Category Archives: Trinidad & Tobago

Rights & Freedoms, Trinidad & Tobago

Welcome to Trinidad

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I know, I know. Listening to too much Damian Marley. But the construction is apposite – we are becoming more like Jamaica, daily.

Case in point:

Trinidad and Tobago has become more homicidal than Jamaica-while murders are decreasing there, the murder rate here is steadily on the rise…In 2005 Jamaica’s murder rate went up by 28.43 per cent compared with 2004 while Trinidad and Tobago’s homicide rate went up by 32.64 per cent for the same period.”

[Trinidad Express, April 10 2006]

Crime isn’t even the most obvious though. ‘Trini’ is increasingly becoming ‘Trinidadianised patois.’ Nah mean?

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Trinidad & Tobago

Ambush in the Night

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Getting towards 5am. Still can’t sleep, what with the incessant coughing and the ludicrous tea drinking. Hmm. Does that mean I am drinking tea that is ludicrous, or rather, is it ludicrous that I am drinking tea? Hmm.

Think am wired. Hmm.

iTunes on shuffle. Currently Mighty Sparrow – Witch Doctor.

But it was the titular track that got me thinking.

See them fighting for power
But they know not the hour
So they bribing with
Their guns, spare-parts and money
Trying to belittle our integrity
They say what we know
Is just what they teach us
Through political strategy
They keep us hungry
When you gonna get some food
Your brother got to be your enemy

Jamaica in 1976, Trinidad in 2006.

Have we learnt nothing? Will we (n)ever?

Get up, Stand up, dammit.

Trinidad & Tobago

Living in a Kleptocracy

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This bloody country – bah! bah, I say. Political apathy isn’t laziness, isn’t cowardice, it is, for me, a manifestation of the disgust and the contempt that I feel for these pseudo-politicians, these wheelers and dealers, this kleptocracy, this excuse for a democracy. Don’t talk to me of PNM or UNC or Team Unity. Don’t speak to me about Maha anyone, or Ralph whoever, or this bribe, or that airport, or that bank account. Let’s talk about not wanting to read the newspaper, because of all the reports of the murders, and the deaths, and the kidnappings and the robberies and oh look at that, another minister indicted.

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