God has giv­en man the pow­er to man­age the re­sources that He has placed at his dis­pos­al. This pow­er has not been giv­en to us for our own self­ish grat­i­fi­ca­tion. How­ev­er we are see­ing an abuse of this pow­er that does not give glo­ry to God. In all homes the par­ents have been giv­en the pow­er to man­age the home and its re­sources. We now see an in­crease of abuse with­in the home it­self, as par­ents self­ish­ly dis­re­gard the needs of their chil­dren. There is ver­bal abuse, phys­i­cal abuse, emo­tion­al and sex­u­al abuse. There is ver­bal abuse that starts from in­fan­cy. Young par­ents in their frus­tra­tion can be heard us­ing ob­scene lan­guage as they curse their chil­dren. Oth­er de­grad­ing terms such as "stu­pid" and " lit­tle n----- boy" are used. Chil­dren are phys­i­cal­ly abused and beat­en. They are not shown love and af­fec­tion and ac­cep­tance. Some chil­dren are al­so sex­u­al­ly abused by their own par­ents, sib­lings or oth­er rel­a­tives.

These abused chil­dren grow up to be hurt and warped in­di­vid­u­als who are an­gry at them­selves and the world.

They are quite ca­pa­ble of ex­press­ing this anger in many dif­fer­ent ways. Are we not see­ing this even now, es­pe­cial­ly with our school­child­ren? If we take a clos­er look, we can see that some of those chil­dren who are now adults have in­fil­trat­ed the cor­ri­dors of pow­er in this land. Our Gov­ern­ment has been put in place in or­der to man­age the coun­try and its re­sources. We can al­so see an abuse of pow­er here with­in the Gov­ern­ment, and the self­ish­ness which the peo­ple in pow­er dis­play at our ex­pense. We see them build­ing mon­u­ments to glo­ri­fy them­selves. They use the re­sources of this coun­try not as if they were God-giv­en for the ben­e­fit of all, but as if these re­sources are part of their own per­son­al pat­ri­mo­ny to be used as they wish. We find that those who are most in need are ig­nored. The poor and the help­less are kept in want. The lead­ers and min­is­ters of gov­ern­ment live off the fat of the land and cream off the prof­its for them­selves.

The re­sources of the land are not placed at the dis­pos­al of those who need them the most. Our min­is­ters of gov­ern­ment fail to man­age their min­istries with wis­dom, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and care. There's the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion that is re­spon­si­ble for the ed­u­ca­tion of its cit­i­zens, from the cra­dle to the grave. Look at in­fant ed­u­ca­tion. Why are sub­jects such as read­ing, nu­mer­a­cy and hand­writ­ing not giv­en pri­or­i­ty? Why is the syl­labus be­ing crowd­ed with oth­er sub­jects which are sup­posed to be giv­en such in-depth treat­ment? Why are our chil­dren still be­ing sub­ject­ed to the rigours of SEA (Com­mon En­trance)? Why must they go through this phys­i­cal, so­cial, men­tal and emo­tion­al abuse? Why are our schools de­prived of the ba­sic ma­te­ri­als need­ed for the prop­er ed­u­ca­tion of their young pupils, like chalk, toi­let pa­per and clean­ing ma­te­ri­als, while funds are avail­able to be spent on huge build­ings which stand emp­ty and use­less? Ed­u­ca­tion is sup­posed to be free.

Let us look at the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment. Why are our cit­i­zens who are most at risk not tak­en care of? What about our many young chil­dren who need guid­ance and coun­selling be­cause of parental abuse? What about the prac­ti­cal help that our home­less and va­grants need? How much of our hu­man and fi­nan­cial re­sources are be­ing spent on those suf­fer­ing from drug and al­co­hol ad­dic­tion? How much is spent on the train­ing of those who are will­ing to help these peo­ple? Let us now look at our re­li­gious lead­ers who are main­ly re­spon­si­ble for the man­age­ment of the spir­i­tu­al re­sources of God's peo­ple. Do they see them­selves as shep­herds who are sup­posed to take care of our needs? Do they seek the guid­ance of the Holy Spir­it as they lead God's peo­ple in the way of truth? Is there fo­cus on­ly on the fi­nan­cial con­di­tion of their or­gan­i­sa­tion? Do they use the weak­ness­es of the mem­bers of their flock for their own per­son­al ad­van­tage?

Here in T&T, many of our lead­ers are seek­ing to ex­ploit the re­sources that have been placed in their hands. God's pow­er is be­ing used for self­ish rea­sons and in a care­less man­ner. Is it any won­der that the young and in­no­cent are be­ing swept along by a wave of evil in this land? These lead­ers ought to know that some­day they will be called by God to give an ac­count of how they have man­aged to use/spend/waste our God-giv­en re­sources. Let us now seek to put a stop to the abuse of pow­er!

Camille Gon­salves-Sim­mons

Guardian read­er of Cunu­pia