By Raffique Shah
October 16, 2024

It is said that if you live long enough, you would have seen and heard “Everything”. I am closing in on 80 years and based on my last 30 years’ experience, I do not think I have seen close to everything. I guess the wise men who made that statement lived in the “donkey cart” era, not cars-powered-by-electricity era.

In today’s world, say over a generation (30 years), pace of change is so dizzying that one can suffer multiple medical conditions just trying to keep abreast of technology alone. If for nothing else, I’d like to be here to see the noiseless cars powered by electricity, silently whizzing up and down the highways and the byways. I want to see “Bounce mih nah!” Trinis shout at motorists whizzing past silently.

But let me not get ahead of myself. I read where Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, at some forum that examined the global economy, made the bold but not new “declaration” that we shall have to “tighten our belts”, and that of course is a repeat of what the unfortunate George Chambers uttered back in the early 1980s; Dr Rowley might even have been in Parliament when Chambers made the bold statement. It’s nothing new, nor is it original.

What it means, plain and simple, is that we as a nation endowed with an oil and gas economy think we can spend as much money as we can, lay our hands on anything we want, not need, and we can continue living “high on the hog”. For reference, I should tell readers who may not have heard before that an Indian Prime Minister, maybe PM Nehru, who wisely said to India’s population that was heading towards one billion: India has sufficient resources to meet everyone’s needs, but not everyone’s greed.

So, whether we are looking at needs, greed, or tightening belts or belt, what they were telling their people is that you just can’t go on spending money you do not earn. I should add that the core message regarding needs and greed applies to every nation in the world. People spending more money than they earn is nothing new nor is it unique to Trinidad and Tobago, or India or America. We tend to worship America for its wealth, the happiness that goes with that wealth, and the affluent lifestyle Americans enjoy. We do not, as outsiders who don’t live there and who may visit on occasion, realise the large pockets of poverty that run through its vast land space, except when events like Hurricane Milton occur and expose its (America’s) innards.

But back to base. This country, which shadow-boxes America by acquiring all its bitter taste, is an exemplar of capitalism gone mad which puts it in the “dog-eat-dog”, survival-of-the-fittest category. The population, at least the vast majority, are comfortable watching their neighbours or children who share a school with theirs, suffer in persistent poverty even as they fare well enough to eat foreign foods and adorn themselves in “brands”.

A word at this point to Dr Rowley: Prime Minister, local farmers could grow acres of blue-foods, rear millions of chickens, even put a “sexy” image to sweet potatoes and our corn, the natives will still run down popular fast foods. Several franchises ship to Trinidad and Tobago as far down the food chain as the dough for their pastries.

I have heard numerous stories of locals offering prepared meals which contain local provision to primary and secondary school students, only to have their food rejected and thrown away. Clearly something is fundamentally wrong here when people, who claim that times are hard and they can’t afford food, are now rejecting what is offered to them in favour of what is evidently making them sick with all the non-communicable diseases possible.

We have on our hands, and in our clinics and hospitals, a multi-billion-dollar crisis—one which, no matter how many billions you assign to it in the yearly budget, will in no way impact on its effect. People are eating themselves into sickness and eventually death with processed imported foods. Essentially, we are using our scarce foreign currencies to kill our people. That is certainly one way to do population control.

PM, how can they tighten their belts when they are fattening their bellies? I don’t know if there is any way we can change their eating habits. The large food franchises are always miles ahead of governmental agencies that try to persuade people to eat healthy.

At this point, it is a losing battle except, perhaps… to lead by example. Assemble your Cabinet colleagues, the Opposition and others who are instrumental in running this nation, and lead by example. Publicly participate in all that you implement.

And, next year’s Carnival, I hope to see you, muscles, et al, waving flag in front of any steelband.