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Fashionable to a fault
By Sunity Maharaj
Story Created: Jun 8, 2013 at 7:36 PM ECT
Story Updated: Jun 8, 2013 at 10:35 PM ECT
The Chinese president’s strategic detour through Latin America and the Caribbean on his way to meeting the US president largely re-inforced the stereotype of us as an insecure, mendicant region with the mixed blessings of location and open markets.
Protocol gaffes aside, the more telling images of President Xi Jinping’s visit were the self-satisfied smiles of Caribbean prime ministers emerging from meetings with the Chinese president, each clutching a share of the US$3 billion in concessionary loans to be distributed among attending allies. Like children for whom Christmas morning had come, they could barely contain themselves.
Pointedly absent were pro-Taiwan members of the Caribbean family to whom no share was owed; “as it should be”, noted the T&T prime minister, with all the charm of a Cheshire cat. For a country that can dip into its own pocket to finance a US$1 billion-plus strip of highway, a fraction of $3 billion in loans may not have been particularly impressive but it was enough to crow over.
Just how the region itself came to be divided between China and Taiwan is another twisted story about the failures of an earlier generation of leaders which opened the way to today’s insularity without apology, and frank debasement of such quaint notions as regional solidarity.
Unlike the Chinese with their long eye into the future, Caribbean energies remain locked in the historical setting of survival mode, programmed to permanent extempo. As undisputed champion of the model, Trinidad and Tobago treated the Chinese to a spectacle so unique in the annals of diplomacy that it has earned a brand of its own as “New Age Diplomacy”—which only proves the seamstress’ point that every fault can be spun into a fashion.
More intriguing than the parade of faux pas, however, is the impotence of public outrage. Here, in living colour, is first-hand experience of the dysfunctional society created by a veneered democracy unresponsive to public opinion. It is the classic paradox of Caribbean Westminster where citizens are free to speak their mind and governments are free to ignore them.
As the parliament of the wired people, social media has stepped forward as therapeutic relief for many, even if it risks isolating opinion within cocoons of the like-minded.
Aroused, alert and articulate, the cybergeneration is coming face to face with the reality that itis no match for arbitrary power, free to trample laws, norms, codes and protocols of every kind.
That is, for at least five years, when electoral vitriol cuts a swathe of scorching anger, making track for another generation of gouti to run.
Our own impotence before authority is so complete that some are even asking the Prime Minister to investigate her own Cabinet’s approval of $6.5 million in the firetruck fiasco.
The colonial instinct to insulate power from any responsibility to account for its actions is so deep-rooted that even thinking people cannot bring themselves to stand up to it, leaving the price to be paid by some lesser light down the line.
But for sheer eloquence nothing beats the 2012 Auditor General’s Report which describes a state of such financial disorganisation that it is a wonder a report could be filed at all.
Perhaps, some politician will step forward to explain it away as New Age accounting for public expenditure.
As we move from one hair-raising issue to another, the challenge for all of us is how, in the face of so much questionable activity by those elected to govern our affairs, can we intervene to establish whether wrong-doing has been committed; and if so, what recourse we might have against those involved.
Throughout the late 1970s into the 1990s, the loudest, most popular campaign was for an Integrity Commission. Confronted by the seamy side of government through the DC-9, Tesoro, Sam P Wallace and sundry scandals, we thought, in our innocence, that a complement of honourable men and women armed with the authority of law would keep the public purse safe and make public officials accountable. We could never have imagined the escalation of integrity issues and the ease with which they would co-habit in an environment of integrity legislation.
The experience is no differentin information where we have become more reliant on leaks and zeppo notwithstanding the Freedom of Information Act.
Despite the expanding architecture of law, we remain as isolated as ever from the levers of power, our anger increasing in direct proportion to the increased awareness of our impotence.
For now, there is likely to be no respite from sources of anger.
It used to be that July and August were the months of long holiday, a soporific interruption of the national condition of tizzik and general giddiness But not this year. From the look of things, July is shaping up to be a month of magnificent contradictions.
Just about then, the Chaguanas West and local government election campaigns could be intensifying to the scale of a general election, doubling as referendum both inside the UNC and within the country.
And then there is the other contradiction scheduled for July 4 when, on the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Chaguaramas that launched Caricom, Kamla Persad-Bissessar will take her seat as chairperson of the regional body. What mischievous irony for a prime minister whose first appearance on the regional stage was defined by the insularity of her statement that Trinidad and Tobago was not the ATM of the region.
When Caricom heads come calling in July, we can expect the usual ceremonial pomp dutifully performed by a generation of leaders disconnected from the regional agenda. With the politics turning more and more inward, to the point of consuming itself, the regional agenda is now carried as an unwanted burden by politicians who lack even the confidence to throw it off their backs.
If the region were even half integrated, for three days from July 4 to 6, Trinidad and Tobago would hold the spotlight as the capital of the Caribbean, headquarters of a regional response to issues of the Caribbean people and to policy developments from east to west, unaligned to continental agendas. But it is not.
By Sunity Maharaj
Story Created: Jun 8, 2013 at 7:36 PM ECT
Story Updated: Jun 8, 2013 at 10:35 PM ECT
The Chinese president’s strategic detour through Latin America and the Caribbean on his way to meeting the US president largely re-inforced the stereotype of us as an insecure, mendicant region with the mixed blessings of location and open markets.
Protocol gaffes aside, the more telling images of President Xi Jinping’s visit were the self-satisfied smiles of Caribbean prime ministers emerging from meetings with the Chinese president, each clutching a share of the US$3 billion in concessionary loans to be distributed among attending allies. Like children for whom Christmas morning had come, they could barely contain themselves.
Pointedly absent were pro-Taiwan members of the Caribbean family to whom no share was owed; “as it should be”, noted the T&T prime minister, with all the charm of a Cheshire cat. For a country that can dip into its own pocket to finance a US$1 billion-plus strip of highway, a fraction of $3 billion in loans may not have been particularly impressive but it was enough to crow over.
Just how the region itself came to be divided between China and Taiwan is another twisted story about the failures of an earlier generation of leaders which opened the way to today’s insularity without apology, and frank debasement of such quaint notions as regional solidarity.
Unlike the Chinese with their long eye into the future, Caribbean energies remain locked in the historical setting of survival mode, programmed to permanent extempo. As undisputed champion of the model, Trinidad and Tobago treated the Chinese to a spectacle so unique in the annals of diplomacy that it has earned a brand of its own as “New Age Diplomacy”—which only proves the seamstress’ point that every fault can be spun into a fashion.
More intriguing than the parade of faux pas, however, is the impotence of public outrage. Here, in living colour, is first-hand experience of the dysfunctional society created by a veneered democracy unresponsive to public opinion. It is the classic paradox of Caribbean Westminster where citizens are free to speak their mind and governments are free to ignore them.
As the parliament of the wired people, social media has stepped forward as therapeutic relief for many, even if it risks isolating opinion within cocoons of the like-minded.
Aroused, alert and articulate, the cybergeneration is coming face to face with the reality that itis no match for arbitrary power, free to trample laws, norms, codes and protocols of every kind.
That is, for at least five years, when electoral vitriol cuts a swathe of scorching anger, making track for another generation of gouti to run.
Our own impotence before authority is so complete that some are even asking the Prime Minister to investigate her own Cabinet’s approval of $6.5 million in the firetruck fiasco.
The colonial instinct to insulate power from any responsibility to account for its actions is so deep-rooted that even thinking people cannot bring themselves to stand up to it, leaving the price to be paid by some lesser light down the line.
But for sheer eloquence nothing beats the 2012 Auditor General’s Report which describes a state of such financial disorganisation that it is a wonder a report could be filed at all.
Perhaps, some politician will step forward to explain it away as New Age accounting for public expenditure.
As we move from one hair-raising issue to another, the challenge for all of us is how, in the face of so much questionable activity by those elected to govern our affairs, can we intervene to establish whether wrong-doing has been committed; and if so, what recourse we might have against those involved.
Throughout the late 1970s into the 1990s, the loudest, most popular campaign was for an Integrity Commission. Confronted by the seamy side of government through the DC-9, Tesoro, Sam P Wallace and sundry scandals, we thought, in our innocence, that a complement of honourable men and women armed with the authority of law would keep the public purse safe and make public officials accountable. We could never have imagined the escalation of integrity issues and the ease with which they would co-habit in an environment of integrity legislation.
The experience is no differentin information where we have become more reliant on leaks and zeppo notwithstanding the Freedom of Information Act.
Despite the expanding architecture of law, we remain as isolated as ever from the levers of power, our anger increasing in direct proportion to the increased awareness of our impotence.
For now, there is likely to be no respite from sources of anger.
It used to be that July and August were the months of long holiday, a soporific interruption of the national condition of tizzik and general giddiness But not this year. From the look of things, July is shaping up to be a month of magnificent contradictions.
Just about then, the Chaguanas West and local government election campaigns could be intensifying to the scale of a general election, doubling as referendum both inside the UNC and within the country.
And then there is the other contradiction scheduled for July 4 when, on the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Chaguaramas that launched Caricom, Kamla Persad-Bissessar will take her seat as chairperson of the regional body. What mischievous irony for a prime minister whose first appearance on the regional stage was defined by the insularity of her statement that Trinidad and Tobago was not the ATM of the region.
When Caricom heads come calling in July, we can expect the usual ceremonial pomp dutifully performed by a generation of leaders disconnected from the regional agenda. With the politics turning more and more inward, to the point of consuming itself, the regional agenda is now carried as an unwanted burden by politicians who lack even the confidence to throw it off their backs.
If the region were even half integrated, for three days from July 4 to 6, Trinidad and Tobago would hold the spotlight as the capital of the Caribbean, headquarters of a regional response to issues of the Caribbean people and to policy developments from east to west, unaligned to continental agendas. But it is not.
Without the commitment to regional solidarity, even in the face of Superpower demands, Caricom remains little more than a convenient vehicle for collecting funds.
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