Finding flags to fly

Nothing like a big sporting event to ignite emotions typically associated with the flying of one’s own national flag and tearfully rendering the national anthem.

For some, like my nephew “B” and people I am sure you know, the latter exercise includes notes not reflected in the official music score. That is probably because the anthem was written with phenoms like Ella Andall in mind! Lesser mortals change keys when we reach “here every creed and race.”

But it does not always require authentic credentials to stimulate this level of sentimentality when it comes to sport. I remember for instance, back in 1989, almost being ejected from Radio 610 when people thought the “red” shirt I wore on the day of the decisive (and losing) T&T vs USA World Cup Football qualifier had not been red enough.

I simply had not found time to procure a cheap T–shirt on Frederick Street and I rather liked the one I had – which I did not stop wearing until only a few years ago.

There were on-air colleagues claiming the occasion was the most significant in the country’s history! A public holiday was declared even before a single boot touched a ball. Flags and red cloth sold and sold and sold. I was, apparently, the only person on the face of the portion of earth occupied by T&T that did not have a shirt the correct shade of red.

Wayne Brown wrote that the whole affair closely aligned with what we recognise as ultra-nationalist “fascism” of the type that in later years led to serious calls for the flying of national flags at all homes. A whole government minister was given the brief to pursue the “patriotism” agenda.

Wayne and I tried discussing what was happening over lunch one day. But it was a silent affair with lots of head shaking, grunts, and groans. Two people known for talking your head off … beaten into disgruntled silence.

In more recent times, with no Wayne Brown in sight, came the CPL and the fake names and brands. I warned right here in this space that inciting nationalist fervour over pickup sides from everywhere would take us nowhere. I rooted for the “T&T Amazon Warriors” on purpose to make the point.

Yet, a real T&T flag was trampled in Guyana, and we realised there would come a time when the sentiment would harden and threaten a sense of fraternity between close communities. Oil eventually came and tore the masks off … and took some flesh in the process.

Then you realise that the Manchester United folks of Diego Martin were doing the same to the Gunners of St Joseph. Black eyes among friends. A few broken teeth. Flags and buntings waved in scorn at each other. What, then, becomes of red, black, and white? Who of the TKR has not cheered for the KKR? Where, by the way, is this “Trinbago” of which they speak?

The indomitable Fazeer Mohammed also advised last weekend about the power of money in professional sport. How international sport has integrated genuine feelings of loyalty to spin vast financial surpluses through contrived scheduling. The composing of tournaments in such a manner as to attract eyeballs and advertising dollars.

Nothing wrong with any of this, of course. It has always been that allegiance based on nationality has had the potential to convert competitions into wars with illusory stakes that imperil pride.

It must eventually be that the Man United crest will be as recognisable as a KKR gold and purple Viking helmet or as the birds of T&T’s Coat of Arms.

Then comes the West Indies. Not the one with the blue background with four horizontal stripes of black, white, and gold of 1958 when the West Indian Federation was born. Not even the one with the yellow stars and coconut tree adjoining a grey mass along a green ocean of the pre-1999 WICB generation. But the one with the yellow sun, three cricket stumps and leaning coconut tree registered by CWI Inc.

Yes, that one. The one with the anthem (a genius offering from David Rudder) that precious few in Haiti, Belize, The Bahamas, or Suriname know or understand. I can imagine the Caricom meetings at which cricketing nostalgia reigns and the puzzled and bemused looks around some corners of the table.

Yet, there are passions to match the hurts and triumphs of the EPL, the IPL, and even the CPL. Flags to fly over the ICC and FIFA. Anthems to be sung. Money to be made. This evening at the game I wear my own shade of maroon.

Dying for the records

There are several highly instructive points to be noted concerning the recent court experience of blogger/activist Vishal Persad’s Millennials for Change (MFC) in a freedom of information matter imaginatively labeled “Closed Cases: The Dead Speak.”

Persad had said at the start of the project in question that he was embarking on an FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) exercise “to compel the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service to disclose investigative files” in several past cases in which the suspects/accused “are now deceased.” This, he said, was “to help foster transparency and accountability in law enforcement.”

MFC then attempted to get its hands on police files related to investigations on people such as Dole Chadee, Yasin Abu Bakr, former chief justice Satnarine Sharma, and the late police commissioner, Randolph Burroughs.

Effectively spurned by the Police Service (“thorough and diligent searches were made for the requested information, (but) searches proved futile”), and in an effort led by attorney Keron Ramkhalwan, attention turned last September to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

Now, before we go there, the response of the police happens to be one helluva thing. Hopefully, this situation has either changed by now or there are firm plans to pay greater attention to securing such records. “Searches proved futile” is not a satisfactory response from a public authority of this nature. I thought securing intelligence was a key part of police work.

Meanwhile, the Office of the DPP acknowledged the request, then nothing happened for months and months. That was that. Or so some thought.

In January, MFC filed for a judicial review based on the lack of responsiveness of the Office of the DPP. Last week, Justice Devindra Rampersad ordered delivery of a firm decision by the DPP on whether the request would in fact be pursued. It was clearly not enough to say, “request received” and leave it at that. What makes employees of a population believe they are entitled to behave that way? If they say “no”, that will be another story.

This particular angle on the pursuit of public records, held in trust by a public authority, was inspired by the “FOIA the Dead” efforts of US advocate Percy Higgins who, since 2017, has filed freedom of information requests with the FBI on every public personality whose obituary appears in the New York Times.

A Freedom of the Press Foundation article on the project morbidly describes the website on which the findings are found as: “the transparency site public figures are dying to get into.”

The website now houses close to 6,000 pages of FBI records on 60 public personalities. I warn you, if you don’t have lots of time on your hands, do not venture onto that site.

It however appears that Persad was prepared to go there, and impressively so. So, point number one of my “highly instructive” argument: The Freedom of Information Act – whatever its flaws – is one of the most important tools for citizen access to the records of public authorities with few exceptions, as described in the legislation.

The Media Institute of the Caribbean (MIC), which I serve as vice president, recently published an analytical report on the nine English-speaking Caribbean countries in which such a law exists.

Its principal author, attorney/journalist Dionne Jackson-Miller of Jamaica, noted in successive workshops with journalists that the basis for much of the official lethargy on this subject is a pervasive “culture of secrecy.”

Additionally, our FOIA is at the disposal of all citizens – not just journalists and others interested in publicising the material that reaches their hands.

Impressively, MFC, as an NGO engaged in blogging its activities, has also been able to access records on the employment practices of several government ministries and the Police Service.

It is also currently sorting the findings of an investigation into the granting of Firearm Users Licences; and pursuing more detailed information on the incidence of murder in T&T.

These kinds of public interest activities are to be commended. MFC is one of several organisations active in this area. Traditional journalists and mainstream media are not sole principals of such an obligation and its accompanying rights.

For this reason, among others, the current public communication landscape offers positive outcomes not previously available. It includes content produced by a wide variety of online operatives – especially those who consider themselves to be under a presumed obligation, as is the case with most journalists, to be honest, fair, balanced, and accountable.

Outside of that, it becomes more difficult to defend their work. Persad and his MFC team appear to be on the right track.

Elections and democratic habits

Next year, including T&T, there are expected to be as many as nine Caribbean general elections. Already, the political forces are vigorously massing in Anguilla, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and St Kitts and Nevis. And there is the possibility of an electoral contest in deeply troubled Haiti.

Meanwhile, the collapse of the coalition government in Sint Maarten has led to July elections - only six months after voters went to the polls. But outside of this, and so far, regional election addicts will have to wait until next year to bring out past election reports, scoresheets, and arrive at informed predictions.

So far this year, we have had local government elections in Belize and Jamaica, internal PPP elections in Guyana earlier this month, and on June 17 T&T holds two local government by-elections but not before June 15 when UNC members vote to choose key party operatives, not including their political leader.

Differences in internal electoral processes attract varying degrees of public interest in the mechanics of such contests, but they provide interesting clues into the democratic habits of the people and organisations that pursue occupation of national office.

Confidence in the systems that install leaders at that level necessarily translates into the way independent-minded electorates weigh their options when it is time to either accept or reject invitations for national support.

This must have been considered when the PNM moved away from its longstanding (and often controversial) “delegate system,” for internal elections, to “one-man-one vote” a little over a decade ago. The UNC should also be reading the room when it comes to the conduct of its own affairs. The current situation appears untidy.

The messages the party’s delegation took to the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) on May 1 should now correspondingly be key areas of focus for the party’s Election Management Committee (EMC).

Elsewhere, and within recent years, there has also been cause for grave concern regarding countries to which we once paid attention as models worthy of emulation.

This has, of course, occurred elsewhere in the past - with democratically elected leaders moving to undermine the bases of even their own selection through autocratic, anti-democratic behaviour.

Even so, there is little doubt that recent electoral decision-making around the globe has not always conduced to more democratic conditions. Witness recent electoral outcomes in Europe and Latin America, for example - relatively free and fair events producing results that do not necessarily reflect democratic values.

It can also be said that our big neighbour, the United States, at this moment does not present us with official behaviour that encourages broad or real political participation, while the politics of the United Kingdom are now more frequently offering lessons in the absurd.

Everywhere there appear to be conditions for re-examining electoral decision making to ensure more faithful observance of the needs of populations and application of principles to make life better for people.

Elections and their accompanying campaigns ought to signal levels of commitment to such an idea beyond the harnessing of votes.

On July 28, for example, the people of Venezuela vote at a time when an honest dialogue is needed to address the indisputable circumstances that led to a mass exodus of citizens over recent years. Has the Maduro regime put this on the table?

For November 4, against the backdrop of recklessly injurious actions against multilateralism and open violations of international law, is there a recognisable electoral platform exploring such depravities when it comes to the United States?

In India, where despite obvious progress at the macro-economic level continued hunger and socio-economic alienation prevail, the current lengthy electoral process (over 970 million voters!!!) is hardly being considered a watershed moment to help fill the gaps.

Ditto the UK’s July 4 elections with the possibility of stabilising a situation in which there have been four prime ministers over the past eight years representing the same political party; with none having served an entire term in office even as renowned social services sink into disarray.

As we speak, disgruntled, disappointed South Africans are today at the polls and the ruling ANC might struggle to attract over 50% of the vote.

For the rest of us, these examples hardly offer best practice models in the modern era. Election watchers should be keeping an eye out not only for statistical outcomes but for the extent to which elections are delivering results reflecting developmental needs.

Next year, we in T&T and some of our neighbours will need to get clearer directions on the hustings to ensure our votes truly count, however much the challenge clearly persists elsewhere.

Equal Opportunity for Some

Last week’s observance of International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) focused specifically on the threat that a lack of action on discrimination against members of the LGBT+ community can produce the awful impact of leaving some of our citizens behind.

“No One to be left Behind” was the adopted slogan against a backdrop of “Freedom and Justice for All.”

Those of us who subscribe to the view that observance of human rights requires recognition of their universal nature – meaning that all human rights are for everyone – find easy resonance between such a conviction and last week’s themes and sub-themes.

There is also the question of rights being indivisible, and inalienable, meaning that they cannot be sub-divided for convenience, and no one or no circumstance should ever be capable of taking them away.

The alternative, among other things, is the reality of officially-sanctioned prejudice and discrimination, and the hatred that either fuels much of it or emerges from it.

On another battlefront, for example, we have noted the degree to which reducing new migrant populations to caricature, linguistic mockery, and negative stereotyping has stimulated pervasive prejudice, contempt, and ensuing hate.

The “close de borders” crowd remonstrating angrily as Venezuelan men, women, and children lined up for “processing” in June 2019 in the rain were acting based on feelings of ill-will with the intention of seeing the animosity grow. I am yet to be convinced otherwise.

Since then, we have had to digest the fact that babies and children were kept behind bars, school age children have been denied the right to an education, and breaches of our country’s labour legislation have been routinised when it comes to migrants. These are not acts that proceed out of love.  

Meanwhile, an alliance has also been established to address issues associated with age and health condition/status when it comes to our Equality Opportunity Act.

The Add All Three campaign, led by the Coalition Advocating for Inclusion of Sexual Orientation (CAISO), focuses on these two omissions together with the legislated depravity of our EOC when it comes to the LGBT+ community.

However polite the resistance to change on the latter subject, in the main rooted in supposedly benevolent intentions, harm is an inevitable outcome once employment, housing, education and other opportunities are decidedly rendered out of the reach of some without offence to a law designed to guard against discrimination.

I am aware of the legal work once done to correct the LGBT+ anomaly reflected in the explicit exclusion of “sexual orientation” (not that this is even a correct formulation) as a basis for challenging deprivation of employment, educational, and other socio-economic opportunity.

Such reform was actually initiated from within the Equal Opportunity Commission by people who are no longer there. The current occupants of office need to resume the struggle.

It is nevertheless true that international conventions, to which we are willingly and boastfully subscribed, already point in recommended directions in all areas mentioned here, but the force of domestic law/protections is clearly necessary under current circumstances.

Why has this not been placed on the parliamentary agenda? Why is there not a stronger groundswell of political pressure to rectify this? Are we going to witness the appearance of these issues in forthcoming political manifestoes?

Last week, while speaking about this on IDAHOBIT at a British High Commission function, I also wondered aloud why a greater number of us in T&T are not embarrassed by the specific travesty regarding “sexual orientation” in our EOA.

Put in plain language, we have a law that promises to address the issue of equality of economic and other opportunity to the citizenry, but very pointedly excludes some. The framers of the law did not even care to engage in passive omission as has been the case with age and discrimination based on health status.

While that is being corrected, and as we pay attention to Add All Three and rectify our clumsiness over the rights of new migrants, we must acknowledge that we are offering equal opportunity to some, and not to all.

Is this how we wish to proceed? Should we fear the answer to this question?

Free Express and AI

Though last week’s Caribbean Media Summit hosted in Jamaica by the Media Institute of the Caribbean (MIC), Association of Caribbean MediaWorkers (ACM), and Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ) focused primarily on Artificial Intelligence (AI) media and journalism, ominous public policy measures loomed in the background.

In fact, while media industry standards and self-regulation were emphasised throughout as singularly effective in addressing most concerns, numerous conversations over the three days of activities drifted seamlessly into what regional governments may plan to do about the unfolding phenomenon of “Generative AI” – the occurrence of content produced by AI.

One online contributor (there were almost 200 participants on the Zoom connection and another 30-40 physically present) surmised that the region’s customary technology “lag” was on display, and I thought out loud that perhaps our delay in fully entering the process can provide some small space to consider more carefully how willing we really are to entertain regulatory arms of the state.

It would also provide time to consider human rights, including freedom of expression, as an indispensable element of the unfolding scenario.

I have long been of the view that almost everything new to enter our post-colonial space has confronted a prohibition default. Few better issues than the major revolution of artificial intelligence to instil the kind of fear required to have officialdom activate regulatory drawbridges.

It became clear as the Summit proceeded that even among liberal-minded media professionals there was a view that caution on the side of official control ought to be a preferred option.

This left precious few of us standing alone. I had mocked the admonitory notion that “non-human intervention” into public values and standards presented grave dangers and advised that such intrusions were nothing new in our context and that perhaps organised religion (relatively free, as it were, from official sanction) can be cited as being among acceptable exceptions.

Yes, this was highly mischievous on my part, but I thought that the sorcerous implications of AI being described there could have served only to invoke the kinds of feelings that make us want to arrest and jail one another … or to shut each other up. So, yes, I continue to subscribe to the view that fewer regulations on public communication produce superior results over more laws, codes, and punitive official measures.

It is also true that today’s virtual realities have rendered most forms of regulatory coercion on expression an anachronism of the highest order. If anything, sanctions unilaterally determined by the major global platforms have been far more effective at imposing regimes of censorship.

Last year, for example, my social media photograph of raw oysters was flagged under some opaque requirement to adhere to “Community Standards.” Last week, the same strange message notifying of a decision to block a post appeared when I submitted an excerpt from this newspaper column! And I knew I was not being naughty.

We customarily protest these measures citing flawed algorithms or even AI itself, but the point I am making is that to a large extent, Big Tech companies such as Meta (Facebook), Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft have outgrown most governments in influencing online behaviours – many times irrationally and wrongly so.

There is thus a vigorous, nuanced discussion on how best to rein in these global superpowers in a manner that does not compromise the right to freedom of expression of their users.

Additionally, and getting back to Mark Lyndersay’s “time lag” (yes, it was him), the slow pace of digitalisation by our countries has created a situation in which the mining of online content for purposes of AI content creation grossly under-represents our actual reality.

UNESCO’s unfolding Caribbean AI Policy Roadmap flags some of these issues but takes aim more directly at the potential developmental impact of informed, ethical usage. There are significant provisos though that point to aspirations that are current deficiencies.

These include our ability to adapt effectively to technological advances, appropriate governance mechanisms for development and use, and ensuring that the challenges of sustainable development, the climate crisis, and socio-economic inequities can be addressed.

But all of this would be a tall order in the face of deficiencies in the areas of training and education, and the urgent need to promote greater digital literacy among our populations. These shortcomings cannot be legislated into resolution. My supposedly anarchic prescription, bypassing the instinct to command and control, appears eminently feasible under the circumstances.

 

Open governance and survival

Last week, at least two major events occurred with close relevance to Caribbean development that ought to have signalled greater urgency regarding the tasks required to ensure the viability of our tiny states.

In what must be described as a hugely enlightened moment, UNESCO chose “A Press for the Planet: Journalism in the face of the Environmental Crisis” as the global theme for observance of World Press Freedom Day 2024.

The other significant occasion was the launch of a “Review of the Legislative Framework of Freedom of Information and Access to Information Legislation in the English-speaking Caribbean” by the Kingston-headquartered Media Institute of the Caribbean (MIC) – which I serve as Vice President.

What was important about both events was that these two activities had been recognised (both before and during) as being mutually beneficial and co-dependent.

In summary: without recognition of the right of our populations to access information held in trust on their behalf by public agencies, there can be little progress with making the several issues of survival priority items in an informed public space.

Access to/freedom of information laws, for instance, form part of a society’s toolkit to assist it in getting to the bottom of issues affecting it. This, some of us assert, is a question of legal right and not a privilege extended by benevolent governments.

Caribbean countries that have refused to either pass such legislation or ensure that its existing form is meaningful are in breach of the kind of relationship that acknowledges such a right.

Furthermore, all our countries have signed onto a multiplicity of global commitments with explicit obligations to ensure that citizens have a legal right to access information held by public entities – albeit with a narrow selection of widely-acceptable exceptions.

I can cite several such commitments under the thematic banners of Open Government, Maximum Disclosure, and other undertakings related to satisfaction of the requirements of what is described as “the public interest.”

When the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were being negotiated, for instance, media development groups all lobbied vociferously for the assurance that public access to information should form part of this global thrust to pursue a developmental paradigm that was sustainable. Such an aspiration is now found in Target 16.10 of the SDGs.

There is also the hemispheric Escazu Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean. (As far as I am aware and from the available literature, T&T, Barbados, The Bahamas, and Suriname are not signatories to/have not ratified this.)

Among the several uses of this resource is an ability to acquaint journalists and other citizens with the information they require to make sense of public affairs. Last week we advised regional journalists that their investigations need not stop at the point where a public official says “no” to you - the norm in too many instances.

The MIC had established a regional “ATI Help Desk” to assist in taking difficult cases several steps further. But even if such a mechanism did not exist, the existence of an ATI/FOI law in Caribbean countries provides a theoretical avenue for access.

Both the UNESCO focus on “the environmental crisis” – and there are those who do not agree that we confront a profoundly serious “crisis” – and the MIC study establish key linkages between media and civil society performance and the capacity of people to intervene meaningfully in their present and future.

UNESCO expressed the challenge by declaring the concept of sustainable development “in jeopardy”, meaning that “the triple planetary crisis—climate change, biodiversity loss, and air pollution - along with their connections to public health issues, the need to strengthen democracy, to tackle dis-/misinformation on digital platforms, among other issues have become major challenges for humanity.”

I am not sure whether all of last week’s Caribbean celebrants understood the gravity of such a declaration by the world body. On the evidence, UNESCO has not engaged in alarmist hyperbole. Neither has the MIC overstated the case for greater openness in the management of officially held information.

In both instances, these ambitions confront a pervasive culture of secrecy; the right to know being a chronic omission in the practice of governance.

Take a close look at the issues occupying the news agendas of the region and tell me in which instance has the absence of open governance not been at the root of numerous current crises.

UNESCO’s admonition and the MIC work programme could not possibly have been more on target.

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Digital governance - being left behind

My riding partner, Steve, will surely assert that I am once again flogging the seemingly dead or dying horse of our country’s digital ambitions.

But I am prepared to risk insult and mockery for the sake of yet again placing on public record my belief that the current transition to things digital currently confronts emotional and institutional barriers constructed of reinforced brick and steel.

I have witnessed the techies tear both dark and greying hair from their heads over this. At a time when serious societies are mulling the positives and negatives of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) – several jumps ahead of simple digitalisation - there are local and regional bureaucracies and private sector entities stumbling over questions of first phase conversion and the application of rapidly ageing, automated solutions.

The experts consider people like me to be citizen or customer “users”, because we don’t have to master the technical and operational requirements but need at least to acknowledge some amazing leaps in our ability to conduct complex transactions using digital technology.

I have no intention of getting involved in big people business, but I am almost certain that the current unseemly fiasco involving the Minister of Finance and the Auditor General is not completely disassociated from this phenomenon of bungling unpreparedness.

I tried to follow the minister’s explanations which sought to get to the bottom of the accounting anomaly in question and it resonated in so many familiar ways when you consider the repeated admonitions published in this space.

That this explains the conundrum and paints the misapplication of an automated process as a best-case scenario is piteous, to say the least.

But that’s as far as I will go on this question.

So, let’s also have a look at what’s happening at our airports (and perhaps our seaports). I do not sense the hand of ill intent in the current state of digital underdevelopment. But there is, at minimum, aggressive hesitation with employing readily available, simple technological solutions.

Electronic Embarkation-Disembarkation (ED) cards, for example, are now standard fare in several Caribbean countries – applied in varying degrees of sophistication, of course, because they too face Luddite apprehensions.

Over here, we are still completing paper documents with information already in an efficient Advance Passenger Information System (APIS) employed by most airlines/Caribbean countries and which can be accessed by authorities here by a swipe of a barcode or passport at an immigration desk or kiosk (remember those?).

The use of these useless forms in T&T is even more ridiculous these days because you are now required to hand write in any arbitrary space (because there is no field in the current departure form) the expiry date of your passport. Refuse to do it and you aren’t going anywhere! Instead of the situation getting better, it is getting worse.

Sure. It’s not just us. I am aware of what transpires among our regional neighbours. Electronic processes are also viewed there as serious threats to authority and both high and low-level power. The use of electronic ED cards is, consequently, not always a flawless process.

Now, for the ttconnect website – this marvel of digital governance that promised a one-stop experience when accessing online government services, but which is now reduced to being a directory of links to government offices.

The cold, hard fact is that this significant portal which could have at least symbolised recognition of a new digital reality has not been working as it should for almost two years now.

Back in 2018 when the country’s ICT Plan 2018-2022 was being introduced to hopeful businesspeople, late Minister of Public Administration, Marlene McDonald was quoted as saying: “The world is changing and it is doing so much more rapidly than before, thanks to constant evolutions and innovations in the field of technology. It certainly does not serve our country’s interests if we sit idly by and allow ourselves to be left behind while the rest of the world moves on.”

Six years later, can we say we are being left behind? My pal, Steve, rather cruelly concludes that we are fading from view in the rear-view mirrors of most of the rest of the world at our level of economic development.