By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 01, 2025

“Absolute foolishness.” Those were the words the Leader of Our Grief and Sorrow used when he described “the heavy foreign exchange spending on Carnival costumes…He insists that costumes are not investments” (Guardian, February 26). Such statements are “absolute nonsense” and “absolute foolishness” combined in one.

Four questions: when did the Leader arrive at such quintessential wisdom?; when did he realise purchasing Carnival costumes is not an investment?; what measures did his Government take to dissuade Carnival revellers of their mistaken beliefs?; did he ever speak against the loans that banks and credit unions offer to revellers to purchase Carnival costumes and to go to exclusive fetes?

Similarly, the Leader made foolish statements at the Caricom Heads of Government meeting in Barbados. He insisted “actions or acts of violence in the public space in certain instances, must now be regarded as acts of terrorism…In order to address that, we believe that the legislation [which he does not outline] needs to be cognisant of what exactly we are experiencing now as against what the existing legislation anticipated”. (Express, February 23.)

Since the Leader governed Trinidad and Tobago for ten years, one would have thought he would have told his colleagues what he did to stem this upsurge of violence and the foolish behaviour of his citizens. Instead, he warned: “Caricom countries needed to craft legislation to take into account that the acts of violence endanger people indiscriminately and therefore, the judiciary had to be assisted in treating acts of that nature because they posed an existential threat.”

The Leader enjoys making such obscene exaggerations. Ten years ago we elected his party. When he assumed office he promised he would bring down crime and lock up white-collar criminals. He selected Stuart Young to tackle these challenges but he accomplished little.

In Barbados, he reverted to his hobbyhorse about crime and violence as a “public health issue because the effect on human conditions are such that violent crime is largely carried out by firearms, with 80% of the killings being done by firearms, and 90% of these firearms are coming from a particular source”.

He alerted us to this challenge when he spent millions to entertain foreign heads of government at the Hyatt Regency two years ago. He even wanted to join the Mexican government which sued the US government for exporting firearms to its country which resulted in the deaths of many Mexican citizens.

A forward-looking leader would have told his colleagues how T&T diagnosed these problems and what were its results.

But the Leader does not work in such a manner. He is long on rhetoric but short on action. Instead of reporting on the results of his efforts, his supercharged rhetoric got the better of him. A public health problem was elevated to an act of terrorism that threatens the stability of the slate.

Given the speculative nature of the Leader’s contribution, one can confidently predict that the Leader and his team did nothing to concretise their theoretical propositions (that’s all they were). All he did was to warn of the possibility of apocalyptic doom that awaits us.

We must ask: “If all our actions failed to change our circumstances, what evidence is there that the measures he proposed in Barbados would change our future condition and prevent the anarchy that awaits us?”

Faced with the onslaught of Hitler and Nazi Germany, Winston Churchill gave an inspirational speech to Parliament on August 2, 1944. Such was “his soaring, trenchant and defiant oratory” that Edward Murrow, a famous American reporter, said: “Churchill mobilised the English language and sent it to battle.”

One cannot say the same thing of the Leader who simply mobilises language to cuss, intimidate and demean his people. One wishes that he had used the English language to inspire and elevate the political and intellectual advancement of his people.

The Leader said we are faced with a threatening phenomenon: terrorism and the effective dissolution of the state. Yet the Leader cannot report on one piece of legislation that his Government passed and, more importantly, what actions he has taken to avoid such apocalyptic gloom he predicts.

Given Young’s past failures, his limited experience in government, and his yet-to-be announced political philosophy, how will he deal with the terrorism the Leader prophesises and the dissolution of our way of life?

After ten years of being at the helm the Leader sees everything as “absolute foolishness”. But what does he call electing a prime minister without a mandate, or suddenly coming to the realisation that uncontrolled violence can cripple a state? And isn’t it absolute madness to place a commander in office months before a new election is to be called?

It is said that God looks after fools and babies. May he enfold each of them in his tender mercies.