Side by side, in love and humility
November 3, 2022
Curtailing disturbances of gunfire requires help from all segments of society
November 3, 2022
As a teen, my father had a sailboat called Mattabelle. One Tuesday evening, my family and a group of my friends were at Scotland Bay. When the time came to leave, around 4:00 p.m., there was no wind whatsoever. So, we were motoring home when the engine failed. We were perilously poised just outside of Tetron Bay with a tidal current pulling us towards the First Boca. It was a very dynamic situation.
There was no wind, we were moving towards the Boca at steady speed. We had a dinghy with an engine. I told dad to let me put the engine on the dinghy and pull the boat. He agreed and engine was on, rope fixed and with throttle all out, I began to tow Matabelle. I should tell you that I bought the engine from a shop by picking out all the parts from three scrap heaps, and then put it together and by a miracle, got it to work. I should also tell you that Matabelle was a 12-tonne yacht.
With my throttle on full, with the engine I put together, all I managed to do is slow down the rate at which we were heading into peril long enough for the tide to change. The wind never came, and we did not move far but we remained safe. That is progress.
You are graduating into one of the most dynamic moments in history. The global currents are pulling us, a tiny nation and region, into perilous places. The sails are fluttering, and it seems the engine has failed. We are in peril and naively heading in a direction opposite to our original course at independence.
Global Currents
We have had nearly 500 years of the scientific revolution. We have the most sophisticated tools to investigate reality that any civilisation has ever had—from the electronic microscope that magnifies 500,000 times allowing us to see the smallest atomic level of existence, to the observation of the universe using the new James Webb telescope, allowing us to see into the nether regions of space taking us way back to the beginnings of the universe itself.
For 500 years, we have explored the outer landscape of our universe and learnt to harness the power of the universe to dramatically transform humanity. Our basic human needs are supplied in a very different way from 500 years ago—food, shelter, clothing, and mobility for humans are fundamentally different today because of the progress that science has afforded us. Our lives are easier, with more supporting technology serving our needs than ever before.
In the heady days of science, we believed that we would build the Kingdom of God brick by brick using our scientific knowledge and innovation. We were going to solve all human challenges and bring an era of peace and prosperity that was unprecedented.
During this 500-year odyssey, we have conquered the outer reaches of the observable world. We have excelled in every form of science, medicine, and technology. At the same time, we have left the inner landscape of humanity, a desert place that is becoming more and more increasingly difficult to inhabit.
Globally, we face the prospects of a nuclear war. We have created weapons of mass destruction that can annihilate the planet. Do we have the inner depth of conscience to wield such power?
Our oil addiction has pushed humanity to the brink of war several times. Now we reward the person and nation that holds Europe hostage. Russia’s oil earnings have increased by 38 per cent because of the war while the West is experiencing inflation at unprecedented levels.
Globally, we face a major threat to this planet—our common home, the Earth—because we have put the myth of progress ahead of sustainable integral ecology. The pursuit of lifestyle, money and so-called progress has sacrificed the planet in ways that the United Nations is now saying is irreversible. We the tiny islands of the Caribbean will feel the full brunt of climate challenge.
Globally, we have two fifths of the planet living on less than US $5.50 per day or TT $38.50 per day. Between 1990 and 2022, extreme poverty has decreased dramatically. But Covid set this trend back with poverty increasing once again. Today, it is estimated that 50 million people are living in slavery. A number much higher than during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade that shaped our history.
To solve the problem of epistemology—how do I know that I know— the 17th century philosopher, Rene Descartes proclaimed: cogito, ergo sum—I think therefore I Am. While solving the problem of knowledge, he inadvertently moved the human subject to the centre and with this laid the foundation for individualism. We have taken this to the extreme where knowledge does not matter anymore. Now, we are asked to believe that we are whatever we desire— hence gender ideology. This break in knowledge is disastrous for civilisation. This storm is already beating against us.
At the end of modernity, and post modernity, we see more clearly the challenge of reason which Immanuel Kant highlighted so many years ago. It is not that reason, logic and science have not given us great gifts. It is that these gifts have also brought great challenges and suffering to humanity. These are the global tidal forces that are pushing at us. This is the dilemma when any human strength is overplayed at the expense of other dimensions of humanity.
As a civilisation, we have conquered the highest peaks of knowledge that are before us. Yet, the inner landscape of the human heart remains for the most part, a desolate uncultivated landscape. Because of this poverty of spirit, we do not have the engine
required to navigate these perilous waters and the global tides that currently exist. What is at stake is the future of humanity itself. Without wind, sail, or engine we find ourselves at the whim and fancy of these global tides.
My thesis is that the fundamental challenge facing Trinidad and Tobago and the world as a whole is at its heart, a spiritual crisis. Albert Einstein has famously said: “We cannot solve problems at the same level of thinking that we were at when we created those problems.”
For 500 years, we have developed the mind, believing it will get us to utopia. Now having achieved such great material and scientific progress, we are perplexed because it is this same rationality that created the global ecological crisis, gender ideology, the oil addiction, and the conditions for nuclear war.
We have conquered the material world and the outer reaches of space, but the motivation of the human heart remains an enigma to us. This enigma causes great destruction on a daily basis in the family, the community, the schools, the temples, mosques, churches, parliament, and boardrooms of our nation.
As a teen, my father had a sailboat called Mattabelle. One Tuesday evening, my family and a group of my friends were at Scotland Bay. When the time came to leave, around 4:00 p.m., there was no wind whatsoever. So, we were motoring home when the engine failed. We were perilously poised just outside of Tetron Bay with a tidal current pulling us towards the First Boca. It was a very dynamic situation.
There was no wind, we were moving towards the Boca at steady speed. We had a dinghy with an engine. I told dad to let me put the engine on the dinghy and pull the boat. He agreed and engine was on, rope fixed and with throttle all out, I began to tow Matabelle. I should tell you that I bought the engine from a shop by picking out all the parts from three scrap heaps, and then put it together and by a miracle, got it to work. I should also tell you that Matabelle was a 12-tonne yacht.
With my throttle on full, with the engine I put together, all I managed to do is slow down the rate at which we were heading into peril long enough for the tide to change. The wind never came, and we did not move far but we remained safe. That is progress.
You are graduating into one of the most dynamic moments in history. The global currents are pulling us, a tiny nation and region, into perilous places. The sails are fluttering, and it seems the engine has failed. We are in peril and naively heading in a direction opposite to our original course at independence.
Global Currents
We have had nearly 500 years of the scientific revolution. We have the most sophisticated tools to investigate reality that any civilisation has ever had—from the electronic microscope that magnifies 500,000 times allowing us to see the smallest atomic level of existence, to the observation of the universe using the new James Webb telescope, allowing us to see into the nether regions of space taking us way back to the beginnings of the universe itself.
For 500 years, we have explored the outer landscape of our universe and learnt to harness the power of the universe to dramatically transform humanity. Our basic human needs are supplied in a very different way from 500 years ago—food, shelter, clothing, and mobility for humans are fundamentally different today because of the progress that science has afforded us. Our lives are easier, with more supporting technology serving our needs than ever before.
In the heady days of science, we believed that we would build the Kingdom of God brick by brick using our scientific knowledge and innovation. We were going to solve all human challenges and bring an era of peace and prosperity that was unprecedented.
During this 500-year odyssey, we have conquered the outer reaches of the observable world. We have excelled in every form of science, medicine, and technology. At the same time, we have left the inner landscape of humanity, a desert place that is becoming more and more increasingly difficult to inhabit.
Globally, we face the prospects of a nuclear war. We have created weapons of mass destruction that can annihilate the planet. Do we have the inner depth of conscience to wield such power?
Our oil addiction has pushed humanity to the brink of war several times. Now we reward the person and nation that holds Europe hostage. Russia’s oil earnings have increased by 38 per cent because of the war while the West is experiencing inflation at unprecedented levels.
Globally, we face a major threat to this planet—our common home, the Earth—because we have put the myth of progress ahead of sustainable integral ecology. The pursuit of lifestyle, money and so-called progress has sacrificed the planet in ways that the United Nations is now saying is irreversible. We the tiny islands of the Caribbean will feel the full brunt of climate challenge.
Globally, we have two fifths of the planet living on less than US $5.50 per day or TT $38.50 per day. Between 1990 and 2022, extreme poverty has decreased dramatically. But Covid set this trend back with poverty increasing once again. Today, it is estimated that 50 million people are living in slavery. A number much higher than during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade that shaped our history.
To solve the problem of epistemology—how do I know that I know— the 17th century philosopher, Rene Descartes proclaimed: cogito, ergo sum—I think therefore I Am. While solving the problem of knowledge, he inadvertently moved the human subject to the centre and with this laid the foundation for individualism. We have taken this to the extreme where knowledge does not matter anymore. Now, we are asked to believe that we are whatever we desire— hence gender ideology. This break in knowledge is disastrous for civilisation. This storm is already beating against us.
At the end of modernity, and post modernity, we see more clearly the challenge of reason which Immanuel Kant highlighted so many years ago. It is not that reason, logic and science have not given us great gifts. It is that these gifts have also brought great challenges and suffering to humanity. These are the global tidal forces that are pushing at us. This is the dilemma when any human strength is overplayed at the expense of other dimensions of humanity.
As a civilisation, we have conquered the highest peaks of knowledge that are before us. Yet, the inner landscape of the human heart remains for the most part, a desolate uncultivated landscape. Because of this poverty of spirit, we do not have the engine
required to navigate these perilous waters and the global tides that currently exist. What is at stake is the future of humanity itself. Without wind, sail, or engine we find ourselves at the whim and fancy of these global tides.
My thesis is that the fundamental challenge facing Trinidad and Tobago and the world as a whole is at its heart, a spiritual crisis. Albert Einstein has famously said: “We cannot solve problems at the same level of thinking that we were at when we created those problems.”
For 500 years, we have developed the mind, believing it will get us to utopia. Now having achieved such great material and scientific progress, we are perplexed because it is this same rationality that created the global ecological crisis, gender ideology, the oil addiction, and the conditions for nuclear war.
We have conquered the material world and the outer reaches of space, but the motivation of the human heart remains an enigma to us. This enigma causes great destruction on a daily basis in the family, the community, the schools, the temples, mosques, churches, parliament, and boardrooms of our nation.
Local currents
Politically, we are divided by tribe during every election (Nigel Henry 2019 poll1). We evaluate the government based on our racial perspective. This has significantly damaged the political engine to move us forward as a nation.
In the last world index of murder rates per capita, we were right up at the top 7 in the world.2 In per capita, we ranked 52nd in the world and in corruption, we are 82nd where #1 is least corrupt. We have voted out more governments because of perception of corruption than I can remember.
Yet, the same people continue to dominate the political landscape. We have changed ministers of national security and police commissioners and it has had little impact on the murder rate. The engine to transform us into a safer society is not working. We are adrift and heading perilously in the wrong direction.
David Rudder in his ‘Another Day In Paradise’ says: “Forged, that is the first word of the anthem, we so dam corrupt that is the problem”. A former Attorney General while in office hired Lindquist forensic accountants to assess corruption in the police force. The report stated that 60 per cent of the police were corrupt. This is many years ago.
In 1985, Dr Jess Bromley, an expert in drug use, came to Trinidad and Tobago invited by New Life Drug Rehab centre. At the end of his trip, he was very worried. 2 https://www.numbeo.com/crime/rankings_by_country.jsp?title=2022-mid
He saw cocaine being used in Trinidad in ways that had not hit the streets of the US as yet. It was cheap available and vaporised. He said, if we do not deal with it, we will not recognise the country in 20 years.
A member of cabinet in the 1980s raised the issue of drugs and its challenges and spoke in cabinet about known drug lords in Trinidad. That evening he received a phone call from an anonymous person who informed him where his wife and children were that day and threatened him to be silent.
Since Covid, the country has gone mad with skimpy dressing parties like –‘Jam naked’. We are now hypersexualised and believe we will find happiness through hedonism—maximising pleasure. We are a boat drifting in global and internal currents that are perilous. It seems like our answer is another party, more pleasure and money.
Becoming a Nation
You do not become a nation because you were given independence. You have to learn to make hard choices. Dr Williams warned us on the eve of independence that despite our ethnicities there can only be one mother—mother Trinidad and Tobago and a mother cannot discriminate between her children. The children cannot continue to disrespect each other.
Below all that I have described there is a deep quest for happiness. But as the song goes, we are “looking for love in all the wrong places”. The philosopher Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics outlines the pathway to true happiness. It cannot be found through the pursuit of honour fame, pleasure or any created thing. Each of these paths, lead to internal destruction of the person and the civilization.
As a young nation, these have been our choices for pursuing happiness. After 60 years, we need to recognise that we have drifted into perilously difficult waters and need a new path. Money, power, pleasure, or honour will not save us.
Aristotle says: “Nobody would call a man ideally happy if he has not got a particle of courage nor of temperance nor of decency nor of good sense but is afraid of the flies that flutter by him, cannot refrain from any of the most outrageous actions in order to gratify a desire to eat or to drink, and ruins his dearest friends for the sake of a penny …” (Nicomachean Ethics).
This leads to Aristotle’s definition of happiness—a life made perfect by the possession of all good things such as health, wealth, friendship, knowledge, and virtue.3 They must all be pursued. The key here is in the pursuit of virtue which helps the person and the civilisation regulate everything else. This is the greatest challenge to our young Republic.
Virtue is like that little engine that will help us to navigate away from the peril. If each of us finds the parts required for virtue and we each start that engine we will have the power required to move away from the perils, we now face and to navigate a way forward into the nation we are destined to become.
Remember Einstein says: “We cannot solve problems at the same level of thinking that we were at when we created those problems.” We need a system upgrade from the pursuit of liberty, wealth, pleasure, and power to a pursuit of virtue, values, and a meaningful life.
In our plurality, we do not see any metanarrative to help unify, build a political engine, and navigate a way forward. With 500 years of science, we have lost confidence in our religious traditions, many of us discarding the faith of our parents and grandparents. I am proposing it is time to look at the scrap heap of the discarded and begin to find the parts to construct an engine, small as it might be, to assist in this moment of peril.
The great religious traditions converge on three vital points. The first is our ethical tradition lived through the golden rule. The second is our sense of obligation to help the less fortunate and the third is our mystical tradition or prayer that sees God in all things, the source and foundation of our deepest longing.
When we look at the commonality through perennial philosophy and these three areas of religious practice, it is clear, that there is much that we share in our common patrimony as seekers of God. There is much more that unites us than divides us if we dare to look again with fresh eyes.
All of our religious traditions teach us the golden rule—Do onto others as you would have them do onto you (Lk 6:31). This is the fundamental foundation of virtue upon which we can all agree. A version of this rule turns up in every continent and every religious tradition.
If our schools, universities, temples, churches, and mandarins were to see their mission as forming citizens to live the ethical life, we would begin the construction of that little engine. Let us make virtue our watchword. Let every institution in this beloved nation become a place of formation in virtue. How do you want to be treated? Let us treat others this way.
For this engine to work well, we need to learn another truth of all our traditions. In a world gone wrong, there is no communion without sacrifice. Sacrifice too is in the scrapheap. Our grandmothers made sacrifices every day for their children and grandchildren. If we want to become the nation, we are destined to become, we need to make daily sacrifices. This is the pathway to virtue. Here we need to recognise our commitment to those most in need of our society.
Let us recognise that the culprit in our society is not only the little boys and girls who are turning to crime at an alarming rate. It is every one of us who make bad choices for corruption, indiscipline, and mediocrity. It is our education system that does not put adequate resources in the most deprived communities of our nation. If we want to change course, we need to make a significant investment in our underdeveloped communities. We need to treat them like we want to be treated.
All our great religious traditions have spiritual practices to bring devotees into oneness with the divine. As we face moral, fiscal, and societal bankruptcy, let us recognise that there is another path. One that rejuvenates the deepest part of the human and moves the deep longing that we cannot name from creatures that cannot satisfy to the creator who alone can satisfy our deepest needs. As St Augustine says, “our soul is restless, Oh God, till it rests in thee”.
We all want someone else to solve our problems—the politician, the trade union leader, the pundit, the Imam, the pastor, or the priest. They cannot unless we all choose to make a fundamental change.
There is an inner landscape that can be rejuvenated if it is watered by meditation, sacrifice and pursuit of virtue. If each of us, does what we can to water this inner landscape, we will find the parts to the little engine, by our daily practice of virtue, sacrifice and prayer.
We can reconstruct those parts into a useful instrument and if we together embark on this journey, we will find all the power we need to rebuild our nation. Then shoulder to shoulder, we can stand and sing with great confidence: “Let every creed and race find an equal place” and the heavens will declare: “and may God bless our nation”.
Politically, we are divided by tribe during every election (Nigel Henry 2019 poll1). We evaluate the government based on our racial perspective. This has significantly damaged the political engine to move us forward as a nation.
In the last world index of murder rates per capita, we were right up at the top 7 in the world.2 In per capita, we ranked 52nd in the world and in corruption, we are 82nd where #1 is least corrupt. We have voted out more governments because of perception of corruption than I can remember.
Yet, the same people continue to dominate the political landscape. We have changed ministers of national security and police commissioners and it has had little impact on the murder rate. The engine to transform us into a safer society is not working. We are adrift and heading perilously in the wrong direction.
David Rudder in his ‘Another Day In Paradise’ says: “Forged, that is the first word of the anthem, we so dam corrupt that is the problem”. A former Attorney General while in office hired Lindquist forensic accountants to assess corruption in the police force. The report stated that 60 per cent of the police were corrupt. This is many years ago.
In 1985, Dr Jess Bromley, an expert in drug use, came to Trinidad and Tobago invited by New Life Drug Rehab centre. At the end of his trip, he was very worried. https://www.numbeo.com/crime/rankings_by_country.jsp?title=2022-mid
He saw cocaine being used in Trinidad in ways that had not hit the streets of the US as yet. It was cheap available and vaporised. He said, if we do not deal with it, we will not recognise the country in 20 years.
A member of cabinet in the 1980s raised the issue of drugs and its challenges and spoke in cabinet about known drug lords in Trinidad. That evening he received a phone call from an anonymous person who informed him where his wife and children were that day and threatened him to be silent.
Since Covid, the country has gone mad with skimpy dressing parties like –‘Jam naked’. We are now hypersexualised and believe we will find happiness through hedonism—maximising pleasure. We are a boat drifting in global and internal currents that are perilous. It seems like our answer is another party, more pleasure and money.
Becoming a Nation
You do not become a nation because you were given independence. You have to learn to make hard choices. Dr Williams warned us on the eve of independence that despite our ethnicities there can only be one mother—mother Trinidad and Tobago and a mother cannot discriminate between her children. The children cannot continue to disrespect each other.
Below all that I have described there is a deep quest for happiness. But as the song goes, we are “looking for love in all the wrong places”. The philosopher Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics outlines the pathway to true happiness. It cannot be found through the pursuit of honour fame, pleasure or any created thing. Each of these paths, lead to internal destruction of the person and the civilization.
As a young nation, these have been our choices for pursuing happiness. After 60 years, we need to recognise that we have drifted into perilously difficult waters and need a new path. Money, power, pleasure, or honour will not save us.
Aristotle says: “Nobody would call a man ideally happy if he has not got a particle of courage nor of temperance nor of decency nor of good sense but is afraid of the flies that flutter by him, cannot refrain from any of the most outrageous actions in order to gratify a desire to eat or to drink, and ruins his dearest friends for the sake of a penny …” (Nicomachean Ethics).
This leads to Aristotle’s definition of happiness—a life made perfect by the possession of all good things such as health, wealth, friendship, knowledge, and virtue.3 They must all be pursued. The key here is in the pursuit of virtue which helps the person and the civilisation regulate everything else. This is the greatest challenge to our young Republic.
Virtue is like that little engine that will help us to navigate away from the peril. If each of us finds the parts required for virtue and we each start that engine we will have the power required to move away from the perils, we now face and to navigate a way forward into the nation we are destined to become.
Remember Einstein says: “We cannot solve problems at the same level of thinking that we were at when we created those problems.” We need a system upgrade from the pursuit of liberty, wealth, pleasure, and power to a pursuit of virtue, values, and a meaningful life.
In our plurality, we do not see any metanarrative to help unify, build a political engine, and navigate a way forward. With 500 years of science, we have lost confidence in our religious traditions, many of us discarding the faith of our parents and grandparents. I am proposing it is time to look at the scrap heap of the discarded and begin to find the parts to construct an engine, small as it might be, to assist in this moment of peril.
The great religious traditions converge on three vital points. The first is our ethical tradition lived through the golden rule. The second is our sense of obligation to help the less fortunate and the third is our mystical tradition or prayer that sees God in all things, the source and foundation of our deepest longing.
When we look at the commonality through perennial philosophy and these three areas of religious practice, it is clear, that there is much that we share in our common patrimony as seekers of God. There is much more that unites us than divides us if we dare to look again with fresh eyes.
All of our religious traditions teach us the golden rule—Do onto others as you would have them do onto you (Lk 6:31). This is the fundamental foundation of virtue upon which we can all agree. A version of this rule turns up in every continent and every religious tradition.
If our schools, universities, temples, churches, and mandarins were to see their mission as forming citizens to live the ethical life, we would begin the construction of that little engine. Let us make virtue our watchword. Let every institution in this beloved nation become a place of formation in virtue. How do you want to be treated? Let us treat others this way.
For this engine to work well, we need to learn another truth of all our traditions. In a world gone wrong, there is no communion without sacrifice. Sacrifice too is in the scrapheap. Our grandmothers made sacrifices every day for their children and grandchildren. If we want to become the nation, we are destined to become, we need to make daily sacrifices. This is the pathway to virtue. Here we need to recognise our commitment to those most in need of our society.
Let us recognise that the culprit in our society is not only the little boys and girls who are turning to crime at an alarming rate. It is every one of us who make bad choices for corruption, indiscipline, and mediocrity. It is our education system that does not put adequate resources in the most deprived communities of our nation. If we want to change course, we need to make a significant investment in our underdeveloped communities. We need to treat them like we want to be treated.
All our great religious traditions have spiritual practices to bring devotees into oneness with the divine. As we face moral, fiscal, and societal bankruptcy, let us recognise that there is another path. One that rejuvenates the deepest part of the human and moves the deep longing that we cannot name from creatures that cannot satisfy to the creator who alone can satisfy our deepest needs. As St Augustine says, “our soul is restless, Oh God, till it rests in thee”.
We all want someone else to solve our problems—the politician, the trade union leader, the pundit, the Imam, the pastor, or the priest. They cannot unless we all choose to make a fundamental change.
There is an inner landscape that can be rejuvenated if it is watered by meditation, sacrifice and pursuit of virtue. If each of us, does what we can to water this inner landscape, we will find the parts to the little engine, by our daily practice of virtue, sacrifice and prayer.
We can reconstruct those parts into a useful instrument and if we together embark on this journey, we will find all the power we need to rebuild our nation. Then shoulder to shoulder, we can stand and sing with great confidence: “Let every creed and race find an equal place” and the heavens will declare: “and may God bless our nation”.
