THE TRAGEDY OF TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

 Ther is only ONE reson for government - only  ONE REASON  for politics :TO MAKE LIFE BETTER FOR THE PEOPLE! FULL STOP!  There is NO other .reason. Sadly, BOTH SIDES  of our political divide ignore thiss rule and seem to mreak it with impunity any time it suits them, To be fair, the UNC has not been in power fo a very long and another rule is that it always takes  a longer time to fix thinjs than to break them in the first place.

But rhe PNM does not have that excuse. they were in power for almost ten long years. But even taking that into account  the fact that the USA (our biggest tracing partner) went into recession some time ago,and  the fact is that we were horriibly mis-managed for most of that time.. It was, for example, a huge mistake to shut down the Petrotrin oil refinery, and crime just got worse from year to year during the PNM;s turn in power, Now,  crime is so bad that the only thing really keeping us safe is the total and complrtr incompetence of the many leacers of the various crimiinal gangs.

You don't believe me!? Check out how many guns are in the comtrol of the gang leaders , and then check out how many guns are under the control of the police amd the army. You tell mr who you think has the greater fire power based on all the reports of the police sezing arms ahipmentd. Do you believe that the police are seizing everything? Eighty per cent? Fifty percent?  Even at more than five percent that is  a heck of a lot of guns coming in, And what do you think would happen ithe gangs combined?

As for the UNC theit biggest offence to date seems to have been making promises that they can't, or haven't, kept. For example, crime contues to be out of control.

So? Where does that leave us?Maybe its time for a third party - the F,D.A.T.T party (I'll tell you later what FDATT stnds forBut.) But until our leaders wake up and smell the coffee we'll continue to catch our 'nen-en'.

Corpus Christi

History teaches us a lot of things: how to remember what happened, how to remember who we are, and how to remeber where we have come from. Corpus Christi is a national holiday here in Trinidad & Tobago, but most Trinidadians don't have a clue as to why this is a holiday, especially where in a country which has a minority population of Catholics (roughly 20%).When my wife came from Venezuela, which has a majority of catholics (98%) , she had never heard of Corpus Christi. Indeed, most Catholic countries (including Italy) do not observe Corpus Christi as a public holiday. 

In fact, we owe this national holiday to the French Revolution. A lot of the French aristocracy fled France and went to Guadeloupe and Martinique. When Napoleon had conquered Spain, it meant that France now ruled all of the Spanish colonies. The Revolution had followed them to the West Indies which causined them to flee once again. The Spanish Crown issued a decree that offered free land to all Roman Catholic Settlers and their enslaved labourers who swore allegiance to Spain. 

During the Treaty of Amiens in 1803 the English handed back all the lands that they had seized except for Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and Trinidad. It is easy to understand why the English didn't want to give up Sri Lanka,; this island lies directly in the sailing path of ships going to India, which was then the Crown Jewel of the British Empire. But why Trinidad? 

The reason is because when the French Aristocracy here in Trinidad heard that England was handing back all the Spanish Colonies, they panicked; the English were, horror of horrors, Anglican. Which was in their opinion one step above paganism. Accordingly, the English at their requst, wrote into the peace treaty that henceforth the Roman Catholic holiday of Corpus Christi would be a national holiday in the colony. Napoleon could not care less and happily agreed. The big debate was for Ceylon. Accordingly, the peace treaty was signed and Trinidad is now one of the few countries in the world to celebrate Corpus Christi as a national holidy

And that is why we are all on holiday today.