Der­ren Joseph

This year, my al­ma mater St Mary's Col­lege, cel­e­brates its sesqui­cen­ten­ni­al or its 150th an­niver­sary. The com­mit­tee has been work­ing hard on a se­ries of events to mark this his­tor­i­cal oc­ca­sion and I am dis­ap­point­ed that I would not be around to par­tic­i­pate.

The Holy Ghost Fa­thers (al­so known as Spir­i­tans in con­ti­nen­tal Eu­rope) have con­tributed im­mea­sur­ably to ed­u­ca­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Many some­times for­get that af­ter es­tab­lish­ing St Mary's Col­lege in 1863, the Holy Ghost Fa­thers went on to es­tab­lish two oth­er Col­leges–Fa­ti­ma in 1945 and St An­tho­ny's in 1972.

As part of the cel­e­bra­tions, Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards ad­dressed stu­dents of St Mary's on is­sues of ethics, morals and val­ues and ac­cord­ing to press re­ports, it was a most in­sight­ful lec­ture. The Pres­i­dent is said to have re­marked to stu­dents that "Cor­rup­tion is not new in this world, but with­in re­cent times flood­gates have opened and there are sad­ly, too many in­stances of be­tray­al of trust."

He went on to say that be­cause of cor­rup­tion and be­tray­al of trust, "or­di­nary and hard-work­ing peo­ple have lost their life sav­ings to the greed of un­scrupu­lous per­sons" in the coun­try.

Even in neigh­bour­ing Guyana, an ed­i­to­r­i­al not­ed that in the Trinidad and To­ba­go press one ob­serves one in­stance of cor­rup­tion af­ter an­oth­er. It is un­for­tu­nate that even neigh­bour­ing Caribbean na­tions have tak­en no­tice of the nev­er end­ing se­ries of mis­steps by mem­bers of the po­lit­i­cal elite. None but the most blink­ered apol­o­gist for the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion would dis­agree with Pres­i­dent Richards.

In keep­ing with his theme of ethics, morals and val­ues, Richards was right to point out that "it seems to me that, more than ever, these three pil­lars are un­der heavy siege."

De­spite cam­paign­ing for "new pol­i­tics" and "trans­paren­cy", the present ad­min­is­tra­tion seems to be rid­dled with scan­dals. From Resh­mi-gate in Trinidad, to the beau­ti­ful man­sion said to have been paid for by pump­kins in To­ba­go. All this while we pa­tient­ly await the promised pub­li­ca­tion of the find­ings of the Air­port En­quiry or the promised im­ple­men­ta­tion of the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Uff En­quiry.

Cam­paign promis­es long for­got­ten as the mis­steps of to­day, set the stage for the Com­mis­sions of En­quiry of to­mor­row.

Do not get me wrong, I am by no means im­ply­ing that pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tions were ex­em­plars of ethics, morals and val­ues. Rather, this ad­min­is­tra­tion seems be more mis­step-prone than pre­vi­ous ones and the un­prece­dent­ed act of po­lit­i­cal "per­ver­sion" (to bor­row a phrase from a fel­low colum­nist) ex­em­pli­fied by Sec­tion 34, as­sures this ad­min­is­tra­tion a promi­nent place in the his­to­ry books.

De­spite the lack of promised trans­paren­cy, I still feel pos­i­tive. Why? I feel pos­i­tive be­cause in 2012, tens of thou­sands of peo­ple (or six-sev­en peo­ple if we be­lieve the de­vot­ed apol­o­gists for the present ad­min­is­tra­tion) for the first time protest­ed against po­lit­i­cal per­ver­sion and al­leged cor­rup­tion.

The fact that in the process, the ad­min­is­tra­tion up­set the world's su­per­pow­er is a for­tu­nate al­though un­in­tend­ed con­se­quence. I say for­tu­nate be­cause while lo­cal jus­tice can be out­ma­noeu­vred, the US will def­i­nite­ly not give up that eas­i­ly so we can be as­sured that even­tu­al­ly, jus­tice will be served.

But the more im­por­tant de­vel­op­ment is tru­ly the ris­ing con­scious­ness of the peo­ple. It is the in­creas­ing re­al­i­sa­tion that cor­rup­tion is not a vic­tim­less crime; it re­tards the de­vel­op­ment of a na­tion. When those in po­si­tions of trust, abuse this trust for the ben­e­fit of them­selves, their fam­i­lies, their friends or their fi­nanciers, it af­fects the wider so­ci­ety.

Cor­rup­tion means less mon­ey for schools, mon­ey di­vert­ed from med­i­cine in hos­pi­tals, or few­er re­sources for law en­force­ment to car­ry their du­ties.

It is Car­ni­val time, when many get lost in the dis­trac­tions pre­sent­ed by the mer­ry monarch, but this year seems a bit dif­fer­ent. Per­haps we al­so have the THA elec­tions to thank but it is the per­fect time for vot­ers to re­mem­ber that in a democ­ra­cy, cit­i­zens al­ways get the gov­ern­ment they de­serve.

In his speech, Pres­i­dent Richards not­ed that no coun­try can func­tion with­out laws to keep peo­ple in line, "but laws do not make us who we are". The Pres­i­dent ex­plained that "The threat of sanc­tion should not be our in­spi­ra­tion to do right.

Do­ing right should be the norm even when no one is watch­ing". As the con­scious­ness of the cit­i­zens con­tin­ues to grow, I have no doubt that it is just a mat­ter of time, be­fore the gov­ern­ment that is elect­ed, is one that gen­uine­ly re­flects these prin­ci­ples.

The Pres­i­dent con­clud­ed by re­mind­ing every­one that St Mary's Col­lege has giv­en to the coun­try and oth­er coun­tries where past stu­dents live, a qual­i­ty of life that is borne out of a tra­di­tion of ex­cel­lence. De­spite our cur­rent chal­lenges, I con­tin­ue to have the au­dac­i­ty of hope that we will all en­joy a brighter to­mor­row. Read more on der­ren­joseph.blogspot.com