity of politicians to use race as a weapon in the war for power, on reading responses to key questions in the Nigel Henry poll, based largely on race. In fact, the race-lines were so sharp, they startled many people who thought we had long overcome that primal instinct, that we were well on the road to electing politicians based on their policies and performance, or potential to perform, rather than their colour of skin or texture of hair.
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\nSome friends of mine thought that pollster Henry should have excluded the race factor. I disagreed with them. Patching a problem does not eliminate it. You merely cover it where it festers, infecting the body politic. Better to bring it into the open, hoping that its stench would shame those who live a lie about Trinidad and Tobago being a truly cosmopolitan country even as they surreptitiously engender racial hatred in their homes or social circuits.<\/p>\n

David Rudder, casting a calypsonian’s eye on this socio-political contradiction, sang a few years ago, “How we party is not how we vote.” So true. Year-round, but mostly at Carnival time, Trinis of all ethnicities wine and jam together, chanting, “All ah we is one family”, although I should point out that the past decade or more has seen socio-economic and racial segregation return even to this festival. Colour of skin or people’s pay-grade often exclude “certain types” from fetes or mas’ bands or venues.<\/p>\n

But back to race and politics: we na\u00efve utopians thought that by the process of evolution, if nothing else, we were demolishing the walls of segregation, only to find that resistance to integration was hereditary or acquired, somewhat like a taste for rum, only in this case puncheon rum. Some parents or self-proclaimed community leaders teach children hatred for human beings who are not of their race, of that I am convinced. I am told that there are trolls on the Internet who sow discord by posting inflammatory messages that all but call for ethnic purity, and by extension, ethnic cleansing.<\/p>\n

I find it incredible that young people who have enjoyed the benefits of tertiary education cannot think rationally about the future of this tiny country, cannot understand that its future lies in all 1.4 million of its citizens working together towards defined goals that do not exclude inherited cultures, religions and so on, but also goals that jettison negative traits that have had us, for generations, divided, clawing at each others’ throats, virtual crabs in a barrel going nowhere, but getting there at an increasingly frenzied pace. <\/p>\n

Let’s face the realities: people of my generation (65 years and over\u2026I’m 73) should hardly be planning the future of this or any other country. We belong to the past. If we haven’t changed our country yet, especially if we have been part of government at whatever level, what can we do in the twilight of our lives that will make a difference? While we should share our experience and expertise with any government or agency, we’ve had our day. Leave it to the younger, energetic people to chart their future.<\/p>\n

But we cannot abdicate our collective responsibility of striving for the elusive rainbow country, leaving behind a hopelessly divided society that is reflected in the results of the Henry poll. Ours will be a tragic legacy should our message to the inheritors of this blessed-but-cussed land be, “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.” They will be trapped between Dante’s Inferno and his Divine Comedy.<\/p>\n

As to what can be done to save the country from degenerating into a failed state—and despite pronouncements to that effect, I disagree with those who argue we are already there—and putting it on the road to recovery, to realizing its true potential, I do not have the answers.<\/p>\n

What I can say without fear of contradiction is that the whole lot of them who have already had a chance, or several chances, to effect changes that were critical to carving out near-Nirvana, but blew it, should be subjected to a no-confidence tsunami.<\/p>\n

But that is mere hope on my part. This population remains mired in the victimhood syndrome, a nation of “bobolees” flogged by smart-men and women, begging to be beaten over and again. The race-blinkers that the majority wear when they vote will keep us forever trapped in a political trance from which mediocrity comes across as excellence.<\/p>\n

I remain thankful to my late parents that I have never been trapped by the race bogey. Indeed, most of my extended family and all of my immediate family are free from this self-consuming virus. I often wonder what it must be like hating another human being because of his outward looks, ignoring his inner character.<\/p>\n

That must be the closest one can come to self hatred, to Dante’s Inferno.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Raffique Shah September 16, 2019 I had no prior information that the Express had commissioned a poll on Dr Keith Rowley’s performance as Prime Minister after holding office for four years, far less that publication of the results would coincide with my return as a columnist in last week’s Sunday Express. So you can … Continue reading Crabs in a barrel<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,30,7,632,142],"tags":[144,60,1015,169,49],"class_list":["post-11791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-tt","category-pnm","category-politics","category-racism-watch","category-unc","tag-kamla-persad-bissessar","tag-keith-rowley","tag-politics","tag-raffique-shah","tag-tt-govt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11792,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11791\/revisions\/11792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}