WHY?

It is very difficult ... if not impossible ... to understand why things keep going wrong in Trinidad & Tobago. It is difficult to understand, of course, if you are looking for logical answers which do not point to some sort of corrupt practice of one kind or another.


Take for example, the free school holiday today for all public school children. The reason given in the newspapers is because the Trinidad & Tobago Union of Teachers (TTUTA) is having an all day conference today and it is important that all their members attend. Okay. But what is more important? A TTUTA inspired teachers' conference or the education of the children? And if both are equally important why couldn't this conference be held on a Saturday? Why should the children not be taught when it is time to teach? Is this a good reason to cancel school? If you think that it is, then why do you think that the conference should not heave been held on a Saturday when the children have no school.


Let's turn to the political theatre that is unfolding now between Dr. Rowley and Dr. Moonilal. Dr. Rowley held a press conference yesterday (Thursday) in which he slammed Dr. Moonilal's allegations as false and political mischief. His lawyer, who was by his side, is reported as saying that everything that Dr. Moonilal said or alleged was false.


The problem here is that everything is not false ... or at least, does not appear to be false. The facts (as reported) are:
              (1) the email is real;
              (2) the email was sent to the Prime Minister's cousin;
              (3) the email begins with the words "Good morning Honourable Prime Minister ..."


Now, there are some who say that if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck and quacks like a duck that there is a fair  degree of certainty that it is a duck. So? Where are we with this? If Dr. Rowley was innocent of the charges then one would expect that he would protest his innocence all around the mulberry bush. But what if he was guilty? He wouldn't say "all yuh ketch me" and go quietly. He would more than likely also protest that he was innocent. The point here is that his protestations are natural and unfortunately take us nowhere nearer to the truth.


So, we now turn to the investigation by the relevant authorities that has been (quite properly) called for. The problem here is that when the emailgate saga exploded the same authorities launched an investigation which eventually ended some two years later with a whimper that seemed to suggest that the emails that (the same) Dr. Rowley had brandished in Parliament were faked. But nobody has been punished or called out for this. Why?


And now the very same authorities are being called on to investigate this A&V payment scandal. What confidence can the public have that these authorities will do their job fairly and impartially? And if you believe that they will, then why do you believe that? Do you believe that they did their job fairly in emailgate? If you do, then why do you believe that?


There are a few truisms here that hold firm when answering these questions: the first is that if you need more than one sentence to make your point then you cannot make it at all; you may need a paragraph, a chapter or even a whole book to explain your point, but you must be able to make your point in one sentence. The second thing to note is that when somebody is telling you something that you don't understand, ninety-nine percent of the time it is because he does NOT WANT you to understand; one percent of the time it is because HE doesn't understand what he is saying.


There are a whole host of other things that don't make sense; the issues with the Galleons Passage for example. There are too many questions surrounding the whole Petrotrin saga that haven't been properly answered ... and the list goes on.


So? What is it that they don't want us to understand? And, more importantly, WHY don't they want us to understand?