On finding new ideas

Submitted by Ian Ramjohn on Sat, 10/24/2009 - 20:26

Trinidadians have a habit of going abroad for a little while, taking in the outside world, turning around and coming home with the belief that they now know more than all the poor people who stayed behind. In their return they became the new colonialists, taking upon themselves the “white man's burden” to educate and civilise the the ignorant natives.

 

Trinidadians also have a habit of accepting things the way they are. Taran has written about his disdain for the phrase “this is Trinidad”. But fatalism aside, most people who search for solutions are constrained by their experience. It's really difficult to imagine something that's outside of your experience. The search for solutions requires an understanding of alternatives. And we are badly in need of solutions.

 

I think there's a useful path that lies somewhere between those two options. I don't believe that I know better than others. I'm old enough to have gotten over that arrogance. (OK, maybe age isn't the issue – Eric Williams was older than I am when he came home and “put down his bucket”. But I don't think he ever outgrew his arrogance.)

 

I don't presume to have answers. I've been out of Trinidad long enough that I don't presume to fully understand the questions any more. I'm not a historian, I'm not a political scientist. My observations and interpretations may be entirely incorrect. But if I'm lucky, I've made a few observations that someone will find useful, or at least in my wrongness I may help someone clarify their own ideas about one issue or another.

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Comments

Submitted by Taran Rampersad on Sun, 10/25/2009 - 11:07.

There is a point where a person returning to T&T will have the belief that they know better than others, and yes - having done it myself when I first returned, there is some arrogance in it. But there are some benefits - that people who return see that there are other ways of doing things. Knowing other ways of doing things is invaluable - thinking that one knows better isn't always right, can be arrogant and can alienate.

But then, T&T also has a strange culture when it comes to that. Some will automatically discount what people who return say simply because they haven't been here all the time - and that requires a certain level of arrogance disguised as patriotism. Others will look up to those who return without question, and that comes from low self esteem. The ideal thing to happen - the middle way - is where the ideas can be discussed rationally. For some reason, that almost never seems to happen.

Trinidad and Tobago, from top to bottom, resists change... but anyone who keeps an eye on the country knows that some change is needed. What the changes needed are is what's up for discussion... and that requires something that most Trinbagonians seem to avoid: A view of the future of Trinidad and Tobago.

If we could agree on what the country should be in the future, we could start to change. But I don't think that's really been up for discussion before. It might be worth talking about what our views of the future are... we're so bogged down in the past and present that direction seems to have become  a low priority.