{"id":55615,"date":"2023-03-13T06:15:08","date_gmt":"2023-03-13T10:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=55615"},"modified":"2023-03-13T06:15:08","modified_gmt":"2023-03-13T10:15:08","slug":"wuss-dan-dat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=55615","title":{"rendered":"Wuss dan dat"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Raffique Shah
\nMarch 13, 2023<\/em><\/p>\n

Raffique Shah<\/a>Surely, we deserved better than that, Leila sighed audibly as she aside the device on which she had been reading a news report. I thought I knew what report it was, but I felt in the baiting mood, so I asked ‘What are you upset over? Who deserved better?’<\/p>\n

‘I’m talking about the twenty year old corruption matter involving the state vs Basdeo Panday and others. The state under which heading the DPP must fall, withdrew one of the corruption matters yesterday.’
\n
\n‘I know that,’ I responded. ‘What people deserve better and why?’ <\/p>\n

‘We, the people. The citizenry. Call us what you will. It cannot be fair either to those charged or to us citizens who have been funding all costs and charges related to the many matters involving the Piarco Airport project. These must run into millions and millions of dollars that could have been better used to build not just an airport but a country. And now after all these years DPP Henderson is saying the state does not have sufficient evidence, that some witnesses have died or migrated to other countries and so on. We are left holding an empty bag.’<\/p>\n

‘I say again, we deserve better.’<\/p>\n

‘You are wrong,’ I replied, ‘The people of this country live and die by seven-day-wonders. That’s the shelf life of issues as grave as murders and other violent crimes. Only Carnival engages their attention for maybe a year.<\/p>\n

‘And I say this with deep shame for my country, for what it has descended into- a den of one million plus thieves- who are stealing from the public’s purse, regime to regime, governments change but not one person in this huge ‘Ali Baba’ gang is ever held responsible far less punished with a stiff jail term.’<\/p>\n

I raise my arms as she’s about to make a point I continued: ‘The bandits who routinely break into the vaults and make-off with varying but always significant sums of money may come in different political underwear but the same stamp on their foreheads, THIEF. Meanwhile the people, your people say nothing, do nothing as the bandits rampage and pillage the treasury. So when a matter ends the way this one has ended every Tom, Dick, and Harrylal, depending on the colour of his undershirt will either applaud loudly as the accused office holders walk to freedom with smiles larger than their faces and your people continue to stay silent.’<\/p>\n

‘In this matter involving Panday, my friend Carlos John and others, they knew that the evidence was weak and that by ensuring they use every legal hurdle they could to put in the state’s way, they will bring around a decision such as happened.’<\/p>\n

‘This will be the fate of almost every corruption charge in which big people are accused of big fraud and escape with ease. The people, meanwhile, the same people you want ‘better’ for, could not give a damn whether the defendants ended up in jail or snoring in their palaces, while burglaries aplenty continue unabated. These are reasons why I say, a citizenry such as ours deserves nothing but the worst form of democracy there is. They have repeatedly voted in pirates, rapists, child abusers and sundry such criminals into office. So while they may grumble and pretend to be offended by the way certain similar cases have gone asunder, they will with relish, vote the same people, and most certainly the same party as their choice for government. Nothing that has happened in the courts recently -several such cases have been abandoned by the state- will persuade them to vote for candidates of integrity because they are comfortable to be among the very thieves they condemn today.’<\/p>\n

‘I say again, the people deserve wuss dan dat.’<\/p>\n

‘So you have given up on the people to bring about change? The same people who you mobilised way back in their thousands to fight corruption, you now see them as obstructions to progress.’<\/p>\n

‘You got it precisely correct. The beneficiaries of the struggles we waged in the closing years of the twentieth century have surrendered to greed. For them and for most others with only a small number of patriots stabilizing the center, means going into the polling booth once every five years. Nothing more, nothing less.’<\/p>\n

‘If there is no hope for our country then there can be little or no hope for any other in the world. How can that be?’<\/p>\n

‘Not only will it be, mark my words, unless there emerge powerful, well intentioned leaders anywhere in the world, we will as a civilization revert to an animal kingdom with the rule of beasts, the new world order. I don’t wish for this sordid fate to befall my fellow human beings. The criminals will become the new world dis-order, the new ruling class.’<\/p>\n

‘Here endeth.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Raffique Shah March 13, 2023 Surely, we deserved better than that, Leila sighed audibly as she aside the device on which she had been reading a news report. I thought I knew what report it was, but I felt in the baiting mood, so I asked ‘What are you upset over? Who deserved better?’ … Continue reading Wuss dan dat<\/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":[463,6,1],"tags":[44,169],"class_list":["post-55615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-court","category-crime","category-general-tt","tag-crime-in-tt","tag-raffique-shah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55615","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=55615"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55616,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55615\/revisions\/55616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}