Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

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.