For centuries, much has been written and said about ’ordinary folk’ and it is generally sympathetic. Who are thought of as ordinary folk may vary by country or culture. In Trinidad and Tobago, an essential feature of being ordinary is to live without the unfair advantages that come from connections which can gain unfairly favourable treatment for one person compared to the lack of favourable treatment for another person similarly circumstanced but without connections.
Between Christmas and New Year, we lost a neighbour to an illness bravely borne for many years. The unquenchable spirit of neighbour Betty was always a stimulus to behave better and not to complain about matters of irritation (even the daily power cuts in our neighbourhood for which the authorities have not yet invented an excuse). These were insignificant in the context of Betty’s admirable struggle.
When the final time came, neighbour Betty made peace and left serenely. Many of us will not easily understand how people in Betty’s situation find such inner strength when hovering between mortal life and death.
Our neighbourly relationship was typical of what I constantly refer to as decent Trinidad and Tobago. It began with giving each other right. There followed a gift of zabocas taken by the neighbours from their own tree before these could be stolen with the bold-faceness with which all our fruit is stolen from our yards. We then discovered friends in common and who in their family had been schoolmates with members of our family.
Sometimes sick people cannot get treatment. Other times it is so indifferently administered that there would be the suffering of unnecessary and additional pain as if there was not already enough to bear. Without political connections one cannot get over the hurdles of our ridiculous health system.
For example, if you are a patient in the Port of Spain hospital, where there is no MRI, it is a lengthy process to obtain an MRI from Mount Hope. For some time now there are reports of no available parts to do joint replacements or to pin broken limbs. Those who suffer and wait have no political god-father to send them private and to pay the bill. When the baby of an ordinary couple was stolen from Mount Hope Hospital, there were no ministerial guards or ’well known bouncers’ at the door.
This is the context in which we should assess the treatment of our injured Olympic silver medallist and the political response thereto as well as the political response to the death of our champion boxer. Like the rest of Trinidad and Tobago, I am delighted that the silver medallist will be able to go on with his illustrious career and I grieve for the youthful death of our champion boxer; but we must grieve equally for all.
What of teenage Devika Lalman, missing for so long and now found dead, having been raped and strangled? Will any or all of Messrs. Narace, Hunt and Parsanal hold a press conference to account for Devika’s death and may I remind everyone that the unpunished buggery-death of Akiel Chambers remains a most grievous stain on the fabric of our society. What has happened to the renewed promise of the police to take up and pursue the Akiel Chambers case?
The fact is that the families of Akiel and Devika have no pull and, as ordinary citizens, they seemingly do not count. It is a significant feature of life in Trinidad and Tobago that the plight of folk, ordinary in the sense of having no connections, is dreadful and unjust, marked by a cruel inequality of treatment.
I am well aware that I have come out swinging hard for the New Year of 2009, but without a conscience and a vigorous distaste of inequality, nations flounder and disintegrate. After the waves of emotion over the latest calamity, what will be done? Is it not understood that carnage on the roads is the result of non-existent traffic management? When the son of a friend with the impetuosity of youth refused to let another driver cut in on him from the shoulder of the road, he did not only get the finger. The driver in the wrong reached inside his car and pelted a bottle at him.
Punishment is frequently inflicted by the wrong and strong on those who have not yet succumbed to savagery.
It is obvious that a competent highway patrol can intervene before deadly perils materialise. If personal responsibility cannot be learned then it must be enforced.
When will the press conferencers tell us about their plan for road traffic management and all the other fatal ills that befall so many of our fellow citizens day after day? Until then commentators will be failing in our duty if we do not pierce the dirty veil of cover up and attempt to reveal the hollow, orchestrated, press conferencing flights from reality.
