Out­go­ing pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes and new­ly in­stalled Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo have once again set the coun­try talk­ing about two is­sues which con­tin­ue to plague this coun­try—racism and misog­y­ny.

While the is­sues may be worlds apart de­pend­ing on how one looks at it, both women were, by their own ac­counts, and un­for­tu­nate­ly so, vic­tims of at­tacks dur­ing their tenures in of­fice.

In an in­ter­view last week, out­go­ing pres­i­dent Weekes de­scribed the lev­el of racial abuse gen­er­al­ly spewed on so­cial me­dia dur­ing her tenure, some di­rect­ed at her, as “ap­palling” and “fright­en­ing.”

Per­haps in a last part­ing word to the na­tion, Ms Weekes ad­vised cit­i­zens that this type of be­hav­iour is dan­ger­ous for T&T be­cause it will con­tin­ue to block paths to pro­gres­sive de­vel­op­ment. Fur­ther­more, she ad­mon­ished the coun­try’s lead­ers, both po­lit­i­cal and oth­er­wise, for not un­der­stand­ing this to be a trend that must be erad­i­cat­ed.

Dur­ing a func­tion launch­ing a new women’s par­lia­men­tary group mean­while, Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo not­ed that women leg­is­la­tors con­tin­ue to be sub­ject­ed to gen­der-based ridicule.

“Women are rou­tine­ly sub­ject­ed to gen­der-based at­tacks of one type or an­oth­er, in which ug­ly in­sin­u­a­tions are made about our in­abil­i­ty to func­tion in­de­pen­dent­ly of fem­i­nine wiles and charms; and about our hav­ing ad­vanced to the po­si­tions that we hold, on­ly be­cause we have de­ployed them,” Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo told a gath­er­ing of for­mer and cur­rent fe­male par­lia­men­tar­i­ans.

Giv­ing an ex­am­ple, Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo not­ed that both she and House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George were the sub­jects of “vile and of­fen­sive” gen­der-based at­tacks of fair­ly re­cent vin­tage at that.

Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo said she was tak­en aback at the deaf­en­ing si­lence of civ­il so­ci­ety and women’s groups dur­ing the pe­ri­od of at­tacks.

In­deed, Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo’s sit­u­a­tion should be fresh in cit­i­zens’ psy­ches, she hav­ing just come through a bar­rage of at­tacks fol­low­ing her nom­i­na­tion for the high­est of­fice in the coun­try. It is, of course, an is­sue she raised dur­ing her in­au­gu­ra­tion last week, as she diplo­mat­i­cal­ly ex­tend­ed an olive branch to her de­trac­tors to join her in mak­ing T&T a bet­ter place for the fu­ture.

It is thus ex­treme­ly dis­ap­point­ing that both hold­ers of these high of­fices would make such as­sess­ments of the cur­rent state of T&T so­ci­ety.

Even more un­for­tu­nate is the fact that some of this ide­ol­o­gy has been spewed open­ly from pub­lic plat­forms by lead­ers of po­lit­i­cal par­ties for years with­out so much as a thought for what the coun­try could reap from these seeds of dis­cord.

Cur­rent­ly, both Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar have been guilty of lead­ing their sup­port bases down dark paths, some­times even dou­bling down on their stances de­spite pub­lic out­cry. These at­ti­tudes are mag­ni­fied via so­cial me­dia, where in­di­vid­u­als, of­ten hid­ing their true iden­ti­ties and even some­times work­ing for po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ties, un­leash de­vi­ous plots to stain and ma­lign their in­tend­ed tar­gets.

If we are to take what both Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo and her pre­de­ces­sor have in­ti­mat­ed, T&T is on a steep precipice, but this has not hap­pened overnight. Need­less to say, it is time for our lead­ers across the board to bring this coun­try back, since the path to a re­ju­ve­na­tion in this case can on­ly start from the top.