Growing pains

By Bukka Rennie
December 31, 2003

To found a national character has never been a trifling matter. History has shown time and time again that societies have had to be torn asunder by devastating internecine conflict, civil wars and/or wars of liberation before there could have emerged a clear, definitive national identity or character.

The America that we know today could never have been that America if it had not suffered the experience of its War of Independence against Britain and the civil war between the Northern and Southern states to settle very particular issues that were of concern to major social groupings therein - the key issue being the question of slavery and industrialisation.

At times in the course of those struggles, brothers were pitted against brothers and families -that bedrock social agency - were divided by interests as never before in American history.

When all that was over, the American character, with both its positives and negatives, emerged.

The Europeans - the Germans, French, Italians, Russians, etc - were forced by the dictates of history to suffer the experience of having two world wars fought out all over and throughout their territorial landscapes and, today, there is a particular European sensibility and unique characteristic that is struggling to emerge.

We, who are neither American nor European, recognise readily their differences in perspective and their view of the world.

On the other hand, one can recall that our history textbooks informed us that "brigands and thieves" blocked the overland trade routes throughout Europe so that Columbus et al had to seek sea-routes around to India and China.

Those "brigands and thieves" were in fact the Muslims who carved out the Ottoman Empire from Arabia in North Africa, East to Persia (Iraq, Iran, etc) and North of the Mediterranean to as far North as the Balkans, way back since the 14th century, and from then on have persistently engaged and been engaged by the Graeco-Roman Christian Western world in wars over religious and economic spheres of influence, even after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire - a fact that today denotes and frames, for the Muslims of the Middle East, a particular Arab nationalist psyche.

The Israel/Palestine conflict, in which refugees face a nuclear-power nation, is very much the key to the bigger picture. The modern world will eventually have to seek to resolve the issues that pit Muslim fundamentalism against all and sundry in ongoing, never-ending warfare.

Further East, China has also had its growing pains and is, today, much more united and focused, enjoying, as we indicated recently, a growth rate that surpasses all others and a far cry from those days when China was seen as a pariah nation.

And what of T&T? The year 2003 has come to an end and we are about to face the demands of 2004.

We are only 41 years shy of colonialism. We are only now beginning to contemplate the real issues of being Independent and socially responsible for whatever happens here.

We are only now beginning to realise that we have to do away with the propensity to await prescriptions validated abroad. We have to take up our beds and walk; it is simple as that.

Listening to many over the Christmas holidays, I got the impression that many are bewildered about the crime situation and seem to feel that crime levels can deter development. That has never been the case, anywhere.

Crime levels are very minor growing pains when compared with what other countries were forced to undergo.

The particular crime that is new and worrisome to us all at this moment is kidnapping, and that has a peculiar history here.

The genesis of kidnapping began with local businessmen encountering difficulties in collecting receivables and therefore seeing it fit and appropriate to hire muscle to achieve this goal.

Soon, the muscle collectors gained confidence and became emboldened enough to venture forth on their own side-show.

Add the other variable of drug lords and drug traffickers, also having the urgent requirement of collecting outstandings, and seeing it fit to hire the same muscle to handle collections and the result of all this has been vigorous cross-fertilisation.

But the islands are small and the police/army units should be able to station themselves at certain points that will facilitate some unit going into counter-action quickly, once a kidnapping takes place.

Also, it is easy to determine certain patterns; a person snatched in Central is never held in Central but somewhere in the North/North-East, while a person snatched in Port-of-Spain is held in Central.

There are other patterns like these that can be obtained from careful observation and counter-moves to suit can be put in place. However, crime will not be minimised here until drug lords hiding behind legitimate business are brought down.

In the meantime, there is much to be done, in terms of developing a clear-cut industrial policy that will send the right signals to both local and foreign investors, as to where we want to go and what we propose to do with each sector of the economy.

And stop the bloody pussyfooting. For 2004 let's make the commitment to do more, and stop the "sticking!"