Joshua Sur­tees

A few weeks ago the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah was dusty and brown. The trees in the hills above Cas­cade were parched fire­wood. Dust swirled all around. I called it drought and was told off. "It's not a drought," they said.

In Eng­lish sum­mers, af­ter just a few days with­out rain, we have hosepipe bans. Mil­lions of Britons seethe in­ward­ly. It rains 50 per cent of the time in Britain yet we have no wa­ter?

Any­way, Trinidad was dry. Very dry.

"Will it ever be green again?" I asked. "Yeah boy! Dat nut­tin!" came the com­fort­ing re­sponse.

The rains even­tu­al­ly came and with­in days it was green again. Dark, vel­vety green like acres of broc­coli. Calm­ing and evoca­tive, even by the stan­dards of Eng­land's green moun­tains and pleas­ant pas­tures.

The Sa­van­nah grew back. I searched around in the chasm of my mind for a metaphor for growth–the growth of a na­tion–but found none.

Per­haps that's be­cause this re­pub­lic na­tion is a new­born on an in­cu­ba­tor. We are still din­ing on the af­ter­birth.

By some mea­sures of growth T&T out­strips larg­er na­tions, like Cos­ta Ri­ca in Group D of the World Cup. But when Rho­da Barath com­pared Trinidad to Colom­bia, "We not get­ting there folks. We reach", in the af­ter­shock of Dana See­ta­hal's mur­der, it meant re­gres­sion, not progress.

This coun­try can progress and it does have his­to­ry, de­spite its ten­der age.

A friend told me: "1955-65 were the gold­en years."

I ask peo­ple whether the cor­rup­tion of to­day was around in Er­ic Williams' day. The an­swer is usu­al­ly vague: "It was dif­fer­ent back then."

I ask peo­ple if Row­ley will stamp out cor­rup­tion. They are du­bi­ous. I ar­gue that if he wants a place in po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry his aim should be longevi­ty, not short-term gain. And longevi­ty re­quires au­then­tic­i­ty and the good­will and trust of the peo­ple.

"But how could Row­ley not tief?" my friend asked sar­cas­ti­cal­ly when asked about Row­ley's in­tegri­ty. "These is­lands were set up for 300 years to tief. Our whole his­to­ry is tief­ing. Colo­nial­ism is tief­ing. You can't change that in 50 years."

Alas, that lush broc­coli view I see from my bed­room win­dow each morn­ing and night–the hum­ming­bird suck­ing nec­tar from the hi­bis­cus, the kiskadees on the fence, the paw­paw tree, the plot of wild­ly over­grown scrub­land, the curv­ing road lead­ing up to the elec­tron­ic gates of the big house 200 me­tres up the hill nes­tled in the broc­coli, guard­ed by bark­ing dogs–all of this I see from be­hind bars.

I won­der what view they have from Gold­en Grove in Arou­ca. Per­haps the per­son who or­dered Dana See­ta­hal's killing looks out through the bars or up at the ceil­ing, see­ing the dark black of an end­less night.

Soon I must re­turn to Eng­land. Lon­don is, in­deed, call­ing.

Is Britain grow­ing, as a na­tion? Lon­don is grow­ing, like a city state, to the detri­ment of the rest.

How does a na­tion grow?

Lon­don grows phys­i­cal­ly. New peo­ple come, cease­less­ly. Swelling post­codes keep cash reg­is­ters ring­ing. Lon­don's bub­ble re­mains un­burst.

New peo­ple al­low in­dus­tries to grow and in­tro­duce new types of in­dus­try. They add to the city's in­dus­tri­ous­ness, like a new Rome at the cen­tre of a com­plex Eu­ro­pean em­pire.

We should, there­fore, en­cour­age im­mi­gra­tion if it stim­u­lates growth and doesn't drain the econ­o­my. I be­lieve a coun­try's fu­ture wealth re­lies on di­ver­si­ty.

Ar­riv­ing a year ago I thought Trinidad was di­verse with its eth­nic blends. But you're all still Tri­nis.

How many for­eign na­tion­als are here? Not many. More non-Tri­nis, adding to the cos­mopoli­tanism, would be ben­e­fi­cial.

His­to­ry shows sev­er­al races brought to­geth­er over sev­er­al cen­turies on this is­land. In­dige­nous peo­ple, African, Eu­ro­pean, In­di­an, Chi­nese and Latin Amer­i­can. All the ma­jor con­ti­nents rep­re­sent­ed.

Can this be utilised as the in­ter­na­tion­al "brand" of the na­tion? Can you re­brand a na­tion? Yes, with the right touch. Look at Hi-Lo, Massy day not done.

New York re­brand­ed it­self from ghet­to to glam­our. Lon­don went from IRA tar­get prac­tice to af­flu­ent, shiny and fu­tur­is­tic.

The BBC was due to come here in Oc­to­ber to film a doc­u­men­tary but it is now on the back burn­er. I hope it wasn't the per­ceived law­less­ness that put them off. I told the pro­duc­ers that of all the Caribbean is­lands this is the most ex­cit­ing, cul­tured, in­tel­lec­tu­al and di­verse. Trinidad would show peo­ple in Britain a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive of the Caribbean than the tourist re­sorts of Ja­maica and Bar­ba­dos (two of the is­lands the BBC is propos­ing to vis­it in­stead.)

"It's re­al­ly in­ter­est­ing there's an In­di­an pop­u­la­tion there, I nev­er knew that," one of the pro­duc­tion team said on the phone from Lon­don.

Most Brits don't know that. And do they even care? A na­tion of 1.3 mil­lion can grow de­mo­graph­i­cal­ly but it's still small, and size mat­ters. Out­side of Trinidad, much of what hap­pens here is in­con­se­quen­tial.

Is it bet­ter, then, to pre­serve Trinidad as the best kept se­cret in the world and stop cry­ing out for at­ten­tion? Stop shout­ing to be heard above the re­gion­al din?

And I don't just mean the sports-desk re­porters at the desks next to mine. We all need to hush once in a while, Tri­nis in­clud­ed. Maybe we need a paci­fi­er and a good sleep. Or is the ba­by ready to wake up and be good?

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