JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Friday, May 16, 2025

Justice Seepersad fears current path T&T is on

‘Paradise is in peril’

by

Shastri Boodan
716 days ago
20230530
Justice Frank Seepersad, left, urologist Dr Trudy Kawal and NGC chairman Dr Joseph Khan, right, chat during the Heritage and Leadership Conference hosted by the Citizen One Foundation at the Passage to Asia in Chaguanas yesterday.

Justice Frank Seepersad, left, urologist Dr Trudy Kawal and NGC chairman Dr Joseph Khan, right, chat during the Heritage and Leadership Conference hosted by the Citizen One Foundation at the Passage to Asia in Chaguanas yesterday.

SHASTRI BOODAN

Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad says he feels Trinidad and To­ba­go is cur­rent­ly hang­ing close to per­il. How­ev­er, he al­so feels it is not too late to pull it back but to do so, both cit­i­zens and those in au­thor­i­ty need to make ur­gent changes to some gov­er­nance struc­tures.

“Our an­ces­tors’ par­adise is in per­il. Crime is out of con­trol, many are strug­gling to meet their ba­sic dai­ly re­quire­ments and there ex­ists an un­ac­cept­able de­gree of di­vi­sive­ness, dis­hon­esty and disin­gen­u­ous dis­course,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said yes­ter­day.

“Far too of­ten, is­sues and so­lu­tions are no longer ad­dressed or for­mu­lat­ed in a ra­tio­nal, log­i­cal or method­olog­i­cal man­ner. In­stead, they are fash­ioned by con­sid­er­a­tions of class, eth­nic­i­ty, lin­eage and af­fil­i­a­tion. Our in­den­tured fore­fa­thers over­came sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges, dis­crim­i­na­tion and prej­u­dices but they per­se­vered and in one gen­er­a­tion, ex­celled.”

His com­ment came as he de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress at the Her­itage and Lead­er­ship Con­fer­ence host­ed by the Cit­i­zen One Foun­da­tion at the Pas­sage to Asia in Ch­agua­nas, which co­in­cid­ed with the In­di­an Ar­rival Day hol­i­day.

Seep­er­sad said In­di­an Ar­rival Day should serve to re­new so­ci­ety’s re­solve to pro­tect and pre­serve T&T, a “home in which our all fore­fa­thers saw tremen­dous and un­lim­it­ed po­ten­tial.”

“To achieve this ob­jec­tive, changes have to be made on an in­di­vid­ual ba­sis. This must com­mence by re­ject­ing the ran­corous rhetoric aimed at di­vid­ing us. The preser­va­tion of our par­adise re­quires us to spurn the po­lar­i­sa­tion which pre­vails be­cause this po­si­tion pul­veris­es peace, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, pros­per­i­ty and progress and pos­es as our pri­ma­ry threat,” the High Court judge said.

“We are at a crit­i­cal junc­ture and there can be no room for com­pla­cen­cy, ha­tred, bias or in­ac­tion. Every civic-mind­ed cit­i­zen must now put coun­try first. If we fail to act, our come­up­pance will be a ca­coph­o­ny of cries and the clam­our of cit­i­zens as the so­ci­ety im­plodes.”

He said cit­i­zens must stop be­ing delu­sion­al and pre­tend­ing all is well.

“How we vote, is, with alarm­ing fre­quen­cy, how we now live. We have be­come, sus­pi­cious, un­for­giv­ing, mean, ir­ra­tional and so di­vid­ed that we are perched dan­ger­ous­ly close to a pre­cip­i­tous edge. If we do not make a hasty re­treat, height­ened dis­af­fec­tion, dys­func­tion, dis­tress, dis­com­fort and dis­as­ter will def­i­nite­ly de­fine us,” Seep­er­sad said.

“As a body of many var­ied races, stand­ing side by side and in def­er­ence to our an­ces­tors who taught us that no ob­sta­cle is in­sur­mount­able, each of us, needs to un­der­stand that we must share this lim­it­ed space and we have to co­op­er­ate and co-ex­ist re­spect­ful­ly and re­spon­si­bly. In de­fence of this our na­tive land, we must pledge our­selves to the al­ter­ing of our cur­rent course and elect to tra­verse a path which is de­fined by hon­est en­gage­ment which tran­scends the eth­nic, po­lit­i­cal, re­li­gious and so­cial di­vide in an earnest at­tempt to trans­form Trinidad and To­ba­go in­to a na­tion where every creed and race tru­ly finds an equal place.”

He said every ef­fort must be made to en­gage, en­cour­age and em­pow­er the youth to re­ject a life of crime.

Pro­vid­ing some pos­si­ble ways to find so­lu­tions, Seep­er­sad said con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form holds a cen­tral and piv­otal role in the re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion and re­ju­ve­na­tion process.

“The Con­sti­tu­tion needs to be rel­e­vant and re­lat­able and the an­ti­quat­ed ad­min­is­tra­tive and elec­toral process­es which cur­rent­ly ex­ist have to be re­placed by ef­fi­cient, ef­fec­tive and prac­ti­cal sys­tems which are de­signed to re­flect our unique plu­ral­i­ty, fa­cil­i­tate ease of busi­ness, fos­ter eco­nom­ic growth and curb cor­rup­tion in its many man­i­fes­ta­tions,” he said.

“The meta­mor­pho­sis must lead to the emer­gence of a per­for­mance-based so­ci­ety which de­mands ac­count­abil­i­ty, in­tegri­ty, trans­paren­cy, hon­esty, em­pa­thy, self­less lead­er­ship and part­ner­ship to ad­dress our press­ing is­sues.”

He sug­gest­ed the for­mu­la­tion of a na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment plan and that se­ri­ous thought be giv­en to form­ing a race re­la­tions com­mis­sion.

“Such a body can ex­plore and val­i­date our var­ied back­grounds, help us to un­der­stand our mis­steps, iden­ti­fy the cor­re­la­tion be­tween racialised pow­er and our in­her­it­ed colo­nial sta­tus quo and de-es­ca­late the racial ten­sion which is brew­ing. The com­mis­sion, if formed, may wish to con­sult po­lit­i­cal par­ties, re­li­gious bod­ies, civic groups, busi­ness con­glom­er­ates and cit­i­zens so as to al­lay fears, al­ter en­trenched per­cep­tions, ad­dress cul­tur­al bi­as­es and iden­ti­fy the ar­eas of en­gage­ment which re­quire greater tol­er­ance, eq­ui­ty and gen­der in­clu­siv­i­ty. We have a lot to be proud about as cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go but we have a lot of work ahead of us, if, we are to tru­ly re­alise our fullest po­ten­tial and pre­serve this par­adise which all our an­ces­tors cher­ished and revered.”

Al­so ad­dress­ing the gath­er­ing was NGC chair­man Dr Joseph Khan, who spoke about his ex­pe­ri­ence as a per­son of mixed her­itage.

Dr Khan said “I am what we re­fer to in T&T as a “dougla” – a rich cul­tur­al fu­sion of my East In­di­an fa­ther and my African moth­er. As a re­sult of this fu­sion, I had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to have par­ents who worked in har­mo­ny to in­cul­cate in me and my sib­lings, the val­ues and prin­ci­ples of dis­ci­pline, tol­er­ance and pro­duc­tion.”

Dr Khan said the strug­gles of the an­ces­tors must not be in vain.

“We must re­flect on the val­ues and prin­ci­ples that they have taught us and demon­strat­ed in their lives. We must re­mem­ber that they have giv­en of them­selves in ways we can­not imag­ine, all for the bet­ter­ment of their loved ones, and the de­vel­op­ment of T&T.”

Among the oth­er speak­ers at the event were Mar­i­ano Browne, Dr Trucy Kaw­al and Sen­a­tor Richie Sookhai.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored