Political Football December 8
Government leaders have leaked word that a “special agreement“ has been reached with Shell and the British Petroleum Company that could restore a “significant number of jobs.“ Considering that almost 10,000 oil workers are recently unemployed, “significant“ would seem the operative word. Many fear the closure of the Petrotrin refinery, Trinidad’s state-run debacle, will be like the end of Caroni Sugarcane, in 2003—permanent loss of industry. So Prime Minister Keith Rowley’s PNM is betting that the multinationals can save the day, like they never have before, and that this time Trinbagonians may actually see lasting benefits.
In the 1950’s, the People’s Democratic Party (PDR) formed the power-base for East Indian Trinidadians, while the People’s National Movement (PNM) represented Afro-Trini interests. PNM members narrowly outnumbered PDR members, so the majority took hold. Formed by black intellectuals educated in England, PNM ruled the colonial parliament, starting in 1956, and kept control for the next 30 tumultuous years, mostly under the prime ministry of Dr. Eric Williams, TT’s George Washington. Citizens still call him the Doctor.
Trade unions were made legal, and immediately wildcat strikes ensued. In the ’60’s, a fomenting black power movement, fueled by the polemics of Marcus Garvey and Stokely Carmichael, took to the streets of Port of Spain with guns and fuses. Much of the white population moved away, as Pan-Africanism in the Caribbean ascended. There was even talk of an independent multi-island federation—with Chaguaramas proposed as the capital. British Honduras and Guyana petitioned to enter the pipe dream.
Independent Trinidad and Tobago eventually went bankrupt. Then along came fortune, and a substantial fortune it was. In the 1970’s, at the height of the middle-east oil crisis, vast petroleum reserves were discovered off the eastern coast of the big island, and TT was suddenly awash in foreign cash. In short order, it became the wealthiest nation in the region, but, like other boomtown economies, building easy-street was elusive. Corruption and bribery, called “Bobol“, grew rampant, and the money started to float away like the tide. PNM was finally ousted from power in the late 1980’s, and the opposition National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) was elected to assume management of the institutional crime, corruption, and Bobol schemes. Civil unrest erupted downtown.
In 1990, while tens of thousands of football fans cheered their team in the final round of the Caribbean Cup, Jamaat al Muslimeen took control of government buildings. Group leader Abu Bakr declared Sharia law via Trinidad television—yet no one left the game. Prime Minister Robinson, the PNM successor to Williams, was taken hostage, beaten, and, when he hollered for the army to storm the Red House, shot in the leg. One of those killed during the coup was a beloved D’ego Martin MP. Yet, despite the gunfire, chaos, and ad hoc martial law, curfew parties were jubilant and well attended. Deon went to four of them in one night, the last of which was a lock-down.
The coup failed within days, thanks to overwhelming military force, popular indifference, and Tropical Storm Arthur. Still, Jamaat al Muslimeen promises more attacks. After 9-11, Abu Bakr was arrested briefly, and the Caribbean Republic of Trinidad and Tobago was placed on the international terrorist watchlist. Today Bakr lives in a luxurious compound in D’ego Martin, with a house for each of his women. Tourism is down by double-digit percentages, as the economy hemorrhages. But, like the Doctor once diagnosed, Trinidad’s history is too tangled to readily accommodate outsiders, as there are simply too many conflicted insiders. It has never been about tourism here. Oil is the thing.
Trinidad is rolling downward—everyone feels it—toward the ravine of the Third World. The First World promised otherwise, but everyone should have known better. When the alien anthropologist points to human shortsightedness, it may be to the organic riches of the earth—the most useful thing we could think to do with them was to burn them all up.