The pow­er­ful pull of pol­i­tics, es­pe­cial­ly elec­toral pol­i­tics, more so when a crit­i­cal gen­er­al elec­tion is in the off­ing, of­ten blinds those in­volved in the con­test for su­prema­cy and those on the side­lines as vot­ers to an oth­er­wise ob­vi­ous re­al­i­ty. Crim­i­nal­i­ty in To­ba­go, once a peace­ful, ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly se­mi-iso­lat­ed part of the so­cial and cul­tur­al part of the na­tion, has been tak­ing root over the last few years.

To­day, that which was once be­neath the sur­face has now come to the view of every­one will­ing to ex­am­ine the re­al­i­ty. The crime da­ta apart, the ruth­less­ness, the vengeance, the greed, and the or­gan­ised na­ture of the crimes be­ing com­mit­ted in To­ba­go re­sem­ble that of Trinidad and in­ter­na­tion­al crime. As in Trinidad, there is an ac­com­pa­ny­ing politi­ci­sa­tion of the ap­proach to find­ing vi­able so­lu­tions.

The au­thor­i­ties don’t care, the po­lice do not have the ca­pac­i­ty, even the will­ing­ness to counter the prob­lems, claims the cyn­i­cism. It's on­ly at the present, with the com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion and the re­al­i­ty that the out­come rests with the par­ty that can win the two To­ba­go par­lia­men­tary seats, that mean­ing­ful con­cern is be­ing shown for the ex­plo­sion of crime in To­ba­go.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, the view, which ob­vi­ous­ly had some mer­it then, was that Trinidad crim­i­nals look­ing to ex­pand their ter­ri­to­ry of op­er­a­tion in a less well-po­liced en­vi­ron­ment ex­pand­ed their op­er­a­tions to To­ba­go.

The at­ti­tude trad­ed on a form of self-de­nial, ie, “We in To­ba­go are in­no­cents; not ah we boys in crime.” That self-de­fence mech­a­nism, even though it had cred­i­bil­i­ty at the start of the up­surge, has grown in­ef­fec­tu­al. The present re­al­i­ty, as dis­played through the crim­i­nal at­tacks and the re­portage on them, demon­strates a home-grown base; the crim­i­nal cul­ture has been trans­port­ed and tak­en pos­ses­sion of groups and in­di­vid­ual na­tive To­bag­o­ni­ans.

What that re­al­i­ty shows is that the crime cul­ture of Trinidad and every­where else on plan­et Earth has seeped in­to the in­dige­nous and pro­tect­ed way of life in To­ba­go. That cul­ture, once based on peo­ple and vil­lage to­geth­er­ness and fam­i­ly link­ages, ground­ed in spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and a sense of pride as a peo­ple dis­tinct and apart from the greed and in­hu­man­i­ty of the sis­ter cul­ture of Trinidad, has been ex­posed and in­fil­trat­ed.

There­fore, along with the polic­ing, pros­e­cu­tion, and pun­ish­ing of crim­i­nals, there has to be a fo­cus on root­ing out the bud­ding crime cul­ture from dig­ging even deep­er roots. It is very ev­i­dent that the crim­i­nal­i­ty amongst the young and es­tab­lished gang­sters in Trinidad has pen­e­trat­ed the sur­face, en­tan­gled the roots of To­ba­go so­ci­ety, and is in­fest­ing the young and pre­vi­ous­ly in­no­cent gen­er­a­tion.

Vil­lagers, el­ders, and the cul­tur­al­ly and so­cial­ly con­scious pop­u­la­tion of To­ba­go have to be en­cour­aged to fight against the crim­i­nal cul­ture. In do­ing so, they have to re­assert those val­ues and prac­tices that they in­her­it­ed and adopt­ed from their fore­fa­thers to save the whole from be­ing con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by the few. Re-so­cial­i­sa­tion is the most im­por­tant task of the present. There is no bet­ter time than the present to have as­pects of the his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al tra­di­tions of the is­land rep­re­sent­ed in the To­ba­go Her­itage Fes­ti­val. The vil­lage pre­sen­ta­tions must re­mind and in­tro­duce an­ces­tor val­ues and prac­tices and leave be­hind the bac­cha­na­lia as­pects of the Trinidad Car­ni­val.