Tag Archives: societal change

“[…] This is not leadership; it is a distraction. “[…] Ordinary citizens risk lawsuits or police action for far less, yet politicians hurl insults without consequence. That imbalance is the real scandal …” The following Letter to the Editor on the effect of our leading politicians’ trading of insults was …

“[…] There is often a misconception that MPs are exempt from the strict rules governing civil servants. The legal reality is the opposite. They are unequivocally public officers and a trustee of the people. “Because MPs wield immense political and legal power, often with very little daily oversight, the law …

“[…] What is perhaps most instructive from the data on Trinidad and Tobago’s national culture is our incredibly low score on long-term orientation (17 out of 100 vs 77 out of 100 in China and 50 out of 100 in the US). “It demonstrates a low propensity to sufficiently consider …

In 1818, the Royal Botanic Gardens in Trinidad were established under British colonial administration. That same year, Mary Shelley published Frankenstein: the story of a scientist who assembles a living being and then abandons it. Nearly eighty years later, HG Wells wrote The Island of Doctor Moreau, where natural life …

“Trinidad and Tobago could only progress if Laventille does,” Winston Dookeran said in May 2010. Have we moved beyond this idea? Have we accepted that crime is not a group problem? It is not an “Afro problem”, an “Indian problem”, or a “PNM problem”. Crime is a national problem, and …

“[…] Trinidad and Tobago has very low levels of reported trust given its GDP per capita… Most people do not trust the police. Most people do not believe justice is meted out fairly… There is even mistrust in the Road March competition with year-on-year allegations of the ‘Soca Mafia’. “[…] …

Carnival is supposed to be joy. It is colour and music and rhythm and release. It is sweat on skin, feathers in motion and the collective permission to forget who we are for a moment. Carnival, we say, is culture. Carnival is freedom. Carnival is who we are. And yet, …

On 7 April 2002, at the time when the House of Representatives was deadlocked 18-18 and was unable to elect a speaker, the first of these weekly columns was published. It was entitled Equal Shame. I pointed then, at the outset of my journey as a weekly columnist, to our …

We can’t pretend that this society, our society, has not become ugly and hateful. The place has been practically reduced to internecine warfare, spewing venom-like mud volcanoes. Try as you might to avert your eyes and focus on the little sparks of decency and beauty that still refuse to be …

“[…] The entitlement, indiscipline and misdirected priorities of some lawless citizens who inconvenience and endanger law abiding citizens will not be tolerated anymore. No discipline will be met with no tolerance. “No one will sway me from cleaning up this lawless dump to benefit citizens who try to live decent …

“[Critics] suggest that a caring state relies on education, while a punitive state relies on force. This binary view, however, obscures the reality of how safety and civil order are actually maintained. “[…] The assertion of law is not an abdication of care. On the contrary, it is often the …

“[…] Ordinary citizens know the challenges all too well: waiting lines that stretch for hours before a doctor can be seen; appointments pushed months into the future; shortages of essential medicines, forcing families to search from pharmacy to pharmacy at unaffordable prices. “Equipment is outdated or broken, leaving patients without …