Our Prime Minister Keith Rowley made a splendid speech on the occasion of the state funeral of former Prime Minister, Patrick Manning. Dr Rowley kept it light and anecdotal, with reminders that he was his own man in the course of his rocky relationship with his deceased former “chief”.
In addition to the content, which might be described as gracious despite memories of former fire, it is always pleasing to see our current Prime Minister displaying his softer side.
I write this assessment because I believe that the Prime Minister’s speech was a highlight, and its appreciation was buried under the saccharine praise from others of how well the country carried off this particular State funeral.
By contrast, the Prime Minister of our neighbour St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves may have let his emotions run a little high in defence of his deceased close friend. That did not disturb me unduly because I knew first hand that, when he was blasting those critical of Mr Manning, Dr Gonsalves did not have in mind commentators for whom he has respect.
I believe Dr Gonsalves was after those he perceived as turncoats and political grasshoppers.
In 2012, I received a phone call from Dr Gonsalves and subsequently a letter of encouragement and special commendation for “my writings and reflections” in this newspaper, despite his stated disagreement with my “pre-2010 assessments” of his “friend Patrick Manning”.
I reveal this interaction to illustrate one of my experiences that some of the politicians and other public figures in what we once deprecatingly called “the small islands” seem to remain more “real” and in touch regardless of what they get up to. I think it “real” that an incumbent Prime Minister would speak from the heart rather than in dull, conventional funereal platitudes.
Perhaps our neighbours do not have tall enough buildings, over-sized, over-fed entourages and fanfares to induce hubris and keep them far away from the people they serve. And the result is that they remain, for instance, pleased to walk into a parlour with a set of dominoes and take on the patrons.
After the speeches, what? Now that the pomp and ceremony and speeches are over, do we not remain “a society bent out of shape by officially condoned gangs and gangsters, and by devils in jacket and tie and other bourgeois disguises trading guns and dope with the foot-soldiers of crime?”
I put the latter words in quotation marks because they were actually contained in a column of mine published in November 2008.
As some waxed lyrical on the occasion of Mr Manning’s death about “a golden age” recently passed, and copious benefits—some of which in fact evolved into colossal waste and just plain freeness—we should recognise that “while enjoying our money wildly”, our Governments for more than two decades have “put the criminals on a winning path”. Those are more words from 2008.
We cannot spend too much time patting ourselves on the back over our chequered past. The social fabric of our nation is badly torn. In some aspects it resembles buss-up-shirt. As I have repeatedly suggested, we seem to shrug this condition off.
Keenly aware of our torn social fabric, I kept in mind that speeches could not make us care. Dr Gonsalves is a well-read man and I benefitted from my brief interaction with him, not least of all because he declared himself “a Despers man”.
He had drawn to my attention a remark of Albert Camus: “Style, like fine silk, often hides eczema.” Ironically it seemed to apply to our reverence for the style of a state funeral.
In the course of some recent reading about challenges to the social fabric of societies all over the world, I came across an amazing summary of what is lacking when citizens withdraw from social responsibility and become dependent on institutions and third parties to care for them.
An emeritus Professor of Education and an author of several books on community relationships has strenuously declared that communities are the sites at which the primary work of a caring society must be done. John Mc Knight author of “The Careless Society” wrote this:
“Care is the consenting commitment of citizens to one another. Care cannot be produced, provided, managed, organised, administered or commodified. Care is the only thing a system cannot produce.”
But we do need institutional backup when primary care fails. Without our diligent non-governmental organisations we would have already fallen further apart.
I recently took in on television, evidence given to a joint select committee of Parliament by some renowned representatives of NGOs, which described the facilities required to support NGO work.
Suffice it to say that just the money wasted in the period of prosperity now gone could have taken care of substantial repairs to our torn social fabric.
Can we finally stop the waste and invest in those repairs urgently?
Martin G Daly SC is a prominent attorney-at-law. He is a former Independent Senator and past president of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago.
He is chairman of the Pat Bishop Foundation and a steelpan music enthusiast.
Read this hard copy first. Martin makes me smile.
Question is: how to fix our torn social fabric?
1. SOE.
2. Gun amnesty.
3. Decriminalize all drugs local and transshipped.
4. National free high speed internet and smartphone per citizen.
5. National app to involve all citizens in every decision.
Go big or go home.
Martin Daly is always worth reading whether you agree or not with his viewpoints. This torn fabric of society isn’t something that happened overnight nor is it unique to our country.
I grew up in Tunapuna where the village mentality still existed. I once went l’ecole biche and the neighbours reported it to my grandmother who made sure to punish me when I got home. We always knew people were always looking out to ensure we walked the straight and narrow. That may be partially because a lot of the neighbourhood was built on family.
It is nothing like this now. I live in a good area but I don’t know most of the people on my street, far less for the neighbourhood.
For sure the caring aspect of our society has deteriorated over the years.
Neighbourhoods are not built on family anymore. People come home late from work after sitting in traffic and retreat in theor houses rather than interact with each other.
Our fundamental problems don’t just require government interventions. We the people have a huge part to play.
And there aren’t really community activities anymore are they? Little interaction. People drive into their driveway and lock the door. A nod of the head is a huge gesture if you manage eye contact.
It’s true. That has changed. Sadly.
Even in the 70s in new neighbourhoods like Beaulieu Avenue, we used to have cricket matches between the streets to build community. Don’t see that anymore in that area.
Notice again the role player by sport and culture in communities.
I agree with the sentiment but I think there are other things that systems cannot create like tolerance and respect. We as a species will struggle with these things because of the irrationality of human emotions.
Well, arguably you can legislate against intolerance and disrespect. Not quite the same, of course. Don’t mean to nitpick. Lol
We legislate against it because it is the only way to try to enforce the values that are needed to prevent society from self destruction. The legislation is proof that syatems cannot create them. QED
I thought this was interesting:
“Care is the consenting commitment of citizens to one another. Care cannot be produced, provided, managed, organised, administered or commodified. Care is the only thing a system cannot produce.”