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This is my penultimate column before I proceed on my break after twenty-four years of writing these weekly columns.
As I move on to my documentary videography projects, which are not likely to be completed before September, I am intensely anxious for the future of our once materially prosperous island nation of Trinidad and Tobago.
Photo: NCC.
At the outset, it must be firmly stated that we have been reckless with the material wealth we once had. Sadly, I see only a descent further downhill for us.
As is apparent from these weekly columns, I attribute this descent to the fact that we have failed to attempt sustainable socio-economic, governance or infrastructural reform. We have also stood by, indifferent to accountability on the part of persons in public life and equally indifferent to the fall of standards in public life.
This week, I would like to summarise my thoughts on three inter-related principal malignancies that have beset us.
(via iStockphoto.)
First and foremost is the indifference, deflection and corruption with which violent crime and the trafficking of drugs, guns and humans have continuously been treated.
The deflection of the reality of violent crime was initially highlighted by former PNM prime minister the late Patrick Manning’s infamous dismissal (2003) of a bystander killing as “collateral damage”.
Deflection now underlies the current UNC Government’s wishful thinking that repeated states of emergency (SoE) will significantly diminish crime other than gang related warfare.
Police work of the calibre which last week resulted in Tara Poliah’s rescue and the capture of her kidnappers demonstrates what is really required to diminish crime.
Copyright: Trinidad Guardian.
Moreover, none of our governments have been pro-active in attempting sustainable socio-economic, infrastructural or governance reform, which would provide the interventions that might mitigate the crime situation and the oppressive conditions that many children experience, which twist them into anti-social behaviour.
This failure has persisted despite the grand announcements of committees to examine these matters, but whose diligent and insightful advice and proposed interventions—such as those recommended by the committees headed by the late Professor Selwyn Ryan and Anthony Watkins—have not been implemented.
I adopt the assertion of criminologist Darius Figueira reported in last Sunday’s Trinidad Guardian that we are in a “deep, deep crisis of civilization”. That was the plainly foreseeable jeopardy in which we would be placed by the prolonged failure to treat with violent crime and insensitive attitudes to the horrible results.
The recommendations from the committee were never made public.
(via Dr Keith Rowley.)
Commencing in 2003, by reference to the work of renowned Oxford professor of jurisprudence, the late Professor HLA Hart, in The Concept of Law, I began warning of the coming breakdown of the legal system.
With regard to the urgent interventions necessary, I harped on the failure to refashion the inherited colonial grammar school education system and to deal with annual fall out from the Secondary Entrance Assessment (the torture for many of 17,000 plus youngsters culminating last Thursday).
One of my descriptions of that fall out is that: “stigmatisation at the age of 11 or 12, when a child only achieves entry to a school not well regarded, is also a significant factor in the destruction of youthful self-esteem and consequent descent into anti-social behaviour and worse.”
Photo: OTP.
There are several other serious grounds for my anxiety for the future, which have been set out in these weekly columns and are available for reference in the two volumes of The Daly Commentaries.
Party political zealots become angry at reminders that our major shortcomings go unremedied, despite changes of government.
Sadly, our general elections are fought mainly on the basis of hollow party manifestoes containing few particularised policy prescriptions and are focused on abuse and alleged revelations about opponents.
Copyright: Office of the Parliament 2025.
Currently, however controversial words are spun, we are back in the gutter of personal attack.
A decade ago, I had cause on a shameful occasion in the Parliament to write this: “Whatever the subject matter of debate, to attempt to stigmatize has the potential to return us to a stage of prejudice, vicious inequality, political and social incorrectness, and arguably bigotry—a stage which every civilized country fights to pass.”
Have we been relentlessly going in that backward direction since I wrote that? May I repeat my equally long-standing warning that hatred does not turn back.
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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.
Has anyone else noticed the irony of Martin Daly maintaining the status quo (Through the courts) with million-dollar briefs?