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OWTU SPEAKS 2007-02-02

It was the Lord Kitchener, I think, who sang – ‘The road make to walk on Carnival Day.

Ah don’t want to talk but I have to say “Any steel band man, who venture to break this band, will have a long funeral from the Royal Hospital.”  Good evening and welcome to the OWTU Speaks!  Ordinarily, it will be reassuring to the law-abiding and peaceful, when the Commissioner of Police asserts that ‘No one will spoil our mas.’

Of course we welcome and respect every little comfort and assurance which those with the responsibility for our safety and security may mean to offer, but these are not ordinary times and it is not unreasonable therefore for us to question whether the Carnival has not already been spoilt?  Depending on how one looks at that, we may find a number of conjectures which then may prolong an already sterile debate.

The fact of the matter, it seems to us, is that the criminal element, some of them assisted by rogues in uniform, are in the ascendancy while those whom we look to for protection and service have literally been in retreat.  And most everybody knows that!

One recalls the childhood days when there were no drugs and guns asserting power and influence on the blocks in our communities.  In those days among the games which we played there was one called ‘Police and Thief’ and there was always the extreme difficulty getting someone to play ‘the thief’.  Then too we had very little materially, but we had much pride and such as we possessed materially was well used.  In 2007 with plenty, we have arrived at our now sorry conjunction – the combination of events and circumstances – at which nobody wants to play ‘police’.  We shudder at the thought that these are the baggage with which we are being taken to 2020.  We may be considering the Commissioner to be well meaning and committed to the task but how many of his men can really be watching the backs of law abiding citizens when too many of them have become preoccupied with watching their own?  There is where we have come!  And how do we extricate ourselves from the rotten decay?  It is much easier to iterate that ‘no one will spoil our mas’  and ‘that those with agendas to counter the good order will not be allowed to disrupt those who are about their lawful business either playing Mas, or looking at Mas.’  We are certainly not being advocates of the devil nor agent provocateurs. 

There but we must express our concerns with regard to there being total and genuine subscription to the Commissioner’s declaration by the Commissioner’s men and women.

Too many have had their carnivals spoilt already and the chilling silence of terrified witnesses is like the threatening shrill of the midnight robber’s whistle.  How are we reassured with the memory of Clyde and Denise Commissiong’s bludgeoning and the probable psychological deformation of their grand children fresh in our minds?  How are we reassured against the background of the gangland execution of the police woman, her husband, daughter and family friend still gnawing at our intimidated souls?  How do we feel confident in the wake of Mrs. Naipaul-Coolman’s disappearance without grace?  I guess we must just remain law abiding and those entrusted with the responsibility to protect and serve will rise to the occasion and make us proud.

Thank God it’s Friday!

Enjoy the weekend but be safe!

I am Errol K Mc Leod for OWTU Speaks!

OWTU SPEAKS 2007-02-07

Good evening and welcome to the OWTU Speaks! We were getting straight to the point about one of the measures to deal with crime and the authority’s failure to prosecute.  It is true, we believe, that those who went to bed with the criminals and those who slept with the devil have together contributed to our arriving at our now sorry conjuncture.

Any faint evidence of one’s rights and freedoms being infringed, undermined or denied, compared to the growing incidences of the state’s failure and inability to prosecute in the interest of justice – because of witness tampering, disappearance or elimination, weighs heavily on the side of support for the Evidence Amendment Bill very recently before the Upper House.

Extra-ordinary events and circumstances such have combined to affect our hitherto social equilibrium will demand that we effect extra ordinary responses.  Times have changed.  The thieves and the criminals are intimidating the law-abiding and decent into a hopeless surrender.  There must be a decisive response!  Just the other day, before the shipped barrel and I-Pod, and before drugs and guns asserted their power and influence on the blocks and in our communities – there was the game called ‘Police & thief’.  Combined events and circumstances today, are making it extremely difficult to find real policemen who will perform the role of good and decent policemen.  It is argued that the power and influence of today’s thieves and criminal overlords are protected and given assistance by rogues in uniform at many levels.  We have come to the conjuncture where witnesses to serious crimes and injustice – if they were spared physically – must live the rest of their psychologically truncated existence in fear and deaf muteness.

We have come to a state, the combination of events and circumstances of which has rendered life – solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

In his book ‘Leviathan’, the 17^th Century English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes suggested that –‘In the natural condition of mankind, while some men may be stronger or more intelligent than others none is as strong and smart as to be beyond a fear of violent death.  He said, ‘when threatened with death, man in his natural state cannot help but defend himself in any way possible.  Self-defence against violent death is Hobbes’ highest human necessity, and rights are borne of necessity.  In the state of nature then each of us has a right, or license, to everything in the world.  Due to the scarcity of things in the world, there is a constant and rights war of all against all’ (bellum omnium contra omnes) according to Hobbes.

But war is not in man’s best interests and man has the self interest and materialistic desire to bring about the cessation of wars – and the passions that incline men to peace are fear of death, desire of such things as are necessary to convenient living and a hope by their industry to obtain them – suggested the philosopher.

Even as we disagree with and oppose Hobbes’ subscription to a monarchical autocracy much of what he says is true including his suggestion that society is a population beneath an authority to whom all individuals in that society covenant just enough of their natural right for the authority to be able to ensure internal peace and a common defense.  But unlike Hobbes’ Leviathan who is an absolute authority, our authority, the Government of our sovereign state must qualify itself and possess the moral obligation to uphold the principles of natural law and justice and to effect good governance that is beyond reproach.  Have a safe evening.  I am Errol Mc Leod for OWTU Speaks.

OWTU SPEAKS 2007-02 -12

Good evening and welcome to the OWTU SPEAKS! Should a State of Emergency be declared to arrest the spiraling incidence of criminal activity now pervading the country?  This commentator’s opinion was solicited a few days ago!

I do not subscribe to the call for a state of Emergency to deal with escalating crime in Trinidad and Tobago!  Those who do are allowing fear, hopelessness and desperation to numb their rational and better thinking.  Such are the ones who can be easily characterized as the drowning man who gropes at straws.

My view is that the conditions of a state of public emergency brought by pervasive criminal activity already exist, and that an official declaration of a State of Emergency is totally un-necessary.  What relief would an official State of Emergency bring to law abiding Trinidad and Tobago forced under siege and terror criminals in blue and white colour as has been our worsening reality?

What freedoms not already abrogated by criminals, would a cowed law-abiding citizenry allow to be suspended during an official State of Emergency? And for how long would such a state of Emergency exist to restore a level of governance that seems all but failed and collapsed?  Do we need an official state of Public emergency to weed out the rogues in the constabulary and halt the retreat of officers who seem overwhelmed by the ascendancy of the crooked and miscreant dressed in cloaks of respectability?  And if the law enforcement agencies or significant elements of them are influenced by the czars and overlords of crime, how does a state of Emergency ameliorate that ignominy?  Or, does a State of Emergency energise and put to work bodies and mechanisms which have retired on the job and have fallen into states of inertia and cross-like obsolescence?

Notwithstanding the occurrences to which some may point as happening abroad, I dismiss the foolish prattle of the clueless that the barbarism and disorder which seem to have become our daily fare are part of a global phenomenon.  Nonsense!  The abnormality in our local situation is the product of the narrow visioned outlook of those in charge, an absence of sensible leadership, mismanagement, the abandonment of our hitherto good value system, principles and decency in the conduct of domestic and national affairs.

Many who may wish to remember the old school days when education was about more than passing exams – it was about enlightenment, living and the ability to live with – many would have an internalized appreciation for the profoundness of value over price and God and country before party and self.

Today however, as we break into a brisk trot to 2020 beyond which we have no vision, price is become predominant, values are abandoned and education and learning no longer aligned to purposeful work and assisted by rationalization.

If on this basis, our planners and policy framers would measure their touted quantum leaps to 2020 developed nation status – it is on the contrary that we would have taken so many steps back into the dark pre-colonial days of underdevelopment and conditions of jungle existence.

And may heaven help us to remove that cross.  Have a safe evening.  I am Errol Mc Leod of OWTU Speaks.

OWTU SPEAKS 2007 02 14

Good evening and Happy Valentines to all welcome to the OWTU Speaks!

Calypso is neither dead nor dying!  It is just that the powers that be are suppressing it and trying to transform it into a fake respectability which favours their statusquo.  The sensible and patient among us however will know that suppression builds pressure and pressure ‘does buss pipe’.  The beneficiaries of the calypsonians’ lament today are applying the same pressure that massa had exerted against the calypso of yesteryear.  Calypso survived ands flourished. Massa had nothing to be grateful for, but for his suppression and oppression of the slave and indentured classes, he was made to pay a price.  Perhaps, an obvious and rhetorical question which might be asked is  - ‘What price would today’s slates and tooboobs – as they were called in Haley’s Roots – what price would they be made to pay for stomping  their heavy heels on the voting finger?  What price?  We are being taken from scandal to scandal, murder to mayhem, kidnapping to adult-abduction, petty theft to massive corruption, ordinary carpet bagging and cronyism to political prostitution and pervasion.  And calypsonians’ tongues are not only tied but their thinking too is wrapped by offer of government financial sponsorship on the one hand and earlier opposition financial travel to Germany for cry babies on the other.  So, from tent to tent if you did not subscribe to the lechery of hoodlum priest and ungrateful pastor – nothing fuh yuh!

With all that has been happening in the body politic, a real Calypso Monarch Semi-finals would have tested the skills of our kaiso bards and new-comers with three (3) songs instead of the inadequate one (1) song that was decreed.  An impartially selected cast of thirty six (36) Kaisonians each doing three (3) songs across the spectrum of political and social commentary and Pan, Party and carnival vibes would have constituted a better Fiesta for Kaiso enthusiasts and semi-final test for the big yard – nay – Jean Pierre Complex.

Instead, some semi-finalists who presented nothing in their one (1) song were selected for the finals carded for Dimanche Gras on Sunday Night.  And of course, those selections were made at the expense of a few very good calypsos which doubtlessly, are taking a dig at the cross of crosses and ungrateful pastor and some of his spiritless acolytes.

If only they knew how disdainfully they are viewed by the ordinary folk in the ordinary community.  If only they possessed the political acumen to read the mood behind the CEPEP, URP, NADAP and other inadequate social safety nets they will discover that these facades do not today guarantee their safe return to office if the bell is rung now.  Indeed, any continued existence which they might enjoy could only be as a result of the sun having set on the self destructed and corruption annihilated other misgovernors.  The country is quietly crying out and searching for something new, untainted and devoid of the rock headed arrogance which is traded for intelligence these days.

If only they knew what objective conditions they are providing for unrest and uprising.  If they would only dismount their high horses and be humble they gain such common sense that among them is so uncommon.

A word to the wise is sufficient it is said.

Have a save evening.

I am Errol Mc Leod for the OWTU Speaks.

OWTU SPEAKS 2007-02-16

Good evening, Happy Carnival and welcome to OWTU Speaks!

The Merry Monarch is on the loose, so be careful!  It is said that he is so loose, that he is as slack as a pair of Chinese drawers.  They say that he is lascivious and quite persuasive at times.  So, you’d better be on your guard and if you can’t be good to yourself, be careful.  The Merry Monarch is on the hunt for willing subjects for his kingdom – don’t become one of his conquests.  Continue to have a good time – fete after fete after fete – but take charge and control of your own well being such that on Ash Wednesday you would have ‘arrived alive’ and with no regrets about anything.

Take your time on the road.  Be a pleasant and courteous motorist, not a road hog!  The Merry Monarch is busy, looking for a quick fix and quickie pleasure. He will enjoy your temporary exhilaration as you accelerate – intoxicated – to your death.  Do not drink and drive! And if you drink why not do it in such moderation that next day you are with a clear head, a comfortable stomach and happy with yourself?  A drunk is never conscious enough to enjoy anything.  A drunk is a ‘son-of-a-boo’ who prostrates himself to be pillaged by the Merry Monarch and his imps.  Yeah – wine on something!  But know that it’s not everything that agrees to be wined on eh!  Carnival does not give anyone licence to unlawfully do what they want and on whomever that they want.  Mash yuh brakes! – the something that you want to wine on does not want to be wined on – certainly not by you.  So mash yuh brakes and not spoil the fete.  We dare you to be on good behaviour even as yuh ‘get on bad and mash up the place.’  And hear this – ‘is not every winer boy or winer guyl who won’t try to pick pocket while all yuh wine, yuh know!  The Merry Monarch is at large and he taking anything!  So you – don’t take basket – hold on to your purse!

Know what is happening around you and be particularly aware as to the location of the nearest police officer, just in case his assistance might be needed.  This is not to detract from your revelry as it is to complement your safety and security.  And parents, what about your children?  Would you concern yourselves with knowing where they are?  Who they are with and positively influencing all of these? 

To put it bluntly:  The parent who is enjoying mas and did not know where his young son and daughter are or who are their friends – is only playing the ass full time!

There is plenty marijuana, cocaine and aids out there on the streets and the criminal peddlers, not satisfied with the extent of the lethal nature of these weapons of destruction, are backing them up with guns and other armaments.  Mind your own business but be watchful of the illicit business that might be taking place around you too.  Don’t take chances!  If you must box, don’t do it bare fisted, put on yuh gloves, cover yuh head!  The clown who would die for a spiff or snort of drugs is as consummate an idiot as the casual stud or mare who would die for that one chance at something new but used and or defective.  Watch it but leave it alone.  You might arrive alive but then your worry might be aided by suffering to your miserable death.  The Merry Monarch is loose and at large – let him reign.  But we must rule!  We must govern our own good behaviour!  Enjoy the fete! Dare to be peaceful!  Arrive Alive!  I am Errol Mc Leod for the OWTU Speaks.