​Trinbago is now into week 6 of active combat with the COVID19 virus.
This situation is forcing us all to reflect on the Real (not fanciful) state of many critical aspects of our ‘happiest place on the face of the earth’.
Reality is coming face-to-face with us hopefully with a most sobering effect.
COVID19 has become the great revealer and has brought reality face to face with us, if we only open our eyes and minds to its messages which are not mixed, or spin doctored.
So many decisions which have been kicked like the proverbial can down the road have hit the end of the cul-de-sac.
Whether in the economy, social, cultural or political spheres Reality demands that we confront the issues.
At the centrepiece of our economic reality is the persistence of the colonial model of ‘one-crop’ economic structure. Though, this time without even a single cash crop of the estates of the empire to earn desperately needed foreign exchange.
The failure and/or refusal to diversify (bad word) our productive base and capacity has left us totally dependent on the hydrocarbon monocrop at a time when it’s own crisis globally once again threatens the health of our economy, just as COVID19 threatens our physical health and existence.
The price Russian-Saudi price war aimed partly at combatting the US shale advance has had the completely opposite effect as the 1973 OPEC challenge to the big powers of the world. Instead of oil boom, this time we face plummeting prices for a commodity the output of which is also severely diminished.
Gas production, the lifeblood of a hungry greedily expanded Pt. Lisas model now is becoming financially unattractive as the cost of exploration and extraction increases inversely as price plunges.
The stopgap measures of a ‘restructured’ Petrotrin has not yielded any significant increase in oil production and left us dangerously exposed to supply-chain interruptions spawned by the ‘invisible enemy’, the pandemic.
The old export crops have either been eliminated (sugarcane, citrus, coffee, Tobago pigeon peas) or reduced to cottage operation seeking niche markets (cocoa) for SME chocolate-makers striving to squeeze some benefit out of the struggling remains of our Trinitario flavourful beans that were top dog in the world market in earlier times.
The rejected attempts to provide alternative flour sources proposed by George Sammy in the 1970’s. The discarded Sugarcane Feed Centre technology of alternative feeding regimes for bovines and small ruminants.
The rejected building blocks, now are the missing cornerstones desperately needed to feed ourselves and dampen the constantly escalating food import bill, fueled by the dominance of the merchant chains that have redesigned our appetites by a combination of demand-creating lifestyle advertising and control of the import supply chains.
It is little surprise that our Agriculture Minister has admonished the population for not accepting his ‘reality’ that there no feasible alternatives to imported food. After 57 years of Independence, we have never developed, far less implemented a coherent strategic agricultural sector plan.
In fact, as reality now makes plain, we have developed no comprehensive national development plan for the building of an economy that fulfills the needs of the population. in all these years.
There has been no planned development of the economy, social structure or political infrastructure to provide any guarantee of the Rights of the Majority of our body politic.
Our healthcare system has been on a trajectory of tertiary institution building since the abandonment of the primary-care focus of the 1978 WHO Alma Ata Declaration to which we were a signatory.
Will we emerge from this critical moment with a desire for comprehensive planning and REAL decision-making for Development; defining the National Purpose as Geddes Granger’s PEGASUS Project Independence had called for in 1967?
Or will we be provided another round of ‘magnumicent’ dictate by a Party-in-Power now growing accustomed to Rule by Fiat facilitated by a 100-year old PH Ordinance and a compliant Opposition?
Thankfully, the remnants of our Public Health system have become central to our response to the viral threat, leaving us to rely on a century-old Ordinance to bolster our war to defeat COVID. We owe our health workers a debt of gratitude which we may never be able to calculate, far less satisfy.
Thankfully, also, despite of decades of effort to sell our society as a bunch of people just waiting for the next fete or lime and doh-care folks infused with a Carnival mentality, our people have confirmed my faith in them by, in absolute majority, acting magnificently with responsibility and care for one another and ensuring that COVOD’s threat is minimised.
One can only hope that at least a larger portion of the body politic awakens to the necessity of the direction advocated in the first people-developed plan presented in1967.
The fact that the call for National Purpose by some citizens has emerged in the conversation amid the current challenge points in that direction.
 
Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for
Democratic Renewal and
Real Development of our Society
12 April 2020 

It is Carnival time, bacchanal time in sweet TnT. Of course, not Trini Carnival will be We Ting without a good riddling puzzlement speech by a clever Pierrot Grenade.
So, when the stories mounted totalling over 20 articles in 3 daily newspapers about the ‘fete in the sea’ episode, we were treated to a tale more perplexing than anything master Pierrot, Felix Edinborough might be able to conjure up.
The tale is long in its historical development of some 18 months – from August 2018 to February 2020, from Guadeloupe to Port of Spain and Maracas Bay.
There once was a junior Education Minister who embarked on a “diplomatic mission” aka an education-cultural exchange. Funny thing, though, neither a Government nor an Educational institution invited this mission. Nor were the Foreign or Education Minister invited.
The invitation, airplane tickets, accommodation, even VIP tickets to the event came from the organisers of  Karuk­era One Love Mu­sic Fes­ti­val. Strange diplomacy you can imagine.
To keep things official the Cabinet approved the junket and provided $5,474 of public money as per diem for the ‘diplomat’ Minister.
On his return, the diplomatic missionary took to social media to extol “the potential ...economic and otherwise …or else my visit would not have been approved.”.  So, it seems, the merry missionary was also assessing the economic potential of links with these promoters from a French-speaking regional neighbour. But, neither the Trade, Tourism nor Culture Minister were part of the ‘diplomatic mission’.
So enthusiastic was our nation’s latest diplomat, that 6 months ago, he took to social media again to tell us: ““Hey peeps. Last year I had the great plea­sure of rep­re­sent­ing us at the Karuk­era One Love Fes­ti­val in Guade­loupe….but next year it is to be held right here in Trinidad and To­ba­go. This morn­ing it was my plea­sure to share a light mo­ment with some of the or­gan­is­ers and to meet the of­fi­cial mas­cot of the fes­ti­val, Cheers.”.
So, a second meeting, a light moment with ‘some of the organisers’ to boot, deepening ties between our territories, no doubt.
Then, things got really interesting. On February 6, local agents of the Guadeloupean promoters received approval from the Commissioner of State Lands to proceed with the event, now known as the fete in the sea, because their signature option was to build a stage in Maracas Bay waters.
Some days later, the Agriculture Minister rescinded the Commissioner’s ‘no objection’ letter and the stage had to be put on sandy terra firma.
By now, the Tourism Minister joined with the junior Education diplomat to remind us of the benefits of this fete in the land of fete – millions of Euros being invested with benefits for local suppliers and artists.
But, not a word about the safety of the same artists and the partygoers which the Agriculture Minister told us was his main concern in over-riding his agency’s permission.
Now, de ting start. And it was back and forth in the glare of the public in the media – De fete off …Nah it on again…and kangkatang.
The Minister/Diplomat end up accusing We, the People, of ‘making a mountain out of nothing’ and ‘needed to be more forward-thinking’. This after his PM and Head of Cabinet told us that the Government “mishandled” the situation and “let our guard down” by allowing this ‘diplomat’ to accept an invitation and go to Guadeloupe on a mission financed by private interests contrary to long-standing Cabinet policy.
Speaking after this admission by his boss, the Minister/Diplomat then claimed the ‘legitimacy of his diplomacy’ was due to his invitation coming from the Mayor of that territory and not the promoters despite his previous social media postings and Cabinet records.
Well, Mr. Minster/Diplomat, this is no mountain out of a mole hill yarn.
There are serious issues of public safety and governance involved in this entire episode from which we, the people, will not be diverted by promises of milk and honey, euros and a few dollars more.
The PM admitted the breach of policy which you described as ‘we may have stepped slightly away from’ even after saying that after the PM’s admission, ‘there is nothing I could say after that’.
And to add insult to injury by trying to shame We the People by claiming that we are not ‘forward-thinking’, you need to apologise big time. And so, too, should your new-found friend, the promoter who said this country ‘missed a grand opportunity’ because he couldn’t put his stage in the sea for a fete that probably had a smaller attendance than Machel Monday or Kes Tuesday or any beach cooldown to come Ash Wednesday or next weekend.
And, by the way, did your promoter friend not showcase this fete and TnT because his stage was not in the saltwater?
We are not beggars or hustlers. We are the proud people of TnT. We are the people who provide the world with the unique Trinidad Carnival. You and  your promoter friend owe us an apology big time.
The relations between the people and territories of Guadeloupe and TnT are far more important and significant than you suggest.
We share a long history and deep relations. Please don’t try to involve us in your kangkatang and belittle our ties with our Caribbean neighbours.

Clyde Weatherhead
A Proud and Patriotic Trini who
Loves Our Culture and Good
Governance too.
22 February 2020

"I don't know that my speeches create disaffection, I know that my speeches create a fire in the minds of the people so as to change the conditions which now exist."  - Elma Francois.
​
In February 1938, Elma Francois, a woman organiser of the workers and poor, was put on trial for sedition because of her speeches to the workers of Port of Spain on the Piccadilly Greens. She was one of several organisers of the Negro Welfare Cultural and Social Association (NWCSA) charged with sedition, the only woman. She defended herself and was acquitted by the jury. The men were not as lucky.
On Monday, January 13, in a most significant judgment section 4 of the Sedition Act under which Francois was charged along with section 3, both creating criminal offences out of nebulous seditions intent, were struck down in the High Court.
These provisions criminalizing dissent, were declared to be “hopelessly vague” and cannot “qualify as law” violating the “principle of legal certainty” particularly when these sections are supposed to define offences and can lead to loss of freedom consequently.
The Court also said that since these sections do not “qualify as law” and therefore couldn’t be regarded as “saved law” continuing across the colonial and Independence eras.
Further, the Court ruled that the offending sections “infringe the right of the individual” to “freedom of thought and expression” and therefor offend the Constitution and particularly sections 1 and 2 of the highest law of our Republic.
On the same day, the Attorney General announced his decision to appeal the judgment because it was “a dangerous development” with implications for many other laws originating in the colonial era of imperial monarchy.
Which old laws? He suggested “every saved law …like inland revenue law” and “law that allows capital punishment”.
This appears quite alarmist. Those laws that, like the Sedition Act, create criminal offences, particularly homicide, are not “hopelessly vague” and void for uncertainty. To suggest that they are in the same state as sections 3 and 4 of the Sedition Act is a far stretch.
The AG alarmingly referred to the 1990 coup attempt to suggest that striking those sections the Sedition Act was somehow offering protection to anyone engaging in or threatening violence.
There is plenty law of Treason, Terrorism, Riot etc which adequately deal with situations of armed insurrections., So, where is the nexus between what the AG suggests and the ruling on the Sedition Act.
Further, the Sedition Act as introduced on 9 April 1920, was clearly a reaction by the colonial power to the 1919 strikes and protests of the dock, sugar and other workers against their oppressive conditions.
Look at the original section 3 (1)(a) which defines a seditious intention as one to “bring into hatred or contempt, or to excite disaffection against the person of His Majesty…”. Against his majesty residing in the comfort of his palaces on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean? Really!!
Isn’t that archaic? Or are we to equate some officeholder in our modern democratic Republic with the person of his or her majesty?
Contrast that with the language of section 7 of the same law that requires the AG (now the DPP) to satisfy a Court that a seditious publication should be banned if its publication “would be likely to lead to unlawful violence, ..”. The same words used in the 1920 and current versions of the law and set a different and clear (not vague) threshold for determining the seditious nature of the material complained about.
Only last September, the Prime Minister declared that if the Sedition Act went, we would need law which prevent the exploitation of “fault lines and fractures whether it is ethnic, religious, racial or otherwise” in our society. He declared that he is “open to amending the Sedition Act”. And, he invited wide participation in a national discussion on what should amend or replace that Act.
Why now is his AG now acting as though the Court has done more than amend it by striking out only 2 sections which did not qualify as good criminal law?
In expressing his views, the AG “opened the ay for the kind of scurrilous accusations being levelled against Justice Seepersad, especially by political loyalists and political hacks on social media” as one newspaper editorial put it the next day.
In fact, it was not just on social media. Within hours of the AG’s dog-whistle, a declared PNM radio talk-show host led a chorus of loyalists in suggesting that the Judge was biased because he previously praised Sat Maharaj’s contribution to education. Even though the AG and his lawyers never raised that issue of bias against the Judge.
The callers went further to suggest that the Judge was an Opposition sympathizer and even questioned his religious background.
It is shameful that a political party whose leader warned against those who might act in a “way to allow those fault lines to become fractures” were now in a most despicable fashion seeking to bring into hatred or contempt or excite disaffection against a Judicial Officer merely because he ruled against parts of a law that sought to silence dissent.
Not since the days of the trials of Butler, Barrette, Christina King, Elma Francois and others in the 1930’s and 40’s has there been a successful prosecution using those “vague, uncertain and therefore illegal” sections of the Sedition Act.
 
Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for the
Democratic Renewal of our
Society and Empowerment of
Our People.
21 January 2020