Total disorder

by Vernon Khelawan

People many times wonder why Trinidad and Tobago continues to be a lawless country. You just have to look around, listen and observe and you are bound to come to a conclusion. Just this weekend there was a glaring example at a Carnival fete by the Tribe people when singer Machel Montano encouraged patrons to “break the law”.

He told the large audience of fete lovers to disregard the police advisory to seek permission before “tiefing a wine” and “find somebody to jam”. And this uncaring behaviour was actually applauded by the crowd. No-one objected.

Machel told the enabling crowd, “They say yuh could geh lock up for tiefing a wine. Allyuh forget that, find somebody to jam. This is Carnival. They will have to lock up the whole of Trinidad and Tobago.” The crowd went wild and officers at the fete did absolutely nothing about it. This is the people we have become—away with morals and values. But it is not the first time such a thing has happened. Taken to its furthest limit the interpretations could be taken literally. Such, many claim resides in our ‘culture’.

The sad thing about this whole episode is that members of the Police Service on duty at the fete did not in any way move to warn Machel about his call, neither did they arrest him. It’s no different to how the Police Service and persons in authority generally operate.

So, under the guise of ‘our culture’ our people are allowed to break the law and expect those infractions to have no consequences. The people who are supposed to uphold the laws of the land just fail to carry out their mandate.

We pray for the society’s sake to understand the real use of social media and turn away from maliciousness and revenge. Let us learn to love again.

We also need to comment on the injudicious use of social media, on which there is obviously no qualms with regard to using posts to emphasise the use of ugly, when rude and improper pictures of females are publicised. Right now, there is one making the rounds and the movements are as explicit as they come. The bedroom is now a public place.

Hopefully the purveyors of such filth will soon come to their senses and refrain. That is why as Christians we must continue to pray for right thinking, and hope there will be a change in use of the medium to praise God.

Take for instance at Curepe junction: traffic regulations prohibit a right turn into the Southern Main Road. Ever so often a Mobile Police Station is located there but it makes no difference. The Maracas-bound PH cars do what they virtually want and nobody is prosecuted.

In the same area, because of the number of eateries, vehicles are parked on the narrow roadway from morning till night causing all kinds of traffic hazards and the policemen do nothing about it.

That is how the ‘PH’ trade started. First there was one driver who bucked the law, then two and three until today there is no area in the country that doesn’t have a thriving PH trade. As a matter of fact, ‘PH’ cars outnumber taxis in the transportation trade.

The same thing goes for squatter settlements. Shack No 1 goes up. No questions asked. Shack No 2 goes up and still no questions asked. When it gets to more than a dozen then the authorities try to get everyone to move out. No firm action is taken and yet more people move in. That’s how we work in this country.

We pray the relevant authorities would heed my small warning and bring Christ back into our Carnival and all other celebrations.