Climate’s labour costs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Are we there yet?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have we really reached there yet?

Delightful CPL confusion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

None of the above

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thinking things over

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our taxpaying VIPs

There is a gentleman from my community who must be well into his ‘80s. He was offered a lift two weeks ago as he limped under threatening weather along a challenging, undulating St Joseph street.

In his hands was a manila envelope of the size and type people take with them at times of important business.

Only this time it was an Inland Revenue Division “Notice of Assessment” for the payment of Property Tax. The envelope was bulging so there may have been associated documents – presumably identification and heaven knows what else.

Turns out he was on his way to the Tunapuna Piarco Administrative Complex, specifically the District Revenue Office, to pay the contentious Property Tax. “It is what citizens do,” he said proudly.

Given his age and physical condition, it may have been that he had had the option of completing an Application Form for Deferral of Assessed Tax as stipulated under Section 23 of the Property Tax Act on the grounds of “impoverished condition and … inability to improve … financial position significantly by reason of: age, impaired health (or) other special circumstances, that would create undue hardship.”

He is the kind of person who would know this. But he chose, instead, to do “what citizens do.” He did not know whether he needed to take cash with him or he could have used his bank card.

Fast-forward to last week and my turn. I thought all the while about my neighbour, whom I had not seen since his Property Tax trip. I was especially reminded of him when I realised that the elevator to the first floor of the building had (for years now I determined) remained “out of order.”

I strongly made my way up the stairs alongside three people who were quite clearly my seniors (and I am no spring chicken). “This place is not for old people,” one gentleman said. “Tell me about it,” I chimed in, purely for purposes of extending solidarity, of course.

When we got to the top of the stairway, we were greeted by a very polite security guard who directed us to a relatively short queue of about 10 people - average age 70, was my guess.

Uh oh, “Cash or Cheques Only”. My bad. I should have known. I should have checked. I wondered how Mr St Joseph had made out with his bank card.

So, off I went about 150 metres westward in the direction of the Tunapuna Market to the ATM. Would I have to use my karate skills on the way back to the Revenue Office with all that cash in my pocket? Are they serious about the “Exact Change” notice there? Do I have sufficient 20s? Do I need singles?

So, 300 metres later, I am back up those stairs alongside two slower moving dutiful, elderly citizens. The line was shorter now, but the day had started getting hot, and the location of that section means you line up under cover, but in an unenclosed setting. The air-conditioning that breaks down and “closes cash” for the day is inside where the clerks sit.

First, you go to a window to have your assessment “checked” and, following several clicks of a keyboard, you are handed another document with the same information as the assessment one. Do not pull out the cash … yet. Then, you leave the counter with these two documents containing the identical information and move to another line to pay.

In that line, people are whispering about doing all of this “on the computer.” Somebody steupsed. I kept quiet. I have written enough times about state failure/refusal to enter the digital age. I not saying nothing.

There I was with two pieces of paper containing the identical information and a handful of cash in my pocket, in a line, in the heat (what happens when it rains hard?), and a waterlogged piece of cardboard is blocking a window I imagine was designed for a third cashier.

A very courteous lady (whose face I cannot see) takes the cash, keeps the second piece of paper, loudly rubber stamps what turns out to be a third piece of paper, the receipt, and sends me on my way.

What a way, I thought, of handling the VIPs of this particular moment in our economic history! My neighbour, I quietly surmised, was more “VIP” than the people assigned special seating some public venues. Dutiful citizens are now more valuable, nationally, than the “VVIPs” at the various fetes.

How can an increasingly cash-strapped country, in search of enhanced revenue streams, treat some of its most important citizens, our real VIPs, so?

The revolution underway

There are perhaps too many people who are not paying attention to the abundance of art and music and literature being produced at a time when narratives of hopelessness ritualistically enter the public discourse as a dominant national condition.

Yes, admittedly, notions of hope and success aren’t always “neutral” in scope and definition. So, there are indeed those who recognise advantage in the face of adversity, if only to assert superior command of possible solutions.

But this habit is routinely reversed when roles change - exposing pervasive preference for cynical abuse of the human traits that accompany uncertainty and fear.

This is neither new nor is it unique to our circumstances. So, do not reduce this to a mere reflection on the current state of affairs in T&T. Art as crucible of adversity is of longstanding vintage.

There has been, for example, the reformative impact of controversial art. Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgement” – now, at the time of the Paris Olympics, elevated to divine status by the ignorant and hypnotised – was decried in the mid-16^th century as sacrilegious depiction of what some consider to have itself been a work of literary fiction.

Back home, Jackie Hinkson’s Carnival murals have, since 2021, been among the most revolutionary commentaries on the state of national consciousness. I have described the work of this master as being among our finest works of artistic journalism. This year’s exhibition along Fisher Avenue in St Ann’s exposed both glorious and inconvenient truths about ourselves.

This is art as both historical record and commentary on current realities. Ditto the music of our times (including so-called “Trinibad”) – capturing the rawness of our realities, even as calypso (which once played such a role, prompting calls for bans and censorship) gradually withdraws into a much more comfortable, genteel space.

Yet, defiance and revolutionary fervour is being captured under far less spectacular banners. For instance, I spent some time two weekends ago, witnessing readings by two authors with child audiences in mind, and meeting a book dealer from Chaguanas, “Scribble and Quills” reporting solid sales (no, no school texts).

Even as I took two publications home, I knew that my long reading list would suffer further delays. Inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s recommendation as a supreme source of literary inspiration I have had E.E. Cummings’ “The Enormous Room” partly read on my kindle for weeks now.

On the physical shelf are Vaneisa Baksh’s “Son of Grace”, Valerie Laurent’s “mystory – My Yesterdays in Ordinary Time”, and the Jamaica Gleaner’s fantastic “Best of Jamaica” souvenir book on some of the people and institutions that have shaped the country’s modern history.

Yet here I am with 8-year-old Amayah Wallace-Anienonah’s “Quest for the Golden Diamond” and Nicole and Faith-Josephine’s “Canboulay – A Look into Trini Traditional Carnival Characters” (written with developmentally-challenged children in mind) in my hands.

Vaneisa, Val, Cummings, Hemingway, and the Gleaner will therefore have to wait. Here, in fact, are acts of supreme defiance – in contravention of the call to cower in a quiet corner.

Because, in this open revolutionary space are also to be found Mark Loquan “A Better Tomorrow” video series on pan, Pomegranate Studios’ documentary film on the life and music of Mungal Patasar, and any number of other productions being churned out by busy creative folk.

There is also the advent of what my son, Mikhail, has identified as “the autonomy of youth” via social media which offers egalitarian access in a way traditional platforms could not afford.

Here is a generation of unbridled content creators defying the traditional rules of official and mainstream control, waging war on past and present values that are designed to restrain rather than to liberate. Enter Kyle Boss et al.

Then, this evening, there is the Ensemble and Orchestra category of “Steelpan is More Beautiful” at Naparima Bowl. This will be followed on Friday by the World Steelpan Conference which is among the highlights of Steelpan Month.

None of this is meant to say that claims of hopelessness aren’t rooted in several realities generating deep concern, but that art, music, and literature are playing important roles in establishing context and meaning, serving as cathartic tools, providing weapons of resistance, and acting as bridges for the building of resilience and solidarity.

There is a revolution underway in defiance of advancing feelings of hopelessness and despair. Its soldiers are proceeding with eyes wide open to all realities. The change some portend in common narratives of the day will pale in comparison to what is in the offing.