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Post Tramatic disorder

"All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without any trauma."
Kazuo Ishiguro

The manner in which individuals or society generally deals with the malady called trauma can be quite revealing indeed. In the case of the former , a solid character coupled with the presence of sound cultural and social support mechanisms can often do the trick. As for the latter, society's efforts might simply be a testiment of the seriousness to which they view the charting of an authentic parthway towarsds progressive development.

Perhaps no other profession on earth is force to deal with the hash realities and impacts of truama as much as Police Officers- both on the job and sometimes in their daily lives. Some have dealt with the challenges in an astute and sometimes 'head on' manner, and emerged stronger as a result. Others , not as competently and have sometimes paid the ultimate price. Still a few, have resorted to new age idealistic means in an effort to grapple with this issue in the hope of making a dent. Let me highlight a few cases for your edification.You be the judge as to their merits.
How about former Trinidad and Tobago Police Mounted Branch and exfootballer Abu Baker, remember him? You should ,for he orcestrated the coup attack on our nation in 1990 that created mayehem, destruction ,and lost prestiege for our country across the globe for the manner in which they dealth with it for years to come.The good Muslim cleric escaped like a bandit in the night thanks to the Privy Council, and the nation has never overcome the trauma to its collective psyche even down to present time due to lack of propper closure.

I believe that his initial intentions were good when he finished engineering school in Canada , returned to Trinidad to settle on the piece of land acquired in Mucurapo from the late father of the nation, Dr. Eric Williams , so as to construct his famous Mousque.His goals I would like to believe was to help the thousand of disenfranchised , lost ,neglected , at risk- primarily ex slave kids, most of which were abandoned to a life of failure and recidivism as they strived to get out of the cracks they fell into while trying to deal with the internal pain, hatred , aleniations , and other T&T life threatening traumatic demons accumulated since the conniving British visited these shores with their first batch of African slaves.
When other national leaders failed our young and poor desperate people by putting their heads in the sand and their butts in the air like ostrichs , Backer tried ,yet failed for a variety of reasons- one of which was that crimes pays for some that one can least expect to benefit.

In similar fashion I can sense that our Acting Commissioner is striving to do someting innovative to deal with the escalating crime situation today, and prevent further assaults on his hard working men and women .
A wealthy businessman for example is beaten up in St James , and the police are unable to track down the criminal because of some glitch in the fingerprinting system , and he hold a press conference to condem them as incompetent idiots unlike their British counterparts that shot a Brazilian tourist eating his bread , eggs and tea fifty bullets Yankee style in London because they claimed he looked like a sadistic Arab Muslim terrorist.

Our expensive blimp is still in the sky, too many fatcat Scotland Yard Police blokes are drawing exorbitant salaries while pretending to solve local crimes in the midst of disgruntled and demoralized local police officers , and misguided Israeli security play books are still in operation, and yet the crime situation is escallating. Thats a lot of pressure for a new Commissioner ,and so I say hats off to him for trying something new- to beg gang members to come to the Christian Church and turn their lives over to God. How about showing some love to our Hindu and Muslim gang bandits I want to know , who do they go tom or call one can ask- talk about discrimination!

It just might work if the cynics can be kept at bay. Unlike another Commissioner, Kenny Mohammed that had the clout to tell his businessmen buddies like Amar to give the Police Service a few cars to bolster patrols across the nation , or Randy Borroughs who can create a unaccountable Flying Squad unit that can shoot everyone in sight and ask questions later , the new Commissioner must do what he can within the political constraints he exist under. Trauma of the highest order!

Over the past month or more two tramatic incidents occured that involved police officres that is very sad and heartrending . The first involved an officer that took matters into his own hands and violently/ tragically attacked someone that he assumed was having an affair with his wife.Now he unfortunately is about to become someone's wife in prison because he did not have the guts to bite the bullet himself. Only a day or two ago a wonderful female officer lost her life living her autistic helpless son alone in the world , at the hands it is alleged of a jilted loverthat has since disappeared perhaps to Canada or Maimi as well . Traumatic events indeed!

Years ago a popular sport fanitical Commissioner nearly lost his life by bullets at the hands of a young disgruntled constable that felt he was being punished by the administrative genius because the latter had some love interest in his wife who was a police officer as well. It is so tragic , and ironic how life can end, for one moment he was smiling and talking to someone in my presence, then he was dead along with his wife from bullets either from his own gun or colleauges in the vicinity. Trauma of the highest order.
I know two officers that did well for themselves abroad after they had joined the long exaudos of men and women that are running away from the service in dispair after expensive training in their country once money became a problem after the middle eighties.
Officer A was a hard working officer that once fought for two hours with Marshall Art expert criminal ,as he attempted to arrest the culprit.Fortunately, both got tired ,and help arrived to save the day, as no one intervened to help the officer back then when short pant wear was the norm for officers, and disrespect by the public was common .
While in the USA one day he was walking in Brooklyn with his then wife and young daughter, only to observed a former rasta Trinidad criminal quickly approaching him with a view to doing him harm with some instrument.Fortunately the family knew how to run and were saved as a result by a passing local police vehicle .
He was able to later round up a few past colleauges in New York , find the culprit, and beat him to almost an inch of his life for daring to pull such a stupid stunt in good , old and safe USA.Trauma indeed you'll agree.
Officer B was a newly wed when he made his escape to America for fame and fortune , just in the aftermath of the Abu Bakwer Muslimeen tragedy. His firy wife told him that he could take their marraige and shove it as she had no intentions of following him to that country as other crazy women might have done before or after her. He went solo , did well , and years later found hiomself a wondeful and beautiful African princess flower in of all places - the ruins of genocidal Rwanda. The beautiful christian angel had lost her entire family as she together with several other women remained stuck in a small closet for over a month as the enemies desperately search for her with evil intent. He cuddled her brought her back to respectability, married her , started a family and was set to obtain the full Americaan dream. She became a successful author due to cronicles of her terrible experiences , global spokesperson for victims, and radio and televison personality.
One day she work up and told him she had enough of this life and wanted to move on- much to his dismay. In a conversation I had with her only recently, she alluded to the fact that the pain never goes away. Apparently she was still suffering some of the hurt and fallout of her traumatic events , or attempting to justify her recent actions - one never knows. How sad!
As I have said , It can be rough as one attempt to move forward. Some can conveniently ignore trauma, and pretend it never existed, others cannot as it trancends generations.
Perhaps Friedrich Nietzsche had a point when he said that " What doesn't kill us make us stronger." However he was known to be a certifiable lunatic, that never married or loved a woman except maybe his mom- if that can be believed. One might have to be careful about giving too much credence to comments of the German philosopher with the bushy mouthstach. Stay strong my people.

Trinidad and Tobago News

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