Of grief and fêtes

Let me be today’s wet blanket at a time when so many are declaring the redemptive qualities of fetes and revelry in the face of both imminent and actual tragedy and pain.

There is, admittedly, some 1990 T&T and Saint Lucia 2010 PTSD on my part. These were two completely different encounters with death and destruction marked by so-called emotional “safety valves” of different varieties.

I am willing to risk being part of a tiny minority of Caribbean folk not committed to the view that socio-economic and socio-psychological imperatives can provide a level of re-assurance that life may continue “as normal” even after the most atrocious assaults on lives and the quality of life in our tiny states.

In 1990, it amazed me that there had been some boastfulness associated with the fact that people had organised “curfew fetes” and danced long nights away even as bodies lay rotting in some facilities and on the streets of Port of Spain.

Then when Tomas struck Saint Lucia in 2010 and the mountainside came crashing down on Livity Arts Studio and other nearby structures, and bodies were still being excavated from muddy piles, and there was water in hotel swimming pools and none in Castries homes, the Caribbean Tourism Organisation announced that the island was “back in business.”

The string of angry emails to the organisation perhaps cost me some friends and (most likely) participation in future forums with my usual messages of caution about the net value of tourism as a stable, long-term solution to poverty and need.

Colleagues and friends and complete strangers from Caribbean countries (of which I have more than passing knowledge) hate when I meddle in “their” business this way, so I cleave to a few marginal voices expressing caution and care to secure a degree of validation.

For example, accomplished Jamaican journalist and attorney, Dionne Jackson-Miller, took some heavy blows on social media when she attempted to explain why some Jamaicans seemingly avoided the advice of disaster officials on the question of hunkering down at home. She hit an important nail smack on the head.

“So, a lot of people got REALLY upset when I posted that it's easier to talk about staying home when you live in a comfortable home!!!”, was her retort when faced with the accusation that she was implicitly encouraging slackness. She need not have explained more than she eventually did. My own response was that while there were clear dangers associated with the act of ignoring officialdom, there must also be space for some of us to “recognise our own privilege.”

It generated some additional queasiness when Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett announced on Friday that “Jamaica is open for business and, once again, the resilience of the Jamaican people is on full display … We are grateful that there has been no wide-scale impact to our general tourism infrastructure and our tourism industry is fully operational.”

Some clever social media user juxtaposed photographs of communities picking up heart-breaking pieces following Beryl, and the idyllic promotions of a tourism industry that cannot afford to miss a single revenue step.

Like Saint Lucia in 2010, there is space for a measure of (even contrived) “balance.” If tourism fails, the ability to recover from the annual assaults is substantially reduced. So, we resort to a kind of bi-polarity descriptive of completely different realities within a single space.

In St Vincent and the Grenadines where, if you don’t try to be strong nowadays you would shed tears every single day, post-Beryl, a scaled-down Vincymas proceeded over the weekend and up to yesterday. Here, again, is territory with which I am familiar. But they don’t like you in their business.

One person told me that the same way some people turn to prayer and religious devotion to cope, so too there are people who believe that dancing their sorrows away can help.

I hear this – loud and clear. But I think that these things underpin a significant psycho-social shortcoming. It might be that this is because I am not prone to superstition, and do not easily subscribe to a notion of  socio-cultural “safety valves” of the party kind.

In the meantime, there is also a new generation of cranks sharing voicenotes and social media posts on “geo-engineering,” the mythical connection between earthquakes and hurricanes, and general challenges (in some instances aligned to political preference) to clear scientific evidence that explains more intense weather events.

How is this different from the music cranked high while people pick up the pieces from broken lives? It’s yet another fete in the face of grief and suffering.

Our Survival Project

In case we were ever inclined to forget, Hurricane Beryl announced the dramatic start of a predictable, annual scramble for Caribbean survival much earlier than has been recorded in an exceptionally long time.

This diminishes (or perhaps reinforces), through immediacy, the broader metaphor of fragile socio-economic persistence because at stake are lives and livelihoods and other assets that assure viability in the face of extreme vulnerability.

Time to painfully recall the admonition of a young Kittitian student in Jamaica angrily moved by my suggestion that there objectively exists no real reason why some countries of our region consider themselves sufficiently impregnable to declare a notion of sovereignty.

Every single year, you see, we are confronted by the threat of devastation and the need to rebuild ahead of another interminable round of potential destruction. In some instances, elsewhere, human conduct in the form of violence and political instability exists as ultimately manageable traits.

We can end wars, intervene in conflicts, stand in solidarity against atrocities and help bring perpetrators to justice, even across borders. We can learn to negotiate and to understand each other better and punish those who thrive on violence and disruption. However hopeless may currently appear the plights of Palestinians, the Sudanese, Rohingya there have been paths traced by Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia which indicated resolutions … of sorts.

There are also episodic naturally occurring events that defy precise prediction, and we know some of them well right here – earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Shortly before midnight Sunday, there was a Magnitude 3.7 earthquake off Trinidad’s northwest tip barely noticed as we scoured online resources for word on Beryl.

In St Vincent, the folks of the village of Fancy who faced volcanic ash in 2021 now feared surging tides as the winds and rain raged.

Yet here we are, as usual, as expected, as officially declared, in “hurricane season.” It flows from our tongues in the midst of cricket commentary, defiant fetes, and political exchanges.

Over the weekend, a long relocated relative quipped about T&T and hurricanes that “they threaten but always avoid” as if to suggest that avoidance reduces direct and indirect victimisation and involvement. Devastation in Carriacou is our issue in T&T, in the same way a volcanic eruption in St Vincent clearly was, and so will any number of weather events yet unleashed off the west coast of Africa wherever they land in our neighbourhood … or right here.

The statement ought to also invoke an implication of collective responsibility – the stuff of which the regional survival project aka “Caricom” was meant to address.

What, therefore, is there to suggest the centrality of this question in our formal processes? Acknowledgement of the growing climate crisis has helped close some ranks.

The fact that while we occupy different vessels we sail on the same ocean or that in many respects we share cabin space on a small brittle vessel negotiating hostile waves. We can orient the narrative in different directions, but it almost always describes susceptibility to extreme outcomes.

How, in the face of this therefore, is a psychology of “invincibility” - as prescribed by my friend and colleague, Tony Fraser, with respect to cricket – a realistic possibility; and not simply self-delusion of the highest order?

This is not to dismiss the prospects for confidence and self-belief – for which we are well known in select areas of public life – but to acknowledge some stark realities including our deficiencies. And here, in my view, is where the skills of adaptation and change and mitigation of risks are left to be developed and honed.

The suggestion that perils “threaten but always avoid” T&T may further weaken the determination we employ to engage our own survival project and the wider regional rescue.

Maybe Beryl has opened an opportunity to reformulate the Caricom agenda not by supplanting existing areas of concern but by attaching stronger awareness of their survival implications.

We have several months left in this long season, and next year it will return. We cannot, as island and coastal states, relocate. The scientists also say, at the current rate, things will worsen.

When the postponed Caricom Heads of Government Meeting, initially due this week in Grenada, eventually convenes it might be useful to ensure this common thread of responsibility to ourselves is inserted.

The agenda needs to reflect such urgency through all issues requiring thought and action, and 12 months a year.

Refocusing Caricom

By this time next week, the winning team from the ICC T20 World Cup would have already left for home, a multinational security mission dominated by Kenyan forces arrived in Haiti, and Caricom leaders readied for another summit in Grenada.

The meeting commemorates 50 years of political independence for Grenada which, 35 years ago, also witnessed the signing of the Grand Anse Declaration on deepening the integration movement.

These developments are highlighted here because they each bear unique messages related to Caricom’s survival project.

The first is that while cricket as played in some, not all, Caricom member states contains instructive elements that can help guide integration efforts, it is hardly a subject worthy of the kind of attention and resources it has been formally receiving.

We can start talking real business if/when we decide to send a Caricom team of athletes to the Summer Olympics or a single Caribbean contingent to the FIFA World Cup – two areas of sporting endeavour in which all member states have displayed levels of deep interest and high excellence.

Countries of the United Kingdom have been participating in the Olympics as a single team since 1908. This, of course, would be an impossibility when it comes to football.

I have dealt with this here before and also wondered what it must be like to sit around a Caricom table as a delegate from Belize, Bahamas, Haiti, or Suriname and listen to talk of the “good old days” of Worrell and Walcott and Weekes.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I will never say anything bad about Clive Lloyd who receives an Order of the Caribbean Community (OCC) in Grenada next week, but I just worry, on behalf of some members of the fraternity, about the priorities often on the table.

Then comes Haiti and continuing instability there. There has been some idiocy on public display by several commentators regarding Caricom’s role in the latest round of crises in this member country that needed to be confidently and forcefully attended to by the regional leadership.

To associate Caricom participation in the search for solutions to the problems of Haiti as an external, surrogate intervention on behalf of others is to fail to understand the nature of our collective relationship. It also betrays a special kind of condescension when it comes to our small countries and the integration movement that drives collective actions.

Whether or not you believe we should have ever performed the initial act of “widening” to embrace Haiti in 2002 is now an irrelevant concern. I believe, especially in the face of the current situation, Caricom’s role has been seminal.

For one, it served to blunt the notion of outright invasion by invitation – a compulsion heavily rooted in sentiments on the ground throughout Haiti.

Next, there are continuing 50th anniversary Caricom celebrations and Grenada’s own half century of independence. The Grand Anse Declaration of 1989 represented, at that time, the single most important development in the history of Caricom since its launch in 1973. The founding of the Caribbean Court of Justice in 2005 was the next.

None of this is expected to make sense to anyone fixated on a national destiny marked by denial of geographical and historical antecedents. There are, indeed, passengers on board the Caricom ship who’d rather not be there. Jamaica’s Bruce Golding Report noted structural flaws and, in the process, proposed a series of ultimatums regarding future participation in the Single Market.

Should the latter occur, this would take Jamaica to the status of The Bahamas which has habitually cherry-picked its obligations. Added to this, a majority of member states have chosen to forego the opportunities presented by the appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ, even as they are bound by its powers related to Caricom Treaty obligations.

The experiences of integration movements around the world do not significantly differ. Have a closer look at developments within the African Union, the European Union, the ASEAN grouping and others. We could certainly have done more but have actually not done that badly.

The Caricom Secretariat, though, would do well to modernise its operations. Its public communication functions are particularly weak and there are operational features in other areas that can benefit from the more appropriate employment of new approaches and technologies.

I am aware that study after study has been conducted into these areas of weakness, but it is time that the better recommendations are adopted.

The bureaucrats may well find that in pursuit of the key agenda items including food and nutrition security, the climate crisis, and foreign policy, upgraded internal processes would serve the regional project well. This is not only a matter of achieving focus but employing different lenses to deliver clear direction.

 

Organised labour - the risk of irrelevance

As with every other sector, our labour movement lags dramatically behind in its consideration of the pace of technological change and its dramatic impacts on the world of work. In this, our unions do not stand alone, but it is tragic that they do.

I listen carefully to their leaders and spokespersons for the slightest clues that the concepts of collective bargaining, social protections, and a durable social compact through the concept of multipartism are being critically examined in the face of the changed technological tide. I have heard nothing particularly inspiring regarding such a dynamic.

I have perhaps now overused this space to remark on the sluggish embrace of technological opportunity – from simple digitisation to digitalisation to more advanced employment of artificial intelligence to generate greater efficiencies, improve government capacity, and enhance the quality of life of all citizens.

There are people studying net impacts and there are divided juries. But this is clearly not an advancing evil to be resisted – as we are currently witnessing via appalling public service backwardness. It is not on any political platform in any meaningful way, and few are the civil society organisations realistically engaging the phenomenon.

So, this is not to continue the hammering of trade unions as is the wont of ideologues, politicians, and business leaders. The labour movement actually offers space for creative engagement of these issues, since it intrinsically and by its very nature engages elements of our society often shut out from the national discourse.

Its preoccupation with the achievement of social justice adds an important dimension in the conduct of public policy. For, whatever the challenges and opportunities of different times, the interests of people must be paramount.

Yet, have any of the activists, even as they recognise Labour Day today, looked at the impact of technology on growing informality in the labour market? The fact that, especially post-pandemic, there are growing numbers of people who are exploring options for remote work and for the independent deployment of generative AI and other new tools in enhancing output.

That, despite our own Caribbean lethargy on this question, the modern workplace in many places is being remodelled and retooled to deliver more, at a faster rate, and at lower cost. That the consequences are not all necessarily detrimental when it comes to absolute employment numbers – though there are clear shifts from the formal to the informal. One key question for labour unions is the degree to which the new reality provides safeguards against exploitation and assures a level of social protection.

In the latter regard, state programmes such as our National Insurance Scheme must adapt to be able to capture the growing numbers of “self-employed” and others that escape the net of formality, tax compliance, and the protection of their diverse service providers.

So, it should be expected that our unions would by now be actively studying the actuarial implications of an expanded safety net and the strengthening of measures to secure the interests of participants in a new economy.

All of this means that the declining number of organised workers – now at around 25% of the labour market – must begin pressing for much more from the organisations to which their dues are directed. It also means that the remaining 75% will be able to locate a centre of informed and equipped influence to advance the cause of their social participation and protection.

To whom is the informal sector turning for the assurance that they are not forgotten in the process of national planning? What are the processes to ensure that in the transition from the formal to the informal or from entry into the new, emerging economy, people are not left alone to languish in the event of failure?

There is much work to be done. Our labour unions played key roles in our early history to transform a legacy of exploitation into one in which workers participated meaningfully in national life. As a labour reporter and union member in the 1980s I also recall the transitioning to centres of learning and enlightened discourse on changing workplace circumstances.

Yes, the leaders of those times past are unlikely to survive the current period. The messaging is different. The demands have changed in ways we never imagined. The call now is not to political independence and genuine emancipation, but to master new tools to take us forward to a future in which we are in far more control of our destiny that we ever were. Anything else condemns the forces that be to irrelevance. That’s an actual risk of these times.

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.