To paraphrase Kermit, it’s not easy being Trinidadian these days. Given the especially vexing events of the last two weeks, I, for the third time, recall James Cummings’ observation that we can no longer tolerate ourselves. The recent bundle of evidence for Cummings started with the pricey national flag at the Hasely Crawford Stadium. The information from the Ministry of Sport concerning the price of the flag sounded like primary school playground slapstick comedy or Anansi trickery. First the Sport Minister did not know the price of the flag so he reached into his back pocket for a stock response. No price on national pride, he said stupidly. Stupidly, of course, because the obvious next question was always going to be, ’so if it cost (insert here any exorbitant figure), we would have still bought it?’

Then the figures were released smugly by the Ministry. The flag actually cost (insert here $15,000 or $16,000, ensuring that the figure appeared legitimate by adding cents). Apologies from observant and critical citizens followed.

Then, kaboom! The Ministry indeed spent $2m but most of that was for the flagpole, not the flag. Well, the Sports Minister should henceforth be called Gary Anansi for his trickery.

Beyond his trickery, there is the issue of the flag itself. Now, I do not know how many of us are willing to sacrifice our lives for this country at this time, but we would have to be militant, career nationalists (like those in Basque, Ireland, Latin America etc) to agree that the flag is such an important symbol of who we are, is so intimately tied to our sense of ourselves, that we are willing to accept any expenditure on it.

Before the flag had time to properly unfurl, Marie Antoinette was sniffing through downtown Port of Spain in preparation for CHOGM when she discerned what residents of and visitors to the capital and its environs knew for a year-the city stinks!

That nasty sewer-like smell travels east to west across the city each time it rains and each time a good wind whips. We are to believe, however, that Marie Antoinette is motivated by care for us serfs mixed with an overwhelming pride in the nation’s capital.

In these respects, neither Minister is less disagreeable than one of the two new female frontline singers of Carnival music band, Traffik. During a performance at Coco Lounge two Fridays ago, she looked across at the Crowbar clientele who had lined the pavement to see and hear the band, and, after asking them to wave etc a few times with no effect, she quarrelled, ’All yuh not Trinidadian?! When Trinidadians hear music, dey does dance!’ On that night and by this measure, I counted three and a half Trinidadians.

The shiny big building opposite Memorial Park is fountain of even more criteria for national identification. While the building is meant as evidence of our readiness for developed country status, the vulgar press for tickets to the free show there is, to quote a Merle Hodge letter, 2020 BC.

One strata of banal gushers and boasters made it inside the Academy for the opening ceremony while another strata pressed their body weights against a gate at the Ministry of Culture to get tickets to freeness.

The disrespect for citizens by the Culture Ministry is further evidenced by the revised National Gender Policy that was presented to Parliament and dismissive utterances by Minister M&M about Hazel Brown, one of this country’s most dogged activists for a progressive Trinidad and Tobago.

From the Culture Ministry, too, comes the Shiv Shaki/Malick Folk Performers banality. In a brand new facility that is to encourage our highest aspirations in the performing arts, there were the two groups reducing David Rudder’s metaphor to its lowest denominator. When the UDeCOTT enquiry is over, we should question the relationship between the Culture Ministry and its two sidekick cultural groups. It seems to me that Government gigs are their primary income and I wonder how much of our money is being channelled to them and why they have been selected as the highest representation of our performing ability.

So let’s see. By Minister Anansi’s measure, I am not Trinidadian. By not falling over for Marie Antoinette’s crumbs, I am not Trinidadian. By the standards of Traffik, I am not Trinidadian. By Culture Minister M&M’s criteria, I am not Trinidadian.

I am not a nationalist of the Malick/Shiv Shakti variety. And recently, I have been trying to brush up on my Bible reading so I can follow when the Prime Minister and the Big C Foreign Affairs Minister speak. That too has not been going well, largely because I am finding passages that can be used by anybody at anytime to justify anything.

Thus, this already uninterrogated notion of what it means to be Trinidadian is being narrowed further each time someone opens a mouth to spout national pride, leaving the majority of us outside its parameters. We may have to settle for being citizens of the world.