Missed brain gains

It is one of the tragic shortcomings of Caribbean governance that hard data and statistics are not frequently considered, even when available, in national decision-making. Attitudes toward modern migration comprise one notable area.

As a consequence, public narratives on such matters are frequently over-populated with and influenced by uninformed official and unofficial opinions, politically flavoured intuition and mischief, isolated personal anecdotes, and general prejudice. In the process, the developmental possibilities missed are innumerable.

I have already written enough about the role of xenophobia, racism, and opportunistic political posturing in relation to the heavy inflow of Venezuelan migrants – many of them undocumented – to T&T over the last decade or so.

My commentaries have included mocking references to the “close de borders (with Venezuela) crew” and condemned the routinised stereotyping of men and women seeking a better life away from the country of their birth.

There is also the durable myth of politically engineered “small island” arrivals in time for elections in the 1950s that I have made the focus of personal research.

When I saw some responses to a proposed Caricom Observer Group for next year’s general election, it reminded me of how far a single, often repeated untruth can reach.

It is the constant lament of academics and regional and international development agencies present in the Caribbean that we live in chronically data-starved environments.

It is not that the infrastructure to focus on such matters does not exist. When it comes to migration statistics, for example, those of us with an interest in knowing more rely almost exclusively on external agencies to distill and evaluate raw information extracted from official figures.

Through this, for example, we know that in most cases, the English-speaking Caribbean, is a net exporter of migrants, unlike that period when we were arriving from elsewhere, populating our countries, and contributing to a net importation of people.

In other words: today, more people are leaving than are arriving (to stay) - the latter representing both documented and undocumented migrants, re-migrants (people returning home after prolonged absence), deportees (more of whom we shall soon witness), and intra-regional journeyers. UN data suggest that in 2020, close to 350,000 people born in T&T now live overseas.

As part of global outward migration trends, there has been a notable increase in the number of “high-skilled” Caribbean emigrants moving to developed countries. These include mainly people with tertiary level education/specialised training.

The 2010 estimate for T&T was in the order of 50 percent of our tertiary-educated/trained people. In some quarters, we are considered to be among the highest per capita Caribbean contributors to this regional “brain drain.” Add to this, the fact of our ageing population with more than 25 percent of us now over the age of 55.

Among the several things this means is that migrant inflows can contribute toward the required “brain gain” to fill important gaps in selected areas. I am certain the university folks are looking at this more closely than some of us mere journalists.

Now, having considered this, think about the political narratives surrounding the value or lack of value of Venezuelan and other migration into T&T.

There is imprecision in the manner in which state authorities have communicated this subject, and even less regard for what is provably true on the part of other political actors when it comes to things such as a significant contribution to crime statistics and a major role in the displacement nationals in the job market.

Of course, we do not stand alone in declaring the purported dangers of migrant arrivals - though they aren’t known to consume our pets. Stand by for action not far away. Plus, mere hours following the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria last week, there were European countries promptly shutting the door on refugee claims and wondering when those already there would ever go back home.

You never know what might happen in the Caribbean when things eventually change in Venezuela or if peace and stability ever come to Haiti.

ILO Director-General, Gilbert F. Houngbo, says in the latest global report on migration:  “Migrant workers are indispensable in addressing global labour shortages and contributing to economic growth …ensuring their rights and access to decent work is not only a moral imperative but also an economic necessity.”

The ILO report notes (and we don’t have the figures for T&T) that the disparity in employment rates between them and non-migrants in many countries owes much to “language barriers, unrecognised qualifications, discrimination, limited childcare options, and gender-based expectations that restrict employment opportunities, particularly for women.”

What are the facts of our case? Does anybody know? Does anybody care?

Five-Year Election Campaigns

As campaigning intensifies for the next general election in T&T more citizens should be paying closer attention to at least three distinct features of the process amid desperate but fading tribal cleavages.

As an aside: I think the contest will come later rather than sooner, despite prevailing speculation. I also subscribe to the concept of a fixed date.

To be clear, politics’ ethnic characteristics persist. But try polling the younger cohorts and you will be surprised at the extent to which the Gen Z bunch (about 40 percent of the population), together with the traditionally independent segments, care a rat’s … ears about old narratives of ethnic superiority.

Yet, leading politicians and their closeted strategists, continue to believe that triggering such fading emotions in political messaging can earn their parties heightened favour and fervour.

However, follow the process as closely as you can on social media, and some traditional media and public spaces, and you will recognise the relatively small circle of devotees taking/employing this bait.

Anyway, what are these “features” of the process of electioneering in T&T I am talking about? Bear in mind, today’s offering is not from any “political analyst” whose ad hoc intuitions based on personal preference seem to bear more weight than actual research.

Number one. As I’ve indicated earlier, a fixed date for general elections should be a constitutional requirement. This will cut out an entire tier of harmful political gamesmanship, and level the playing field for all. Incumbency, though heavy on implicit liabilities, could do without the additional asset of foreknowledge.

Number two has to do with the way political parties organise themselves for the selection of candidates and leadership positions. This is an internal process in which individual organisations need to ensure that democracy prevails and is characterised by a heavy measure of due diligence.

Now that we are gradually, but certainly, escaping the clutches of blind tribal loyalty, electorates are less and less likely to opt for odious (crapaud?) selections that result from leadership edicts. Relatedly, games should also not be played when it comes to matters such as party leadership. Ferdie Ferreira makes the crucial point about Dr Rowley’s teasing language regarding his continued leadership of the party.

Back in September 1973, there was an even less ambiguous declaration by late Prime Minister, Dr Eric Williams, which turned out to be an effective hoax that cost the party substantial political capital, the support of key stalwart Karl Hudson-Phillips (who had expressed an interest in the position), and eventually led to the rejuvenated coalescing of disparate forces opposed to PNM rule. Follow the politics between 1976 and 1986 and you will see what I mean.

A not entirely dissimilar fiasco emerged following the succession of Winston Dookeran as leader of the UNC replacing Basdeo Panday in 2005, the ensuing shenanigans of 2007 (an election year which deserves an entire book) and the bewildering (and controversial) events culminating in Panday’s loss to Kamla Persad-Bissessar at internal elections in 2010.

True, within four months the party went on to authoritatively dominate the PP coalition in government between 2010 and 2015, but not without continuing fissures – some of which persist in diverse ways to this day.

So, yes, point number two essentially has to do with internal democratic practices among the respective political organisations. This has little relevance, though, if the organisation in question was born at a press conference, has shady internal elections and processes, and persists almost solely in the form of regular social and mainstream media dispatches.

Then come plans and programmes, the most important, but least considered parts. It does not seem to matter that election manifestoes are among the final campaign products to be delivered. Practising politicians and strategists have said to me it is all cosmetics, though the secret engine rooms often comprise costly imported and indigenous experts and strategists. In the end, they lead to little thought and action by those in charge.

Even when offered, there is little of substance regarding issues of human rights, policy direction on migration, LGBTQI discrimination, the rights of children, wage equality (in a state-dominated economy), the “energy transition” and our oil and gas economy, nutrition security, and management of the climate crisis, to cite a few examples.

The development experts and activists can add a dozen more key features and neglected policy areas. But these are mine, for now. Seek them out in the forthcoming manifestoes and on the hustings. Ask your candidate about them. Five-year election campaigns can deliver much more. They currently do not.

Wages and Reality

Almost as if on remote cue, the recently released International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Global Wage Report 2024-2025 strikes some amazingly familiar chords when cross-referenced against the ongoing Salaries Review Commission (SRC) issue and accompanying discussions surrounding what is essentially a question of wage inequality among T&T workers.

I had originally thought about directly engaging the SRC matter, including the Prime Minister’s astounding manner, but noted the contribution of fellow GML columnist, Helen Drayton on Sunday. In my view, she has inserted the clearest, most principled considerations into the discourse – sullied as the ongoing debate is by political partisanship, outright malice, and gross ignorance.

There is no simple summary of the former Independent Senator’s missive, so if you have a serious interest in the subject, please get your hands/eyes on a copy and read every word.

In (totally inadequate) brief, Ms Drayton gets into the methodology employed by the SRC – the Hay Job Evaluation System - proposes a “judicious” review of its recommendations, urges consideration of specific features of the public service, and suggests a parallel starting point of 4% for everybody (my summary).

She also explores in lesser but important detail, the vexing question of government involvement in wage negotiations in institutions of the state.

In my view the ILO Wage Report addresses such issues from the broader perspective of whether, in any economy, equity prevails as a norm in assessing remuneration within and across sectors. This includes the informal economy which constitutes an important, growing element of our macro-economic landscape.

There is, according to the Report, a decline in global wage inequality – the relationship between low and high wage earners. The statistics provided are not sufficiently disaggregated to represent our own reality, but there is a sense that this might not entirely be the case here. The Ministry of Labour should tell us what is known about T&T trends, as the unions appear hopeless on matters of research.

It is correspondingly insufficient to point to the egalitarian nature of high turnouts at entertainment centres, street food stalls, and “Black Friday” sales to conclude that things aren’t as bad as being portrayed by some.

Protesters occupying public spaces appear well-fed and dressed, and parking spaces at such events are hard to find. So, should we ask where are the “suffering masses?”

One respected senior journalist turned to me at a recent business function and asked: “Does this look like we are in serious financial trouble in this country?”

The quick resort to anecdote over careful perusal of data and research appears to be the preferred option. Yet consumers jumping on each other’s backs at five in the morning at a sale does not signify that all is okay. Neither does an absence of chronic, vociferous public protest nor the long lines at the doubles, gyro, and empanada stalls.

These things do, however, tell us something about the elasticity/inelasticity of public opinion and behaviour.

Both the beleaguered labour unions, which represent an increasingly small minority – less than 25% of the working population - and employers in the formal sector (those in the know can insert their own statistic here) however appear to be missing some important points.

Additionally, wage inequality in the informal sector typically represents a worst-case scenario with women experiencing the messiest end of the stick alongside employees in selected sectors together with migrant and under-age workers.

Under such scenarios, even otherwise indispensable “social dialogue” does not often capture the realities. Neither the labour unions nor employers typically include adequate consideration of these cohorts. It is worse now that tripartism appears to have disappeared as a feature of the labour environment and is being replaced by “gambage” and political extortion.

Dysfunctional collective bargaining arrangements are also degrading the prospects for an organised, rational approach to wage setting and other incentives. Additionally, for too long now, and in important spaces, negotiations lag sluggishly behind work contract timelines.

In the same way there is a justifiable focus on the nature of the evaluation leading to the SRC recommendations (based on the perception that these senior state employees are otherwise well-off) there is an absence of the assessment of needs in the organised labour sector.

What, indeed, is a “starvation wage?” Placards do not have the space to explain, and the main spokespersons appear unwilling or incapable of accepting the brief. Between the ILO Report and Helen Drayton’s submission, there are important clues. The chatter occupying the political and labour spaces is not particularly helpful.

A question of Climate Justice

It was not among the planet’s finest hours, but the outcome of COP29, held in Baku, Azerbaijan last week at minimum confirmed the indispensability of multilateralism as a singularly important mechanism for achievement of collective survival objectives.

It could have all ended in absolute shambles but did not. That will certainly be on offer when the “1.5 to stay alive” slogan born in the Caribbean is conclusively proven unviable through lived experience. Already, extreme weather events in Europe and North America have dispelled prior notions of invulnerability on the part of the big and strong.

In Baku, meanwhile, there were walkouts, vocal dissent and disgruntlement, hypocritical posturing, and continued resistance to the modalities that signal moral and fiscal responsibility for the current state of affairs.

In the same way it should not be taken for granted that there is cognitive uniformity among the ranks of the developed countries (whose undisputed role in getting us to where we are is well established), there can also be the mistake of assuming monolithic conditions among the rest of us small island states.

As developing countries, we are not all starting from the same point when it comes to the “energy transition” – or the gradual movement away from reliance on fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy.

Consequently, there is studied muteness on some features of the decarbonising project by some of us, urgent desperation from most others, and the reticence of geopolitical favour on the part of some … with January 2025 in full view.

Follow closely what is happening right here in the Caribbean in T&T, Guyana, and Suriname. Consider phenomenal GDP growth in Guyana – sufficient to launch an unprecedented developmental leap – and the prospects for Suriname in its state of chronic economic instability.

Then look at the Dragon field’s OFAC compliance. Come, thereby, face to face with a tangled web that combines everything that is difficult about the COP agenda for some.

Note that Guyana’s belated temperance about the next moves belies prior vocal activism, and Suriname’s own quiet contemplation of the development game even in the face of absolutist language that shares its fears as a low-lying coastal territory.  

We have mostly been careful in what we say and nuanced the language of crisis to reflect the imperatives of development in measures of “justice.” What, indeed, can be “just” about a delayed rescue from poverty and deprivation and reluctant largesse derived from the proceeds of what is now being prohibited?

I remember the school bully who passed us in the classroom aisle and delivered heavy blows to the back of our heads. “Whap! Sorry.” “Whap! Sorry.” And then up front with the mocking offer of icepacks for our buzzing heads.

This all makes for a menu of possibilities and impossibilities in pursuit of solutions to the fast-rolling tide of the climate crisis. One point five can and will be surpassed and there is every indication that even as we witness the early signs, death and destruction are foreseeable, extreme scenarios.

Like an icepack to the back of the head, a non-binding commitment of US$300 billion a year, in the face of spurned responsibility, is not entirely inconceivable when power confronts victimhood.

With a US$1.3 trillion tab through to 2035 we stayed in the room as the figures dwindled and the fighting continued. There is every indication we will do this again.

It is just that Belem November 2025 follows January 2025 in Washington DC. And, if COP29 fell short on the dough (remember that US$100 billion by 2020?), COP30 seems destined to shortchange the world in the transition column.

On the margins, once again, will remain unsettled questions surrounding the future conduct of carbon markets, equitable distribution of the pains of transition through countries, communities, and demographics, and the general treatment of loss and damage claims.

Not far behind, and in the background, will remain the spectre of gross injustice for which there can be no standard definitions. So, yes, multilateralism has survived the perilous path so far, but as we see on other fronts it is possible to sit around the table and talk while yielding a whip of outrageous neglect and impunity.

The Value of Pan

Offered the rare (and flattering) pleasure of addressing one session of a cross faculty co-curricular programme hosted by birdsong at UWI last week on what I consider to be “the value of pan”, it challenged me to summarise and sharpen some of my longstanding views on the steelpan phenomenon in T&T.

What inspired the invitation, I was told, was a comment I had made in a recent column that successive national budgets were failing to mention the value of the instrument in all its manifest dimensions, even as its autonomy as a national asset requires greater recognition.

I have contended that pan’s designation as the National Musical Instrument should not serve as a cue for continued or even deeper reliance on state largesse – as is currently being asserted – since its value should never be compromised by official whim.

Though there is sometimes both useful and harshly critical feedback on some of the things I have asserted over the years (as an observer and not an established, regularly cited “expert” on the subject) I have never considered my views representative of anything but the result of an enduring concern about the long-term future of my country and the potential role of the steelpan.

So, it was relatively easy for me last week to discuss “the value of pan” against the backdrop of broader national developmental goals and the “values” required to achieve them.

The presentation provided an opportunity to play with the terms “value” and “value systems” – that interplay between a notion of “wealth” and the corresponding achievement of goals employing such assets, together with a clear pecking order based on what is deemed important and indispensable.

So, I started with “historical value” and the degree to which pan is rooted in the collective defiance of an oppressed group. The way colonial authorities were defied at the very start of this journey when it came to drums. How official disapproval rallied people and stimulated emotions the way only music can achieve.

Faced with a ban in the late 1800s, people appeared to be saying: “Nope. No way.” Then through tamboo-bamboo to the percussive powers of discarded metals to what we have now, there birthed and grew the steelpan. Out of defiant protest.

There are several texts that more competently trace this development, and I consider Kim Johnson’s storytelling on such matters among the best.

Then, last week, I focused on “musical value” (keyword “resilience”) and the ways in which this instrument has been able to deliver on its core indigenous musical assignments, while capturing and embracing a wide variety of genres through innovations and expertise that have expanded the instrument’s (and its players’) musical significance and scope.

There was no way I was going to attempt to get more into that in the presence of musicologist, Derrianne Dyett, beyond citing the observations of other notable experts.

Then comes “socio-cultural” value (key word “unity”) – the degree to which the steelband has been able to grow into a working model for social organisation and development and the collective harnessing of human potential.

There must be academics looking closely at this point, since there are lessons to be learned from the panyard experience that are not readily evident elsewhere – including the traditional school classroom and other centres of learning.

Rigid social hierarchies are also overturned and reassembled at the panyard and, as in the early years, there is defiance of the dictates of social norms. It is thus, arguably, the most revolutionary of public spaces.

Then comes “economic value” – the monetising of pan’s assets. The key term here is “indigenous innovation” with an abundance of untapped intellectual property value, adding to direct earnings through a multiplicity of existing avenues.

Yes, a geographical indication as recently awarded is useful, but barely scratches the surface of immense potential in this area of hugely untapped wealth – innovations that often pass unnoticed.

I then closed the UWI session by noting the overall “developmental value” of the steelpan which spans the full range of steelpan resources – both realised and unrealised. This would be the sum of the constituent parts of historical, musical, socio-cultural, and economic values with the main characteristics being defiance, resilience, unity, and indigenous innovation.

Again, I recall a mid-1980s conversation with the late great Keith Smith when I stopped and turned to him as we walked along Independence Square: “You know that oil and gas will someday be gone. What else but pan would we have left?”

I cannot recall Keith’s response. But you tell me. What else will we have left?

 

Silence over noise

This year, I assigned myself the painful task of monitoring public opinion on cynical breaches of the law, common decency, and the duty of community care when it comes to noise pollution in our country.

Yes, I have been constantly reminded of the assured futility of such campaigns. “Drop it, Wesley. Ain’t gonna happen” is the now routine response to my view that there are ways to assess the state of our civilisation, and the phenomenon of noise impunity is one that should be firmly resolved.

Like-minded individuals and organisations have become used to the fact that vocal protests are easily drowned out by the near and distant clatter of bamboo, squibs, and all varieties of noisy pyrotechnics quite pointedly controlled by legislation, including but not restricted to those related to the storage and use of explosives.

If we were to discuss only the law-breaking features of this subject, we could point to the fact that there is no shortage of legislative guidance. There are our Noise Pollution Rules under the Environmental Management Act, the Explosives Act Chap 16:02, the Summary Offences Act Chap 11:02, and the Public Holiday and Festival Act Chap 19:05. But this goes beyond what the laws prescribe.

Every now and then, we are thrown the mamaguy of “zero-tolerance” policy. My notes and past dispatches on this can fill volumes on the subject. And though I am aware that I am not alone, there appear to be sad signs of battle-weary retreat by others.

There has been the gradual muting of dissent resulting from awareness of the fact that neither decision-makers at the highest levels nor street-level noisemakers seem willing to at least reflect on the multi-dimensional damage being sustained.

There have been times when hope appeared. Eight years ago, then Public Administration and Communications Minister, Maxie Cuffie, declared unequivocal commitment to address the issue. He went further down this dark, deserted alley on this matter than any other government minister I can recall.

I had hoped that even as his Cabinet colleagues eventually dropped the campaign, and in the sanctity of his retirement, Cuffie would not have abandoned the cause. Ditto former commissioners of police ostensibly no longer under the yoke of surrender to economic muscle, imprecise statute, political pressures, and misguided notions regarding what constitutes cultural norms.

On the latter point, I have pointed before to the fact that around the globe there have been longstanding “cultural practices” that have been found to be harmful and which reasonable people must continue to oppose.

There is sufficient evidence that our noisemaking at selected times of the year causes physical and emotional harm to people, animals, and our natural environment.

There are interest groups in T&T that have explored the matter in detail, and I will not recount the numerous examples cited, except to add that exceptions to the locating of “acceptable” levels of noise do not always consider their impact on wildlife with direct and indirect implications for our endangered biodiversity.

I once sat in on an eye-opening discussion by experts contemplating expansion of the reach of our Noise Pollution Rules. In the end, politics and “the culture” reigned.

The TTSPCA and other animal care organisations are (sensibly) focusing on coping mechanisms rather than on their past enthusiasm for ameliorative measures.

Letter writers to the press have become less strident in their condemnation. Perennial contributors such as “DF Redmond” of Laventille (I scoured the list of electors for the name but could not find it, but I am hoping that protection through anonymity is not the case) are increasingly being marginalised.

Let me quote him/her in his last submission: “Is this a civilised country? Is this a real place? How could bars, tyre shops, mini-marts, car wash establishments, idiot car DJs, etc, seem to have an untrammelled right to disturb entire neighbourhoods, and nary a word from all these patriots?

This paucity of genuine, impassioned responsibility is as much a crisis today as our worsening crime situation.”

My old friend, Neil Reynald, chimed in a few months ago by invoking the links that enjoin the different forms of criminality: “Despite legislation for noise disturbance/littering/gang activities/illegal firearm ownership, these activities continue unabated and without control.”  

Maybe it’s just my imagination or lapses in my monitoring of public opinion on this, but could it be we have begun queuing meekly and silently like lambs to the slaughter in the face of a connected string of criminal behaviour?

“Zero-tolerance” needs to extend beyond the platforms of official edict. Silence over noise is not an option.

The habits of democracy

By this time next week, the formal, global news agenda would have narrowed so tightly that even the tiniest gaps will be finding little meaningful space for other things, including matters of urgent importance to the rest of us in these tiny, united states of the Caribbean.

Mass atrocities including ethnic cleansing and genocide in several places are already ill-expressed as skirmishes on the margins of what is really important. The slaughter of children and babies in Palestine some kind of routine, justifiable proportionate response to another form of “terror.”

Mention of last week’s BRICS encounter, the Commonwealth Caribbean case for reparations, the ongoing deadly travails of Sudan, Yemen, and Afghanistan; rising criminality in hitherto unlikely places, and the climate crisis everywhere; all relegated to specialised attention in even more manipulable social media spaces.

In the context of this potential for hijacking of the public space, I had to make the point to hemispheric folks two weeks ago that it might be a mistake to consider the convening and execution of elections (as important as they are) as a solitary indicator of democratic affirmation.

For, had this position not provided guidance of sorts, we would have had to conclude that democracy too often nowadays produces results inimical to the pursuit of peace and people-centred development.

Not only now, but elections have long produced unsavoury characters and effectively destructive political agendas. Perhaps there can, in fact, be a tyranny of the masses through elections and not as an exceptional outcome.

It is however also true that sham elections in so-called one-party states do not fool anybody anymore.

Yet, obsessive preoccupation with this single important(!) element of the democratic process can also have the collateral effect of inferring the supremacy of process over outcome and effect. In the end, I would go with CLR James’s reference to the things that comprise “ancient habits” – or longstanding principles of public behaviour.

The academics probably have another take on this, but I think it is important to employ James’s language to broaden understanding of the instincts that drive us toward inclusivity, a sense of equity, acceptance of justice in its purest manifestations, and informed decision-making even through the fog of multiple crises.

These are things that do not descend on people overnight. It is the stuff of practice and habit. You can tell in the public space nowadays wherever autocratic behaviour is present including the easy resort to edict instead of painstaking reliance on responsible self-regulation.

This holds true in civic spaces as well. Those community-based and non-governmental organisations – some of them captured by partisan, national interests. The sporting associations with highly durable leaders, the cultural groups that know only one way, and general resistance to innovation and change in other quarters.

All these things signal levels of measurable democratic practice, notwithstanding relatively seamless leadership selection processes.

Next year, there will probably be seven national elections in Caricom countries. You never know when (and we have discussed this before) some prime minister or president will withdraw that note from his/her back pocket and declare the intensification of campaigning that never really ended five years ago.

Now that that “other” election is over, listen out for T&T, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and St Kitts and Nevis in 2025. Now think about the things that best characterise their respective observance of democratic principles.

You would probably realise that addressing the clear deficits goes beyond electoral systems – however much reform is required.

We can go state by state and remark about the extent to which, outside of election time, there has been a tendency to orient decision-making and the implementation of changes through wide collaboration and engagement at all levels. Then, add to this the human rights dimension which represents supreme observance of the principles that drive democracies.

For, in observance of the universality and indivisibility of human rights we can assess the quality of the relationship between the rulers and the ruled.

So, no, elections are but one indicator of the existence of a state of democracy but nowhere near everything about it. Look near and far. Are we participant and/or distant observers of true democracy?

I never tire of advising my Latin American colleagues that in the Commonwealth Caribbean there is no “democratic relapse” as is being observed in other places in the Americas. Ours is a far more nuanced reality to be observed and dissected. But we are still not where we ought to be.

Locating responsibility

At the height of some of the more punishing pandemic measures when official policy remained challenged by the urge to err on the side of extreme caution (if one erred) there arose pugilistic doubt about the role of personal responsibility in addressing the risks then at hand.

Inspired largely by political preference and apparent ignorance of basic tenets of the development process, one sceptic (who should have known better) accused me of being among an emerging cohort of “personal responsibility evangelists.”

I had at the time argued in favour of people in their individual and collective spaces ensuring that conditions for their own safe conduct prevailed, whatever the official dictates, or lack of them.

We believed that “the government’s” role in the success or failure of the effort to negotiate a great unknown was of perhaps lesser status than communal conduct and care - however much the recognisable impacts of uneven social conditions and personal privilege.

It is the kind of nuance that is being clumsily explored by the Minister of National Security in the face of seemingly unrestrained criminal depravity. There is much to navigate, on that score including police malpractice and incompetence, partisan haze, and the cynical exploitation of grief. So, it’s perhaps best to leave that there … for now.

The point is being far more clearly articulated in the different but not unrelated responses by the informed to rising road deaths, injuries, and property damage.

Yes, the roads are appallingly bad (potholes and even moderate speed don’t mix), we do not believe in proper signage, defective traffic lights are left unattended, there need to be more life-saving highway barriers, route design and construction sometimes do not make sense, ad hoc changes in traffic flows often lead to greater chaos, people operate car repair shops on the street, and there is inarguably deficient enforcement of the law.

There is also room to assess the true deterrent effect of harsher traffic penalties beyond the common wisdom that people respond to that kind of official threat even when the law is not comprehensively policed.

And, yes, I was recently ticketed on a particularly difficult morning - foodless and en route home from the funeral of a friend - for having my cell phone in my hand while driving. On that note, if you hear I have been ticketed for drunk driving or speeding, have the matter thoroughly investigated on my behalf!

That said, $1,000 and 3 demerit points later, I am still kicking myself and not the polite police officer. Some might say he could have spent his time chasing after bandits and robbers. But had it not been for people like me, perhaps he could have been so assigned.

Instead, there remain people who are driving and texting, speeding, drinking/drugging and driving, bullying others in smaller vehicles, breaking the red lights, driving on the shoulder, stopping suddenly in the middle of the road. In the process, a growing number of people are being killed and maimed on our roads.

So, yes, I think traffic tickets are part of the required policing measures even in the broader context of extreme, violent criminal conduct. This was captured, in part, by the broken windows theory of the 1980s which suggested that the diligent interception of “lesser” offences reflecting deviant social behaviour (reckless driving in this case) can have a positive impact on the general environment required for more peaceful, law-abiding societies.

I remember as a reporter over 30 years ago matching traffic deaths and murders as the statistics raced competitively against each other. Today, they are both recognised as significant public health challenges even as murder by deadly weapon now vastly outstrips reckless highway slaughter.

In both cases, there is a strong case for changed personal behaviour. Sharon Inglefield of Arrive Alive is correct: “We have far too many serious collisions on our roads, ALL of which are preventable and avoidable. We must set a better example of road user behaviour, drive defensively, plan our journeys and obey the rules of the road.”

There we go again – “personal responsibility evangelists.” In the meantime, we probably do need more police, more barriers, better road signs, speed cameras, demerit points, fines, traffic lights, speed limits, and speed bumps.

All because these things fill the void left by people who dare not take responsibility for their own wellbeing and the rest of ours. It’s like that time when even a state of emergency proved incapable of getting us to wash our hands.

 (Published in the T&T Guardian on October 23, 2024)

The final innings

(First published in the T&T Guardian on October 16, 2024)

My favourite cricket team anywhere nowadays is the West Indies Women’s T20 squad aka the West Indies (w) … with a small “w”. The “real” West Indies team requires no such qualification since everybody knows when we talk about Caribbean cricket, we are referencing the West Indies (M).

It’s one of those things about “cricket lovers” that the West Indies dominated version of the sport ended on or about August 28, 1995, at The Oval in London. The West Indies (M) scored 692/8 and declared in their final innings.

There meanwhile appears no lasting impression, among this cohort of supporters, of the May 1976 encounter between the West Indies (w) led by Trini Louis Browne vs Australia (W) at Montego Bay in Jamaica. The first ever by a West Indies (w) team.

Much has since happened to render it unsurprising that “cricket lovers” would not have noted with much enthusiasm (if at all) the West Indies’ (w) face-saving win over Scotland on October 6 at the Cricket World Cup – the very day Faf du Plessis’ SLK beat Imran Tahir’s GAW at the CPL T20 final in Guyana.

Apart from the fact that CPL does not present country versus country contests, the mismatch between things “Caribbean” and “the West Indies” has more than once been noted here.

In this regard, I am again interested to know about the keenness with which the recently completed Clive Lloyd and Deryck Murray Caricom Report on “West Indies cricket” will be received when it reaches brutally disinterested ministerial desks in Port-au-Prince, Belmopan, Nassau, and Paramaribo.

The report follows last April’s Caricom Regional Cricket Conference held in T&T and hosted by PM Rowley. Since then, the region has again hosted a flag-waving Caribbean Premier League – “T-Twenny cricket,” to quote one commentator – everything “branded” for maximum returns. A six is no longer merely a six but now a mis-named “maximum” (since we know that more than six runs can be scored off a single ball … but who cares?)

This is not cricket for those who only know about cricket. It is a grand show not to be casually dismissed by “cricket lovers” who preferred Garry’s upturned collar and baggy pants and Wesley’s (Hall, of course) unbuttoned shirt and rolled up sleeves.

We have lived to hear Gavaskar and others declare the physical superiority of “the shorter game” that has brought greater athleticism, an expanded variety of shots, and an enhanced range between “slow” and “fast” bowling.

Today we also know that the statelessness of cricket teams in most instances defines at least the short-term financial viability of the game. It is here that national flags, and the people waving them, serve merely as props and extras - colourful backdrops for exciting, lucrative eyeballs and ears.

Quick, you patriotic types. Tell me which team won CPL 2024. Simple. Now, give me the date for the first game to be played by T&T in the 50 Over Super Cup. If you know the answer to the second question, do you have a national flag ready for flying?

Okay, so we are talking about 20 overs and not 50. T-Twenny as in the first financially viable, Caribbean country-based encounters in 2006. By June 11, 2008, and inspired by its success, convicted Antigua-based, US swindler Allen Stanford was landing a helicopter packed with what was supposed to be a handsome stash of cash at Lord’s cricket ground. That “cash” turned out to be fake $1 bills. Somebody quipped that the game of cricket had been purchased.

I recently retweeted a post in which someone was wondering whether, in a Texas prison, a cellmate has long grown tired of hearing about the time his now half-blind companion “owned” West Indies Cricket.

Such have been the undulating fortunes of a sport that will now appear in its truncated version in the 2028 Olympics – most likely minus a “West Indies” M or w team. Or could it be there will be a West Indies Olympic team?

Comrade Fazeer meanwhile appears doubtful that the CPL version can ride out its current term of dominance, not in a prison cell but against the limits of challenged bank accounts. In my case, I think “West Indies (M)” cricket’s final innings closed long ago, at the failing of CWI lights. Money will be made otherwise.

Maybe the lights will eventually come back on. Look around now and tell me what you see.

Climate’s safety net challenge

A recent neighbourhood interaction led me back to a September 18 submission on this page related to the impact of climate change on the world of work, including some observations being made right here in the Caribbean.

I had shared a story involving a neighbourhood postal worker who was witnessed taking a rare breather in considerably intolerable heat one morning.

I was in the company of friend and colleague, climate change expert Steve Maximay, who suggested that whatever the precise meteorological outcomes – like the heat that day and torrential rainfall last Monday – countries all over the world must eventually address the issue of climate change and labour conditions.

Of course, this was no novel observation. It is a story some have been tracking for decades now – negotiating uninformed scepticism, outright denial, and slow recognition of key areas of vulnerability in our neck of the woods.

The International Labour Organization (ILO), for example, has been paying close attention to this question from the standpoint of the rights and entitlements of workers within the context of dramatically changing workplace environments.

In fact, less than a week before Steve’s astute observation along the hilly streets of St Joseph, the UN agency had published its World Social Protection Report 2024–26. It is the kind of report that lands in your inbox and, under the best of circumstances, you put it aside for another day. It appears to me that the bureaucrats in our government sector and activists within our labour movement have been similarly inclined.

To be fair though, the authors of the 2025 Budget statement offered several scenarios regarding climate change and energy policy, the challenges to food production and public infrastructure, and threats to biological diversity. Some of this was particularly insightful and thought-provoking though not necessarily attracting the kind of public attention the state experts in the field had intended.

This country also manages a robust social safety net unlike anything our Caribbean community or even some big neighbours extend. So, it is not that we are averse to extending “social protections” in the form of direct and indirect financial support, but that changes in the world of work may lead to a serious review.

What appears to be urgent and passing relatively unnoticed by most major stakeholders is the contention that the unfolding impacts of climate change can and will irreversibly change the nature of work in many sectors. Measures reflected in work contracts, occupational safety and health standards (OSH), and labour legislation are required to mitigate the outcomes.

Business and employers’ organisations and our labour unions need to pay greater attention.

The thing with the ILO report is its preoccupation with a notion of “universal social protection” being a key part of climate action. Now, the international public servants have a way with fancy terminologies to describe everyday phenomena. But what is really meant by this is the prioritising of specific social services to cushion the effects of identifiable challenges to workers across the class divides.

This approach has the distinct flavour of the international dialogue regarding “a just transition” to low-carbon economies. For T&T and some of our neighbours, including Guyana and Suriname, it has immediate implications for our working populations both inside and outside of our critical energy sectors.

Yes, what happens to the Petrotrin refinery is important, but within the accompanying dialogue needs to be found greater advocacy on “social protections” for workers in the face of an emerging national and planetary crisis.

This goes beyond wages and salaries, as important as they are, and gets to the bottom of a phenomenon currently being witnessed even in bigger wealthier environments.

The recalibration of economies to reflect both the impacts of global climate change and the actions taken to address them are now high on the agendas of numerous nations – even in the face of the urgency of growing military and other conflict which, in some instances, is not unrelated to diminishing natural resources.

Countries such as ours that are small, vulnerable to global economic shocks, and with limited options for adapting to different developmental paradigms should be urgently engaging this challenge. That our own T&T economy appears to be contracting and will continue to contract requires much more than political manoeuvring to maintain public goodwill or to combat contesting claims.

This calls for a unified national approach that’s deliberately blind to real (or rather illusory) differences in developmental philosophy. Our social safety net, which is becoming increasingly strained and costly, will need to evolve in both scale and scope.

Money, culture, and budgets

Coming as it does mere days after delivery of the 2024/2025 national budget statement on Monday, and its rigorous dissection even minutes following its introduction, today’s contribution to this space runs the risk of relative redundancy.

Yet, it should go without saying that until the point is accepted that the future of our country resides more durably in deployment of the creative imagination than in expendable subterranean resources, there is no risk of over-emphasis.

Now, don’t get me wrong. This is not designed to fuel any new or renewed frenzy around state funding of “culture” inspired by any money-inspired formulation of “cultural policy” and what I consider to be associated threats to unfettered artistic expression.

We have had examples over the years of state investment in selected activities and the negative and positive impacts that have flowed, including effective state capture of tangible and intangible organisational assets.

I am, for example, more than a little uncomfortable with the proposed pathway being designed to elevate the work of Pan Trinbago – a process no doubt paved with good and noble intentions.

This sort of thing has been interrogated in other contexts elsewhere, sufficient to inspire, at minimum, a level of wholesome scepticism and informed discussion by creatives and their supporters. We need to be much more clinical about the ways we harness this abundance of cultural wealth in T&T.

Points such as these are explored in an important 2007 study by Arjo Klamer & Lyudmila Petrova entitled Financing the Arts: The Consequences of Interaction among Artists, Financial Support, and Creativity Motivation.

Sure, this research considers a largely developed country context, but in it, the authors critically analyse “the nature and rationales of various modes of financing the arts” dividing these modes into the various sources of funding including the state and “the market” – the latter I consider to be of considerable if not supreme, unfolding importance in our case.

Much of this coincides with my view that for starters, the state - as important are its assets held in trust on our part - should not stand at the centre of framing a way forward when it comes to the discrete elements of the cultural sector. It should await its turn in the queue of influence and power, intervening only when strategically required.

In any event, numerous free individual agents carve their own way forward with minimum fuss. Coercive “local content” broadcast policy, (an anachronism in today’s virtual space) plays no role in the achievements of most of our leading musicians. In any event, what “airplay” are people talking about?

Think also of our visual artists creating and creating – generating artistic value and scanning our realities in ways in which the mathematicians and economists are typically incompetent.

This is not to say that dollars and cents are irrelevant. I started all this by referencing Monday’s budget presentation which has to do with sowing and reaping the benefits of indigenous resources. But there is little to suggest that the creative sector is, in the official discourses, moving more to the centre of assessment of our collective wealth.

For example, the point has already been made about the multi-faceted contribution of the steelpan – as a model of social organisation, expression of musical excellence, and as under-valued economic resource.

This should not mean action to get everyone to play the pan. I know young players whose appreciation for the musical value of the instrument came via everything between the guitar and piano. But that’s an aside. Another question.

There are also poets, authors, dancers, and filmmakers converting their creative imaginations to immeasurable “value” with implications for where our country stands in the global scheme of things. Consider, for example, that Shakespeare was assessed some years ago to be among the UK’s most successful cultural exports.

Okay, so we can’t expect the bean counters at the Ministry of Finance to consider these things, but I think our numerous groupings should become more vocal on questions not only of financial flows through state expenditure, but ways our cultural products, and the environment in which they are created, can add to collective wealth and value.

Their positions on such things must go beyond what Klamer & Petrova describe as “the immaterial consequences of economic processes” and consider the actual impact of the interplay involving the “financing of cultural activity, the creative process, and cultural values.”

Things to think about when next the balance sheets are prepared, and important accounting columns and calculations are again absent.

Lessons from Kangaroo Jack

Let me confess that during the pandemic lockdown regular Facebook posts from a Zoological Officer of the Emperor Valley Zoo helped me (and I am sure thousands more) maintain a relatively high level of emotional stability.

I am not going to call the young officer’s name (which you may already know) since it would be unfair to drag her further into a discussion on the latest, absurd instance in which our well-documented “culture of secrecy” has been on stark public display.

The fact is that during the pandemic lockdown the Emperor Valley Zoo decided to open its gates virtually to us through a series of delightful social media dispatches exhibiting a high level of attention, compassion, and rapport between a competent zookeeper and the animals in her care.

Then, sometime later, came Jack the kangaroo, public speculation surrounding his health through media reporting and, latterly, the diligent work of Newsday reporter, Narissa Fraser.

Here, unlike so many other news stories with grand revelations, we aren’t dealing with developments that emerged from the dark, sinister shadows of secret underworld transactions. Concern was already in the public domain, and without visible objection from anyone, that something was wrong with Kangaroo Jack.

Back in March, the agriculture minister even launched an investigation into the condition of the animal.

If anything, the ongoing public saga of Kangaroo Jack offered us an insight into our humane instincts as people – whatever the justifiable ambivalence over zoos.

This was no ordinary zoo story. For example, I cannot say that too many visitors can name any of the four other kangaroos at the zoo that reached there about three years before Jack.

Maybe, maybe not. But I remember visiting with young Reign from Guyana in 2022 and we experimented with makeup names for all the animals.

I also don’t think it should be incumbent on any zoo to issue death announcements upon the passing of any snake, monkey, manicou, or turtle (though it has happened in the past!). But then there was Jack – the subject of curious social and mainstream media attention.

Sure, there are perhaps more important things to gripe about, but I think this case points us in the direction of an overall malaise that plagues our country, and for certain, the rest of our region. This isn’t just about a kangaroo.

So persistent has been the ready resort to secrecy in official circles, that some of us in the field of journalism have fixed activist eyes on the requirements of freer access to information held in trust by public agencies.

To locate the role of the Zoological Society in all this we may choose to look at the 2018 judgment of Justice Frank Seepersad in which it is concluded that “the ZSTT (Zoological Society) is a public body within the meaning of the (Freedom of Information) Act ...”

The Zoo is owned, operated, and managed by the Zoological Society of T&T (ZSTT) –incorporated by statute in 1952 and reportable to the Statutory Authorities Service Commission. A little over $5 million was allocated to ZSTT for 2024 by the state via the Ministry of Agriculture, Land, and Fisheries.

The ZSTT is also under the purview of the Office of Procurement Regulation and its annual administrative reports are required to be tabled in parliament.

It thus appears that in many respects, the Society has transparency obligations under the law. At the very least there is general public accountability even when, let’s say, the condition of an animal has captured our imaginations.

There are, of course, procedural issues associated with the FOI Act that can extend beyond mere questioning by an enterprising reporter on the health status of an animal.

But should we really have to go this far? A reporter asked a simple question: Whatever happened to Kangaroo Jack? Phone calls remained unanswered. People could not be located.

It is appalling that the Society should have disclosed what appear to be straightforward, apparently non-controversial medical facts about the demise of Kangaroo Jack only after being pressed to do so by an enterprising reporter and in the face of accompanying public concern.

It is sad that so many of us are shrugging this off as another mere example of our “culture of secrecy” - noted by researchers on a Media Institute of the Caribbean (MIC) study as being pervasive throughout our region.

Until we aggressively address this through all available means, including employment of enlightened political will, Kangaroo Jack can easily become Citizen Jill.

Climate’s labour costs

It took friend and colleague, climate change guru Steve Maximay, to remind me last week of an overdue commitment to address the impact of changing climatic conditions on the world of work in the Caribbean. I am coming to what led to this shortly. Stay with me.

This is no new area of global concern. The International Labour Organization (ILO) and others have been at this for many years now.

In 2004/2005 (20 years ago!) I worked with the Association of Caribbean MediaWorkers (ACM) and what was then the Caricom Mainstreaming Adaptation to Climate Change (MACC) project on a climate change handbook for Caribbean journalists - arguably the first of its kind anywhere. Pacific media colleagues even wanted one of their own! Credit T&T communication guy, Tony Deyal, for spawning the idea.

Even then, the subject of the changing world of work was coming up as experts concluded that “adaptation” to inevitable change had to be at the forefront of the numerous survival strategies of small vulnerable countries.

The ILO has also looked, in successive published studies, at the direct and indirect consequences of a phenomenon whose human contributions have been almost universally recognised by the scientific community.

In a follow-up to our first publication, with support from UNESCO in 2020, Maximay, Dr Dale Rankine and I co-authored ‘Reporting the Climate Crisis, A handbook for Caribbean journalists.’ Some readers thought “crisis” was an inappropriate descriptor and perhaps remain entitled to their uninformed view.

Authors of the UK Guardian’s Style Guide were however clear, and in 2019 mandated internal employment of “climate crisis” and “climate emergency” as preferred terms to describe the unfolding situation.

Now, back to Steve and our journey through hilly St Joseph last week. We came across the diligent postal worker who services my area (and who deserves a special award for her dedication). There she was - seated on a culvert, mid-morning, with her head down, perspiration dotting the hot pitch. “Heat,” she muttered. “Heat.” She declined our offer of a lift.

“You know,” Steve suggested, “this is why climate change and how people work must be urgently put on the agenda. Things will get worse.” We both understood the symbolism of that simple, brief encounter.

In April there was an ILO press release which described climate change as offering up a “cocktail” of serious health hazards with the potential to affect up to 70 percent of the world’s working population.

It might well be that Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM), the National Trade Union Centre (NATUC), and non-aligned member unions have found time in their busy schedules to discuss this matter. But I have not seen the press releases. Nobody has been making the media rounds. Labour Day came and went and the only heat I heard about was a threat of rhetorical “fire” in Fyzabad.

Last year, almost to the day, and hosted by Dr André Vincent Henry, Director of the Cipriani College of Labour and Co-operative Studies, Caribbean labour leaders and activists looked at these precise issues at a Caribbean World of Work Forum. Whatever happened to the agenda set there?

Revised labour standards are clearly needed as a buffer against the onslaught of uneven climate impacts across regions, countries, and sectors. Even accompanying measures to address this come with costly price tags.

The imperative of a “just transition” to low-carbon realities also has vast implications for workers. Global dynamics affected by the drive to achieve emission targets are umbilically linked to the future of workers and the communities in which they live and perform their duties.

In our region, there are already recognisable impacts on the incidence of heat-related and respiratory illnesses – developments hopefully being recorded and researched by public health agencies in T&T. A few months ago, I was a part of a journalistic exercise which looked at the rising incidence of climate-related illnesses among the elderly of Barbados.

In that instance, we noted a sad paucity of official data but abundant anecdotal information on growing hospital admissions for the treatment of patients experiencing higher temperatures and protracted exposure to the polluting effects of Saharan Dust.

There are also growing concerns related to disease-carrying vectors that thrive on the combined effects of unseasonal and more intense weather events. Have you wondered about the intensity of this year’s dengue outbreak and associated economic costs including those occasioned by workplace disruptions?

How are our unions contributing to such a discussion? Should they not be leading the way? Where are they? Where is this frontline of defence against climate’s rising labour costs?

 

Are we there yet?

Current events have driven me back to a memorable rant of August 2011 when I questioned the legitimacy (if not unconstitutional nature) of “a state of emergency to address the shortcomings of the police, judiciary, executive, and the people of Trinidad and Tobago” (my words).

A solution to the mounting violence and crime, I surmised, was thought to have been found through a momentary, sweeping suspension of a wide swathe of rights – a measure originally meant as a last and specific resort when all else has failed; so important being the value of durable human rights.

Back then came my sombre testimony that “the boots and guns are now in charge – a virtual takeover of the state by the state.” At the end of it, there were over 8,000 detainees and a pitiable number of convictions. Then, back to normal, and where we are now.

We kept hearing partisans present their respective, predictable cases. There were, apparently, political points to be earned.

By then, we had already been through the turbulent 1930s, the Black Power Revolution of 1970/71, and the hugely controversial state of public emergency “in the city of Port of Spain” in 1995 to force the late House Speaker Occah Seapaul from office.

In May 2021, the pandemic grew in domestic impact alongside a global COVID-19 emergency and an SoE was declared.

There remain those who for a variety of reasons (valid and invalid) thought it all irrational overkill and not a chance at erring on the side of extreme caution.

But here we are … one more time … and the calls have intensified, recently and ironically, by those whose legitimacy enjoys greatest succour from inalienable rights inclusive of religious belief and observance.

Government boots, you see, are not expected to be heard outside such doors – nor in the vicinity of others laying claim to exclusive, chronic, discriminatory victimhood.

So, yes, shut the doors and close those gates – but only if I am the one being kept safe inside. So mistaken are some that prohibitions serve only to raise the drawbridges to keep others out while many remain locked in.

There is sufficient precedent to support the view that draconian laws and the removal/suspension of rights offer limited, momentary reprieves, and little more. This is unless we conclude that rights and freedoms come at too high a price and decide to dump them indefinitely.

In Jamaica these days there are questions regarding the sustainability of relative communal peace through a succession of SoEs.

PM Andrew Holness was even moved to invoke the “rights of victims” as a presumptive trump card against the suggestion by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that the country’s repeated reliance on SoEs to address criminal behaviour does not appear to meet standards set by the American Convention.

The Inter-American System has insisted that “to adopt such measures, States need to justify their reasonableness, necessity, and proportionality in the context of the emergency. Additionally, indispensable judicial guarantees must be maintained in force in all circumstances.” (Think T&T 2011)

For too many, an insistence on meeting such standards reflects blindness, as Holness has suggested, to harsh realities on the ground. This assertion is however meant to effectively mute dissenting voices which, in the case of Jamaica, includes the political opposition and human rights groups.

Like here, many publicly assign to SoEs the collateral “benefit” of extra-judicial executions. Tell me you have not heard it said that “we just need to kill ‘them’ off” as a solution to the growth in murderous violence.

There were even Trinis openly hoping T&T would follow the path of former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte whose “war on drugs” led to thousands of deaths at police hands.

To me, this is what many people mean by their support for the suspension of rights in an environment of fear – a situation not always based on actual levels of risk or threat.

It is meanwhile true that under-performance in the areas of community action, policing, the administration of justice, media performance, and politics is abundantly evident. If indeed so, in what ways does a constitutionally provisioned state of national emergency resolve this condition?

In El Salvador they thought they had found the key. In the Philippines, “achievements” were brutally pyrrhic. In South Africa, SoEs were used as effective tools of brutal suppression. The Brazilians have been wrestling with this approach for years.

The question for us is whether we have reached a point where, at recognisable risk, we are prepared to relinquish the freedoms we cherish, to benefit from what have been widely acknowledged to be questionable short-term reliefs.

Have we really reached there yet?

Delightful CPL confusion

From Day One, 11 years ago, I have been paying attention to the unfurling of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) and its relevance to the regional integration project and the instincts that drive Caribbean people to a unique sense of self.

This is particularly interesting now that in T&T we are undergoing yet another wave of insanity associated with what people are describing as the outward manifestation of “patriotism” – sentiments often cosmetic, fascistic in nature, and driven by jingoistic, exclusionary emotions.

A flag at every home. Coat of arms. National watchwords. Everywhere, including at state functions, the accompanying embrace of theocratic creed (invariably “Christian” in nature). All the cosmetic jazz required to lay claim to some form of supposed independent citizenship and belonging.

The CPL raises such issues in different ways. There is, however, a mismatch between the design of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) agenda, the makeup of the hugely successful CPL, and support for the West Indies cricket team.

This space has also time and again made the distinction between “West Indies cricket” and “cricket in the West Indies” – a formulation that has seemingly eluded the thoughts of people who believe cricket belongs, as a standing agenda item, on the schedule for Caricom investment and discussion.

Explain this, I have often wondered aloud, to the agitating masses of Haiti, identity-conflicted Bahamas, football loving Suriname, and the people of Belize who rely on the Central American Integration System (SICA) for support of the kind not always accessed via Caricom.

In Curaçao, which joined as an Associate Member in July, there is most likely not a single proper cricket pitch. Tell me who there knows where to find “extra cover?”

The CPL meanwhile took us into the kind of terrain in 2013 we had not quite known before. Not even the transformative Stanford era brought us this.

As far as I know, the CPL is the only brand of regularly scheduled franchise cricket, featuring internationally mixed teams, whose bases of operation are countries and not counties or cities or regions within states.

The ensuing confusion here means that we have not always separated the franchises from the countries in which they are based. So, at cricket grounds all over the region, national flags are often seen at the stadia alongside branded team standards and buntings.

In one memorable instance, the T&T national flag was stomped upon by fans of another country who felt strongly about a loss. There were early unsuccessful calls not to associate national symbols (the coat of arms???) with the various teams to minimise the potential for such confusion.

Yet, people have been arguing, basically, that the teams are commercial products being offered by the respective countries. Maybe because we are so used to repackaging, re-assembling and labeling non-indigenous products as our own, such logic sticks.

Defiantly, I have at various times expressed support for the “T&T Amazon Warriors” (when T&T cricketers were more regularly on the team), the Jamaica Tallawahs (which no longer exists though Jamaica does), and the “Zouks” of Saint Lucia which is now the Saint Lucia Kings, captained by South African batsman, Faf du Plessis.

I asked my Lucian pal Peter where Faf goes for his Saturday pigtail bouillon, and he couldn’t answer me. Denis is also yet to say whether Shai Hope prefers Guyanese pepperpot in Kitty or what you can get in Cummingsburg.

Don’t talk about Joshua Little of TKR. Does he have an opinion on Sauce Doubles in Curepe as opposed to Debe saheena? In any event, where is “Trinbago”? No such country exists within the UN system.

Yet, the flags flew when Tim Seifert (New Zealand) was caught by Kyle Mayers (Barbados) off the bowling of Odean Smith (Jamaica) for the St Kitts and Nevis “Patriots” on Sunday. St Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Terrance Drew and the Minister of Sports Samal Duggins even flew to Antigua to back the team last week.

As silly as all of this seems, I still think that the CPL has done more for popular support for the game of cricket in recent years than Cricket West Indies has achieved in decades. In the process, there have been creative tensions between what we deemed to be “national” in the past and what presents itself as home-spun now.

In a strange way, we ought to have already been acquainted with all this. The “West Indies” flag and accompanying “anthem” are contrived inventions intended to generate amorphous “nationalistic” support. Beyond a Boundary was written in 1963. Today, there is no cricket bat in the Caricom flag.

 

None of the above

So, I decided to provocatively introduce the idea of a “None of the Above” (NOTA) option on national election ballots during a recent media workshop hosted by the T&T Publishers and Broadcasters Association on the ethical coverage of elections. I heard gasps in the room.

Bear in mind that such a choice exists, bearing different labels in various countries, states, and regions. In the UK there have been fringe parties registered on the ballot solely to express the general sentiment. Imagine a NOTA party in your constituency! Can they win?

Left to my own mischievous devices, I would have also continued two weeks ago to argue that, perhaps, there should also be the opportunity to vote “Against” the candidate/political party you would NOT wish to occupy office. In that event, the party would have a vote deducted from their tally. This is thus no mere “wasted” vote.

If nothing else, these electoral opportunities would have the potential to honestly capture prevailing attitudes toward what is being offered by the various competing parties and, importantly, attract electors who would not have otherwise participated.

Hear me out. Though we have had voter turnouts of over 60 percent since 1981 (except for the COVID-affected 58 percent turnout of 2020), simple arithmetic would show that the parties elected to office habitually represent less than half of the registered electorate. It’s much worse during local government elections. But that’s almost an entirely different story.

Now, I also did not notice in my survey of the Report of the National Advisory Committee on Constitutional Reform of 2024, any suggestion by contributors that voting should be a mandatory civic duty, as is the case in some countries (with exceptions for old age, military engagement, and, in Brazil, literacy level).

But though I agree this should not be the case in T&T, I support the submission reflected in the Report that the “right to vote in free and fair elections” should be entrenched as a constitutional provision.

Still, I don’t think this would produce contests reflective of “the will of the people.” If political parties refuse to improve their performance by attracting better quality people as candidates and, subsequently, members of the government, there will continue to be that 30 – 40 percent who will simply stay away.

In a sense some of this is reflected in submissions to the Committee in the form of several proposed innovations. For example, the suggestion that voters should be given two votes – one for a candidate, and another for a party – can make the important distinction between rejection of an odious candidate offered by a political party you don’t really mind.

The (Prakash) Ramadhar Report of 2013 addresses this two-ballot question in much the same way, but I cannot recall the proposal gaining any ground during the administration of 2010-2015 of which the chairman was a key part.

In the Sinanan Committee Report, the party vote would be a vote for seats in a Senate elected through a list system of proportional representation. Theoretically, this can mean that a “minor” political organisation, unlikely to win a seat through a First Past The Post (FPTP) constituency vote, can find its way into the Senate – ostensibly an enlarged version of the current one.

I am not sure if this means that the party would also need to be among the competitors in all 41 seats to make the party ballot in constituencies where they do not offer a candidate. This may have come up, but I am not sure.

Additionally, I hope this measure does not enable constituency candidates to also be on the Senate list (and therefore allow former President Robinson to rest comfortably wherever he might be).

Any new system should guarantee that candidates who have been unsuccessful via popular vote should not be accorded backdoor entry into parliament or government.

I am also all for a fixed election date. Incumbency already carries with it advantages an opposition party can never replicate. An election date should not be on a slip of paper in any individual’s back pocket.

There is also the perennial issue of proportional representation, ritualistically explored in the public space without consideration of its numerous manifestations. The PR system in Suriname, for example, is not the same as what applies in Guyana. And there are other examples outside of CARICOM. Which version are we speaking about? It makes a difference.

We never really got down to business on this question. It’s worth a closer look. So does what the ballots ask for. NOTA can be a studied option.

Thinking things over

For years and years now, I have had my copy of Thinking Things Over within easy reach. If you didn’t know, the 90-something page booklet comprises the report of the Constitution Commission of 1987.

There is an emotional attachment to this report partly because of my contribution to the public hearings as then President of the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT) and my arguments for retaining “freedom of the press” as item 4(k) of our enshrined rights.

This rather unique feature of our constitution nestles alongside “freedom of thought and expression” – in other Caribbean jurisdictions considered to be an umbrella concept not necessarily requiring further explicit elaboration.

I have also referred to the report especially when politicians and others decide to toss “constitutional reform” into topical, contentious brews.

Late Prime Minister Basdeo Panday, whose death on January 1 served to re-ignite interest in the subject, was fond of invoking suggested reform (albeit in habitually vague terms) at the slightest hint of conflict or whenever he thought he should have reminded people about states of societal “alienation” in one form or another.

The late Lloyd Best was also similarly inclined, especially on the point of expanding the roles and functions and general status of local government and reformulating the form and role of parliament.

But none of this has been a novel or narrow obsession, as the Report of the National Advisory Committee on Constitutional Reform of 2024, chaired by Barendra Sinanan, reminds us.

The seminal (Hugh) Wooding Report and Draft Constitution of 1974; the report of the 1987 (Isaac) Hyatali Commission (Thinking Things Over); the “Principles of Fairness” Committee Report of 2006; and the work of the (Prakash) Ramadhar Committee of 2013 are all referenced as essential recollections.

If this catalogue of consultations and ensuing reports proves one thing, it is that there has been longstanding, diligent concern about changing some fundamental rules of the national game across the spectrum of political and sectional interests.

It is important, I believe, for all citizens to have views of their own on the rules and principles of national governance.

Proper political parties and all civil society organisations ought to promote activities and develop platforms that help educate their members on such matters and encourage open dialogue on options for change to match dynamic circumstances. This goes way beyond hosting ad hoc party “consultations.”

Instead, the Sinanan Report lists over 230 “non-constitutional recommendations” from the public and some organisations - important as many of them are as discrete legislative/regulatory measures, but not matters to guide reform of the constitution.

The current report should now be the focus of informed study by all groups with an interest in changing/maintaining important rules of the game, and the main principles that guide them.

It represents a high-quality encapsulation of the main highlights of past exercises and proposes a menu of options for further elaboration at a proposed seven-day “National Constitutional Conference.”

The report also proposes a 14-point agenda dissecting essential subjects from the Preamble to a listing of “Collateral Issues.” Even so, the Commission has acknowledged these activities to include some rather complex processes and are, for the most part, not immediately achievable objectives or ends in themselves.

As a journalist and newspaper columnist I have had the opportunity to explore numerous points of concern with clear personal biases in favour of, among other things, state secularism, elimination of the colonial savings clause, and entrenching a role for the Caribbean Court of Justice.

My own list of options is relatively limited partly because I believe it is impossible to legislate away attitudes and longstanding societal habits and practices.

But there are numerous other interests in contention. In that light, the report concedes that “given the political environment and the huge challenges the society is currently facing, scepticism and even cynicism is not unwarranted.”

What has so far emerged as outright dismissal on the grounds of partisan convenience or “gimmickry” is defamatory not only of the members of the Commission but of a process whose timing has always confronted the challenge of election calendars.

The report of the Ramadhar Committee, for instance, emerged during a year of local government elections and some of its proposals, once set for parliamentary decision, died upon a changing of the political guard in 2015.

There has to come a time when this kind of work produces more tangible results. People must also make the issues covered more present in the public discourse. This most recent effort is worthy of deep, collective consideration. It is a fine piece of work that signals yet another start requiring satisfactory outcomes.