Forward to a brand new dawn

January 15, 2000

All the traditional social structures have broken down. All the traditional relationships that formed the fundamental backbone of this society have proven to be inadequate and have literally been shattered.

It is this deep ongoing unresolved social crisis that has taken us to the present point of constitutional impasse. Living in T&T is almost tantamount to living in a pressure cooker. The "centre", as they say can no longer hold.

Look around and see for yourselves. As Vanus James insinuated in his address on the 12th floor of the Crown Plaza, all "executives" at all levels in this society whether in parties, trade unions or churches have gone "crazy" and have been seriously discredited.

People have outgrown these structures both physically as well as spiritually. The maximum leaders of yesteryear, the so-called "doctors" have long since been demystified; they are no longer capable of leading anybody save and except the most backward tribal elements.

The established churches, conformist as well as non-conformist, Christian as well as non-Christian, no longer hold great moral authority and cease to have any steady influence on the minds of the youth particularly in terms of moulding them to accept the system of the old social order.

Even the family unit, a most important factor and link in society, stands relatively shattered as the consciousness of children makes them no longer prepared to accept the status of "non-beings", and now they even question the very claim of parents to positions of authority over and above them.

They question every command, every instruction. Most times parents are seen as incapable of making decisions for children who suspect their parents' slavish acceptance of the old order and the old scheme of things.

In the schools it is even worse, particularly at secondary level. Discipline today can only be maintained with the presence of armed security. The teachers cannot properly teach since the teacher/pupil relationship has collapsed. The old time schoolmaster, a symbol of order, justice and enlightenment, of whom so much has been said and written and of whom so much is expected, no longer exists.

Today, many pupils see teachers as agents of established injustice and agents of the old order that alienates them ­ agents who come to the classroom not to expand horizons but to stultify their vision and conception of things and to make them toe the official line.

Each side distrusts the other - leader and led, priest/pundit/imam and congregation, teacher and pupil, parent and child etc. Each side has lost confidence in the other, never mind the mere acceptance of what is ritual. All the relationships have broken down intrinsically. All that exist is outward, empty form and formulae devoid of inner content.

What all this signals is that the time has come for the instituting of a whole new system of social relationships, a whole new set of structures, a whole new way of organising ourselves to manage our political, economic and cultural activities.

Our conception of control, authority and rule has remained basically 17th century despite the fact we have come face to face with the realities and demands of a fast-paced modernised, globalised world market . That is the basic contradiction that has to be resolved .

The impasse between the President and the Prime Minister, the question of who stands for the preservation of democracy and who stands for the letter of the law etc are merely symptoms of that basic contradiction and of our deep ongoing social crisis.

In 1962, we became Independent with our own social contract or constitution. By 1965, a mere three years after, the government had to pass repressive legislation (state of emergency and the ISA) in order to maintain power.

By 1970, just eight years after Independence, the regime had virtually collapsed (Public Order Act, Sedition Act, Summary Offences Amendment Act , IRA) since the people had intervened to demand new arrangements. Nothing was resolved from then to now save for the mere occasions of tinkering such as the 1976 Republican rewrite of the social contract.

On every occasion when the mass movement appeared, the powers that be merely tinkered but kept the old order and the old relationships intact. That is why we are where we are today.

We need to delve deeper to comprehend our situation. We need to look more keenly at the history of our landscape, at our people, at our sense of self and at our deep-seated fears and dreams.