Bri­an Lewis

As the dra­ma that is gen­er­al elec­tions in T&T be­gins in earnest, there are calls for a greater qual­i­ty of pub­lic en­gage­ment. Con­cerns have been ex­pressed in many quar­ters. There is a per­vad­ing sense of frus­tra­tion and anger as the pop­u­lace seeks an­swers to the fun­da­men­tal ques­tion–what will the fu­ture hold for the twin is­land re­pub­lic?

The very same con­cerns have been ex­pressed with­in sport about sport in T&T. The per­cep­tion of un­cer­tain­ty is dom­i­nat­ing mind space. Peo­ple have neg­a­tive emo­tions�they are in fight or flight mode. They are anx­ious and in­se­cure. Un­cer­tain­ty is sti­fling con­fi­dence, notwith­stand­ing the fact that many peo­ple are feel­ing be­lea­guered and an­gry. The na­tion build­ing process is at work.

Some­what hes­i­tant­ly our so­ci­ety is wak­ing up to the re­al­i­ty and chal­lenge of shap­ing the coun­try and so­ci­ety it wants.

Some peo­ple and or­gan­i­sa­tions will buck­le un­der the pres­sure sink­ing in­to de­spair los­ing con­fi­dence, while oth­ers will bend and bounce back.

Chang­ing from neg­a­tive to pos­i­tive emo­tions about the sit­u­a­tion will re­quire re­silience as dis­tinct from op­ti­mism.

With­out deny­ing the facts, re­silience is need­ed. Re­silient peo­ple pos­sess three defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics; they ac­cept the harsh re­al­i­ties fac­ing them. They find mean­ing and pur­pose in dif­fi­cult times. And they find a way to in­no­vate, cre­ate and be in­ven­tive mak­ing do with the re­sources that are avail­able. Right now in T&T re­silience and learn­ing to be re­silient is im­por­tant.

We have to build the bridge to a bet­ter fu­ture by fac­ing up to the re­al­i­ty of our sit­u­a­tion. Wish­ful think­ing and de­nial will not wipe our prob­lems and is­sues away. We have to get out of the vic­tim mode and think­ing.

This is not to say that be­ing op­ti­mistic should be used to dis­tort re­al­i­ty. By the same to­ken op­ti­mism can be turned in­to de­nial with dire con­se­quences. Op­ti­mism has its place and should be en­cour­aged.

Re­silience on the oth­er hand is prag­mat­ic about the re­al­i­ty.

Na­tion­al Sport Or­gan­i­sa­tions (NSOs) can't re­main on the pe­riph­ery of the di­a­logue and dis­cus­sions. Sport must play a key role in ar­tic­u­lat­ing the role sport can and must play in the im­me­di­ate, near and long term fu­ture of T&T.

Fac­ing and con­fronting re­al­i­ty can be un­pleas­ant but it al­lows us to pre­pare for the chal­lenges that must be over­come.

Or­gan­i­sa­tion­al re­silience re­quires hav­ing strong val­ue sys­tems. Strong val­ue sys­tems al­low an or­gan­i­sa­tion to share a com­mon set of val­ues that are core and that can be used to hold an or­gan­i­sa­tion to­geth­er in hard times. Im­por­tant de­ci­sions are shaped by the val­ue sys­tem. In the main strat­e­gy and mis­sion may change but val­ues re­main con­stant.

Re­cent­ly while brows­ing through two books–A His­to­ry of Mod­ern Trinidad 1783-1962 by Brid­get Br­ere­ton and In­ward Hunger by Dr Er­ic Williams–his­to­ry pro­vid­ed com­pelling clues and lessons.

Mak­ing sense of what's hap­pen­ing cur­rent­ly in T&T when looked through the prism of his­to­ry is eas­i­er. There are deep his­tor­i­cal and so­cial di­men­sions and con­structs that shape the re­sponse of our so­ci­ety.

There are sub­tleties at play that aren't ob­vi­ous and the nat­ur­al con­se­quence is a lack of con­text and un­der­stand­ing.

T&T is en­ter­ing a new and dif­fer­ent dy­nam­ic. Our so­ci­ety is evolv­ing and wrestling with the is­sues of na­tion build­ing.

Every as­pect of T&T life is be­ing chal­lenged–old and ex­ist­ing val­ue sys­tems, norms and cul­tures. Noth­ing is sacro­sanct.

It's an ex­cit­ing time for T&T.

The de­bate and dis­cus­sions are nec­es­sary and should be en­cour­aged. Now is not the time for in­tol­er­ance. We must wel­come and em­brace the di­ver­si­ty of views, val­ues, lifestyles and opin­ions.

We are defin­ing what we want so­cial progress to look like. Reach­ing our full po­ten­tial in­di­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly de­mands that we wel­come the cur­rent con­vul­sions and not be afraid or trau­ma­tised by them.

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Bri­an Lewis is the pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the na­tion­al Olympic com­mit­tee.

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