Violence, grief and evil

Some sobering realities strike you across the face when you’re standing in the hot sun outside the home of two elderly men you know, and their lifeless bodies are lying on the floor inside.

Grief is patterned in a manner that captures regret, anger, and guilt in a single indivisible package.

Spend enough time in the journalism business and you understand its vicarious impacts. Live long enough in a violent country and you know its direct consequences.

Just one day after some celebrated a claim of resurrection we were, first thing the morning after, confronting death.

It is the stuff of macabre design. A juxtaposing of sorrow and celebration followed by more grief. Mervyn would have heard the message at church on Sunday, save for news of a final cruel act in which he would become a key subject.

For certain, there is a theology to cover all of it. But it hardly proposes understanding beyond a claim of pervasive, amorphous "evil."

BC and I discussed this via text messages two days later. Could it be that such a condition resides somewhere in all our souls?

If so, the challenge calls on their excellence, but surpasses the mere competence of lawmakers, police, judge, and jury. There is, perhaps, the application of law and justice both as prevention and as cure.

For certain, our frequently quoted “criminologists” have more than lightly scanned the literature that finds blood on a multitude of different hands and circumstances. Yet, “crime” is polled as election and political concern, paraded as feedstock on the hustings, and displayed as trite partisan and even ethnic one-upmanship.

“Justice”, we may consider, is both condition and process. Something that applies as much to pre-condition as it does to outcome. Hence, “social justice” – not as slogan or fashionable rhetorical posture – but as lived reality to stem oncoming tides of “evil” and to attend to them when they appear.

So, the reporter turns to me as we stood outside the house of death. “What,” he asks sincerely, “do you think accounts for all of this?”

Two years ago, it would have been futile to turn to a confluence of science and politics. But, today, the answer flows like vaccine through a needle: “The first thing we need to do is to disaggregate the experience. Chop it into bits and pieces and examine each one for clues and answers.”

Murder comes in different forms and under different circumstances. So does justice, with policing somewhere in-between to mediate the application of law. So, where is there a straight answer to all of this?

For starters, police commissioners, ministers of national security, parliaments and the people who occupy seats there are almost irrelevant to some of the more urgent tasks at hand.

It is true that appalling crime detection rates, sluggish judicial action, and sloppy lawmaking have done their share of damage. But isn’t there something in all this that points to civic responsibility and the value of social institutions?

I told the reporter last week it could not be expected that a police officer be assigned to every one of us every hour of every day. There is no judge next door to mediate disputes. There is no law or constitution that physically prevents me from taking your property or from hating you.

I remember once exploring prospects for a version of “broken windows theory” that embraces an expanded role for the citizenry. What some old-stagers identify as the “village” dynamic that places the onus not for vigilante justice, but for social responsibility in the hands of our communities.

There are experts in this sort of thing whose voices we are not hearing. The usual suspects make the media rounds and that’s that. I don’t claim to have any answers, but I think I understand the questions.

Maybe there are muted admonitions in the churches, mosques and mandirs, at the universities, service organisations, and even within the political parties, from which there has been very little of any value on this point.

Whatever the case, violence abounds. These issues should not await hot mornings outside houses of death to occur to us. Recent years have also proven beyond all reasonable doubt that we are not going to vote, press release, shout, march, or social media our way out of this.

 

Digital pains and the young

Since I last explored the myth of private sector digital superiority over the legendary sloth of state agencies, there has been a running narrative from friends and colleagues who continue to point to notable omissions on my part.

There have been people who have called and messaged me essentially proposing that I had forgotten to mention this or that enterprise, agency, or service.

We can indeed spend a lot of time adding to an extensive list that conjoins government institutions with private enterprise when it comes to the general state of underdevelopment relative to the embrace of technological solutions to societal obstacles.

There is little in sight to suggest studied commitment by most to the required precision and efficiency of the modern era, despite occasional declarations of grand intent. It’s nowhere in the partisan political discourse and persists as PR imperative elsewhere. We can’t be serious!

The last time I mentioned, in passing, the prevalence of shiny, new operational facades hyperlinked to a backend of primordial confusion. I called out the banks, insurance companies, telecom operators, commercial enterprises, public utilities and state agencies, as all displaying disturbingly similar symptoms.

Today, I propose to address links between these undeniable shortcomings and two seemingly unrelated but entirely connected features of the current reality.

The first speaks to the deliberate marginalising of youth and the second considers prospects for improving the well-being of future generations in the face of numerous challenges, including those of global scope, such as the climate crisis.

We have limited control over most of the latter, except to adapt and to be more agile. But we have virtual full control over the former. In both instances, though, there cannot be hesitation over the embrace of what’s new.

Almost every enterprising, creative and productive young adult I have interacted with in recent years has attested to the fact that the processes intended to keep our country viable explicitly undervalue and disregard the young.

Had this not been the case, we would have more likely than not by now negotiated more than one significant developmental hurdle. There is no way the current crop of digital natives, once handed joint control, would have tolerated the utter backwardness of operational processes in the public space.

Of course, this is difficult to contemplate against the backdrop of a notion of a presumed “lost generation.” The deviance of some is cast as statement on the condition of all. On the contrary, when I look around me, I see young people ready and set to take the reins.

Instead, they are actively blocked by official and unofficial processes that openly discriminate against them. For starters, try as a 25-year-old to register a business and open a bank account.

Meanwhile, people of my generation with the required mortgages, utility bills and established mailing addresses have already displayed a general inability to effectively align knowledge and experience with digital opportunity.

The transition is viewed with the kind of suspicion and scepticism ignorance breeds. Yet, the attributes that accompany experience are required in the transition out of a dark past that hangs like a stubborn shadow over current realities.

Additionally, while there is absolutely no doubt that digital technology is an indispensable pillar of our developmental goals, it raises questions requiring brand new ways of looking at how our societies operate.

For example, while it is true innovation can both address efficiencies and create economic opportunities, there are trade-offs to be made against some potential costs.

The most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to cite poignant examples, advises that while innovation is important as a tool in addressing the crisis, there can and will be the prospect of managing increased levels of e-waste, addressing the negative impacts on labour markets and attending to a widened digital divide.

These are matters that clearly call on a whole-of-society approach driven and inspired by young, inventive minds and tempered by the contemplation experience can bring.

But none of this will be possible if we constantly erect barriers against the forward march of the young. I am not among the old fogeys looking on at them in disapproval.

Employ a battalion of young people to fix the digital mess. Elect them to public office. Provide them with the means. Get the hell out of their way.

 

A multi-layered fiasco

People who maintain a scornful distance between themselves and the regional process too often appear publicly, and therefore embarrassingly, oblivious to some striking realities of the Caribbean survival project.

The current fiasco involving the belated, proposed nomination of Jamaica’s foreign minister Kamina Johnson-Smith as a candidate for the post of Secretary-General of the Commonwealth highlights this phenomenon through numerous, largely uninformed, public utterances.

That said, there are indeed procedural, political and perceptual (cognitive) layers of the fiasco that remain unexplored and casually dismissed at our collective peril, since they also represent systemic shortcomings.

There was, for instance, the issue of the “languaging” of the March 3 communiqué reflecting the proceedings of the March inter-sessional meeting in Belize.

There is an enormous difference between the contents of a public communiqué and the official report of proceedings. Some of us who keep tabs on the process have been inclined to press for more disclosure to ensure greater precision in the public framing of issues raised and agreements reached.

Had the latter been the case, it would have been known by everyone that when the subject of the candidacy came up there was neither unanimous agreement nor mention of Jamaica’s active interest in the matter.

Knowing more about what actually happened at the meeting, and what was not reflected in the single-sentence statement on the matter, would have better nuanced use of the word “overwhelming” and not “unanimous” support for Scotland.

The statement reads: “Heads of Government expressed their overwhelming support for the re-election of Baroness Patricia Scotland as Secretary-General of The Commonwealth.”

This linguistic sleight-of-hand is among what I see as a (failing) “procedural” feature of the fiasco.

Additionally, had people followed what happened in 2015, the last time Caricom was faced with such a decision, it would have been easy to understand what happened in Belize. This is the “political” layer.

In 2015, T&T was among a Caricom majority supportive of the candidacy of Antigua and Barbuda’s candidate, ambassador Ron Sanders. Dominica had nominated Scotland and maintains this position.

At that time, T&T and others expressed concern about the “Caribbean” bona fides of a candidate who had served in both the UK parliament and government – dual citizenship with Dominica notwithstanding. This appears to be T&T’s continued position.

Reduced to a single sentence in the communiqué, the most recent matter was not rigorously interrogated by anyone in the public space including the press … until Jamaica stated its intentions.

Since then, the “political” layer of the fiasco has sloshed about in a toxic swamp of insults, jingoistic grandstanding, and general ignorance about the role of the regional movement.

For instance, a rather harmless tweet of mine (@wgibbings) about the language of the communiqué generated a sleazily framed reference to the purported uselessness of Caricom.

This is the “perceptual” layer of the fiasco – the self-hating belief that nothing good has come from recognition that none of us, as mini states, has the means to enter the future alone, or the realistic possibility of latching onto a continental destiny of one kind or the other based on mutual respect.

These factors all overlap every time collective self-esteem is demanded, and the option of agreeing to disagree is before us. Think about decision-making at the OAS over Venezuela and the most recent UN vote on the suspension of Russia from the UN Human Rights Council.

The fact though is the vast majority of issues put before Caricom are routinely settled by consensus with relatively little fuss. These are impressive credentials. Look, contrastingly, at integration arrangements in Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa.

Also not considered in the assertion of “uselessness” are the institutional arrangements that have emerged since 1973, including close to 30 regional structures to provide pooled support in a wide variety of areas.

In full view of this, when tacitly assigned the task of prospecting an exit strategy for Jamaica out of Caricom four years ago, former Jamaica PM Bruce Golding and his team actually proposed a strengthening of the means to achieve the goals of Caricom.

Since then, there have been numerous references to the status of The Bahamas with one foot decidedly out the door. There has also been gratuitous resort to the cherry-picking of both obligations and benefits.

Some influential folks in Guyana now openly express a desire to explore other options. Yet, last week, some of them boastfully hosted the president of the CCJ – an institution whose role brought peace and resolution to almost two years of tumult there.

There are many things that need fixing. But these are hardly “shambles” or evidence of things in terminal decay.

What 'new normal'?

And here I was, thinking that yet another column on the digital failures of the pandemic period would signify thematic overkill.

Represented in modern tech literature as “opportunity,” the digital conduct of public business has, in our instance, been expressed as perpetual challenge.

Then, Monday, on account of the silly “proof of address” requirement of a growing number of public and private sector services, I attempted to log on to a public utility website – WASA in this case – and found myself confronted by the online traffic jam that conspires to “time out” especially when there is urgency attached to the transaction.

Here's the message word-for-word - the phrase “technical error” designed, with the naïve in mind, to provide convenient cover. The rest is all jargonistic gobbledygook meant to mamaguy and deceive: “A technical error occurred: Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to obtaining a connection from the pool. This may have occurred because all pooled connections were in use and max pool size was reached.”

“Sorry, we just not ready,” would have sufficed.

For certain, the cognitive dissonance occasioned by unfamiliarity with a life made easier through technology, is not peculiar to hapless state services. It is there in banking, insurance, commerce, telecoms, and other areas involving private capital, profits, and vainglorious claims to operational superiority over the others.

You get a letter in the mail requiring that you visit an office … with the letter you received at the address, to which it was mailed, in your hands. Then you are asked to produce both the letter and something to prove that this is indeed your mailing address.

It’s like that time (years ago) I had an editor who wanted articles emailed to him accompanied by a fax and a call to confirm that both email and fax had been sent. So, no, media have not been innocent through all this. Hence the struggle with appropriate business models in the sector.

Additionally, though we remain under conditions of a pandemic (whatever the COVID denialists claim), there are lessons of this period already destined for the undercarriage of any passing bus.

Remote work, digitally composed documentation, online forms, and a variety of other now-acceptable phenomena are (many of them) destined to evaporate as magically as their acceptance emerged at a time of urgency and crisis.

The “new normal” is set to become nothing more than “normal” with a URL – “normURL”?

Bosses yearn for faces at the office. No banking is complete without long steupsing lines. Everywhere, paper is craved to validate reality. Bills are best paid in person for fear of online transactions that “did not go through.”

Former public utilities minister Robert Le Hunte was recently quoted as juxtaposing the “digital face” alongside the manual back end of our banking sector. It’s no different in a wide variety of other instances, including at agencies that once resided under his ministerial purview.

Given this belated epiphany on his part, I can only imagine the pain and agony of a Cabinet without Le Hunte at this time. Had he stayed, would we have had our digital vaccination cards by now? Would the “proof of address” requirement have remained? If so, what would have been the rationale?

Meanwhile, I am still not going to allow anyone to forget that at approximately 2.20 p.m. on Thursday September 23, 2021 – in his capacity as minister in the Office of the Prime Minister - Stuart Young announced the possible arrival of “digital vaccination cards” in “four to six weeks.”

Two digital transformation ministers later, there is precious little - outside of a decade and a half old legacy bequeathed by former public administration minister Kennedy Swaratsingh – to signify a radical change in official mindset. The emotional software to accompany hardware acquisitions.

It’s just the old normal, hyperlinked from a shiny, new façade. Public servants know where, usually across the street, to send people to get “photocopies” of their documents and bank tellers still need to hold paper cheques in their hands.

I recently had cause to display my vaccination card for admission to a restaurant. I no longer need to do so. Thankfully. Mainly because the crapaud foot that names me on paper absolutely requires the backup of other ID equally primordial in nature and design.

The Climate Justice Question

I have recently been participating in a series of webinars examining the nature and scope of media coverage of the climate crisis with closer focus on the inequities that have marked its occurrence, impacts and the measures to minimise its effects.

In my view, even in the face of a pandemic, this remains the survival issue of our time, especially for small island states and low-lying coastal regions of the developing world.

In fact, the lessons of the climate crisis persist as precursors to the pandemic challenge through the convergence of science, public policy, domestic and international politics, and the work of mass media in exploring their true meaning for our societies.

This is no newfound concern of mine or of the Caribbean journalistic community. Seventeen years ago, I edited the Climate Change Handbook for Caribbean Journalists published by the Mainstreaming Adaptation to Climate Change (MACC) Project of Caricom – now the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) based in Belize.

It was a collaboration involving journalists and climate scientists and was among the first resources of its kind globally.

Then, last year, as an initiative entirely conceived by the Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM), with support from UNESCO, together with scientists Dr Dale Rankine and Steve Maximay, I co-authored Reporting the Climate Crisis – A Handbook for Caribbean Journalists.

Yesterday’s launch of Climate Justice: Journalistic Perspectives Workshop by the Media Institute of the Caribbean (MIC) signified an even deeper dive into the subject of climate change and its accompanying crises. This is particularly so when you consider the inherent inequities I mentioned earlier.

It is also absolutely relevant to the current challenge of pandemic management in that science is often challenged by a toxic concoction combining baseless scepticism and campaigns of disinformation.

In the process, there is a tragic devaluing of the impact of unjust antecedents. For, not unlike climate change, the pandemic has had uneven global impacts. From situationally specific pre-conditions, to access to the tools of correction, to the distribution of costs associated with varying levels of responsibility.

So, today, while less than a quarter of the population of the planet consumes over 80% of its national resources and generates over 90% of its pollution and waste, the remaining 75% are bearing the heaviest comparative burdens of adaptation and mitigation.

This raises the question of geo-political justice, including the distribution of liabilities, as the world now attempts to slow, if not halt, the prospect of ecological disaster.

This raises the question of geo-political justice, including the distribution of liabilities, as the world now attempts to slow, if not halt, the prospect of ecological disaster.

 

Yes, there remain those who are either suspicious of the doomsday scenarios being projected or doubtful about the link with human activity. But as is the case with COVID-19, it is best to go with the tested views of the vast majority of real scientists.

If the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) meant anything, it is that the transition from the status quo to dramatic reduction in carbon emissions – the Caribbean’s rallying cry has been “1.5(%) to stay alive” – will require adjustments that stand in contradiction with the developmental aspirations of many of our countries.

In our region, T&T, Suriname, and emerging energy giant, Guyana, are facing the long-term prospect of economies constructed on pillars whose value it is the concerted effort of the global community to diminish. It is estimated in some quarters, for instance, that in order for the world to meet emissions targets, oil production must be reduced by up to 90% over the next decade.

The measure used to describe the balance between emissions and captures is “net zero.” To me, this also signals prospective anomalies in the process of determining who cuts how much.

I remember sitting on an airline flight with a former energy adviser to the government of T&T many years ago and asked him: “What do you think will happen when all the oil and gas goes away?” (There was an estimate at that time of about 30 years probable oil reserves). He responded: “Don’t worry about that. For as long as the planet is viable, there will be oil to be found.”

That was just about 30 years ago. Today, the question has to be revised to focus on our share of a burden placed on the shoulders of the world by a few. Steve Maximay talks all the time about a “just transition” to accompany the amelioration of the climate crisis. That appears to be the more important question of today.

Not Welcome Here

Let me make it clear from the start. More often than not, oppressive, discriminatory state policy is not a reflection of popular behaviour or predisposition. For today’s example, I select the conclusion that T&T is not a welcoming society.

Let me restate: This does not imply that Trinidadians and Tobagonians are, on average, cold, unfriendly, and inhospitable people. We are not.

Just last week, for instance, in the company of a young Jamaican family member visiting for the first time, a joke with a Chaguanas food vendor about our advanced state of hunger yielded two free meals. No matter how hard we tried, the lady refused our money.

We returned a few days later with a gift and, had it not been for COVID, there would have no doubt been tight hugs in the manner of old friends or family. We were also offered free callaloo.

Contrastingly, a group of regional students here for mandatory UWI sessions departed as fast as their travel itineraries permitted - unlike their colleague who decided on an additional week.

It had not helped that their first and second official contacts had failed to provide basic welcome, guidance, and services that would have made their stay much less stressful.

It was also not good that tales back home of horrors past had prepared them for the worst – much of which, in their collective opinion, was eventually realised.

Through all this I am still holding my tongue on public exposure of a number of instances in which it is clear that our policy, law, and official practice constitute violations of the spirit of regional commitments. Yet, the speeches have been grandiloquent, and the signatures appear on treaties with flair.

There are two ongoing applications before the immigration authorities, for example, that are shameful and embarrassing to this country as former leaders in regional affairs. I cannot go into the gory details because there can and will be a vindictive backlash.

Needless to say, the application of archaic laws combined with a completely unhelpful, unwilling official demeanour has conspired to relay to those in question that they are not welcome here.

These are actual cases, the details of which would turn every citizen with a soul to anger.

Yet, I generously suggest that this does not only point to the disrespectful, contemptuous behaviour of state officials. It cannot be that people who grew up and went to school and live in my country can be so cruel. I refuse to believe that.

So it was that I spent part of last week with colleagues discussing media coverage of migration issues with a focus mainly on the arrival of non-Caricom nationals. Enlightening inputs from Justice Vashiest Kokaram and attorney/law lecturer, Jason Nathu helped us come to terms with the archaic nature of applicable laws and policy.

When considered alongside the concerns of agencies such as the UNHCR and IOM, it became clear that these things are only partially the function of uncaring state operatives. What we have is the absence of clear policy, enlightened law, and the persistence of a politics of division - the latter well learned from the colonials, but now with a momentum of its own.

You already know my views on the regional paradigm to which we claim to belong. International humanitarian law, the Treaty of Chaguaramas, domestic legislation and political posturing all conspire to paint a picture in direct conflict with actual process and action.

“You are not welcome here” is the essential message. No wonder why the longstanding cluelessness on matters related to refugee policy, immigration, tourism, and the application of regional solutions via institutions such as the CCJ.

None of this, by the way, is irrelevant to the senseless attack on recently-appointed attorney general, Reginald Armour – an outstanding, independent, legal professional with credentials that exceed the requirements of his new job. Real legal minds have already pronounced on the matter. But I hope we all got the implicit message.

Link this to what I flagged last week as the longstanding (racist) myth of invading “small islanders” for purposes of bolstering political support.

Over the years there has been little change when it comes to such matters since it has been deemed to be of political value to instil baseless fear regarding the inward flows of people – despite 400 years of arrivals.

“We” (who all came) have been saying “keep away” all our relatively short national lives. Many, many more have left though. Most, never to return.

Selwyn Ryan and the Google connection

Many journalists of years past, and who are still around, know that long before Google and Yahoo! search engines there were people to whom they could have turned for quick advice and reliable information on selected subjects.

True, they also relied heavily on the newspaper clippings of their respective libraries, which were facilities of varying degrees of sophistication, orderliness, and timely delivery. But the human touch was often faster and offered nuances and other gaps AI cannot now offer.

There were newsroom old-stagers whose recall was respected even at short notice, and external expert resources always ready to take your call. This often reinforced the clippings search.

At one time in the Express newsroom, we had David Chase, David Renwick, and Leonard Robertson. One phone call away, on matters of history, politics, and general public affairs, was columnist/academic Dr Selwyn Ryan, among others.

Last Sunday, I remembered when I had written a front-page article and was subsequently confronted by a furious editor-in-chief (Owen Baptiste) in typical irascible, blood-vessel-busting style about something reported by me as fact, but which one of his pals had called to suggest was wholly inaccurate.

It had something to do with the federal elections of 1958 which I was certain I had read somewhere and rather casually inserted as part of the story. Calling Dr Ryan rescued me from what would have otherwise been an editor’s savagery.

My late mother-in-law, Marianne Ramesar, worked alongside him at the ISER (now SALISES), UWI and, like Ryan, was of the view that no narrative on development and all its processes is complete in the absence of verifiable data and statistics. In my view, by the way, her own work as a historian is grossly undervalued

Today, I am part of a regional media development institute that is attempting to erect as a key pillar of journalistic pedagogy a notion of data-driven newsgathering. It is a painful challenge in societies that rely heavily on intuition, guesswork and vaps.

For instance, I have been concerned about the popular myth of substantial, decisive imported Vincentian and Grenadian votes in the late 50s and early 60s to bolster political support at elections. Data employed at the core of journalistic enquiry makes for a powerful narrative. That’s the plan. It’s not only for university researchers. This was a Selwyn Ryan lesson.

The years passed and all of this came to mind a few months after the 1995 general election that brought a UNC-dominated government to office, following a post-election agreement with the NAR. This is often inaccurately described as when the UNC first “won” a general election.

I was, rather surprisingly (as a non-academic), invited to speak at a UWI seminar on the impact of media coverage of that election on its eventual outcome. I called the paper Journalism and the Political Process.

The frightfully rigorous interrogation that followed reinforced the fact that this man, who had been our newspaper Google, had earned our admiration because of the respectful regard extended to us as clearly imperfect professionals.

Confidence in its soundness and acknowledgement of the paper’s weaknesses came from Prof. Ryan’s public and private responses to what he had heard. This is what true teachers do. The UWI has referred to him as “a brilliant research empiricist.” I think I understand why.

The seminar proceedings were subsequently published in a book simply called The General Elections of 1995 in Trinidad and Tobago. My chapter is there.

The phone call consultations with Prof. Ryan had actually continued long after the Express. He had endured - as head of the elections survey team of St Augustine Research Associates (SARA) - the recurring, outrageous claim that his research methodology was implicitly serving to stimulate ethnic dynamics.

Idle chatter over this had morphed, over the years, into vulgar slurs on his character and his commitment to country. Anyone who has read any of his insightful texts on ethnicity, race, nationalism, and politics would be hard-pressed to arrive at some of the conclusions that entered the public domain – many of them from the political platform.

I am yet to read Ryan Recalls, but I am certain that he either directly or indirectly addresses the claims that arose.

Yes, we have Ukraine and Russia. Oil prices and pandemic measures. Vulturous politics and charlatanistic adventurism. Much of that was within my sight. But, today, this space belongs to our pre-Google search engine and generous intellectual benefactor to a generation of T&T journalists. Thank you, sir.