By Raffique Shah
November 27, 2024
Trinidad was a bountiful island. It once was almost self-sufficient in food production. Its economy for the past 50 years has been reliant on its oil, gas and petrochemicals. To truly understand how close we came to being a gem of a country, citizens of today need to know that during the Second World War (1939-1945), when we had no choice but to produce and consume more food than we could eat, we did it.
True, we imported all the flour and like cereals that we ate, but with cargo vessels falling victim to Germany’s huge navy, and those in short supply, we soon learned to like our own cassava and other ground provisions, as well as plantain, legumes, etc.
The global economy pushed to dangerously low levels and threats of war and actual wars virtually kicking at our doors, the world faces yet another food crisis. Every country in the Caribbean focuses heavily on whatever little foods they can produce, while others market crops they never considered important, just to earn a few dollars in hard currency. T&T is fighting to stave off an ongoing shortage of hard (foreign) currencies.
Like our Caricom brethren we have turned to manufacturing and tourism as two of the main contributors to our earnings of foreign dollars. And, at long last some people seem to understand the dire straits we face. While many show understanding, many more still resist efforts to get our populations to eat more of what we grow and grow more of what we eat. But our people, or—maybe I should say—people across the world refuse to accept a change in diet to make financial management and governance easier for all.
I have learnt children go hungry whenever the school feeding programme offers them meals with provisions. Many of them dump the healthy carbohydrates, local foods we produce, in favour of a meal of fried chicken and chips or a “box of dead”, as it is commonly referred to.
I know governments over the past 30 years or so have attempted to wean populations away from these unhealthy foods. Still, they are far from coping with the other crisis, this hunger for unhealthy foreign food, usurping precious foreign exchange and, far worse, increasing diseases associated with unhealthy lifestyles.
What I find difficult to understand is that in the midst of these multiple crises, the decision makers in the country find a part solution to their foreign exchange and other economic woes in Carnival. The calendar has 52 weekends and we now have 100+ carnivals. Every village, town, zone, region and side street now has a carnival. All of them—organisers, local government, tourism promoters, etc—justify the revelry and sheer madness associated with wanton consumption of alcohol and mind-altering substances by saying these carnivals attract “tourists”.
What tourists? I ask these promoters and officials to give me a proper list of every tourist who attends any or all of these events. Start with Tobago and their three or four major offerings for the year. Every July and August promoters have multiple Jouverts; tell me about those. How profitable is the Point Fortin Borough Week and just how many tourists come in for that? And, I’m not talking about Northerners who go past the lighthouse and Grand Bazaar.
Look, anyone who knows me well, if I were healthy I would be in front of some steelband as often as my age would allow. I love steelpan music, I can tolerate Carnival. I have no problem with drunkards, once they are not disorderly. But let’s be serious, Prime Minister—we are about the same age, I am happy that you are in good health (I am not), is this really about promotion of culture? If so, is this the best way to promote our culture? Having near-naked men and women of all shapes and sizes, most of them pistoratically drunk, and some well past that, winding their behinds aimlessly and shamelessly for any camera lens that shoots in their direction. This is not culture. This is madness. And, I cannot understand how leaders—political, religious, community and cultural (there’s that word again)—are supporting this debauchery.
Every single Carnival has no less than ten sacred days of revelry. There are the before fetes, the during fetes and the cool-down after fetes. Tell me who is working in this country? Nobody! Not you, Prime Minister (you have appearances to make), not half your Cabinet, especially the Minister of Tourism, nobody.
We’ve become a wotless state. Simply non-productive, continuously encouraging those who live on handouts to remain that way and worse, live their lives by indiscriminately attending all these events. They are just as productive as those who come out in droves to protest in front Parliament with their chant of, “Rowley must go!”