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How easily we are distracted. Or is it that we want to be distracted? Is it that addressing the real issues which hamper successive generations here from harnessing their true potential is too complicated and demands the sort of introspection and soul-searching which superficial nonsense doesn’t require. Kamla and her battalion of stooges have successfully diverted attention with the latest pie-in-the-sky foolishness, inevitably prompting Penny and her array of shameless hypocrites—they are the past masters of grandiose projects which come to nothing other than lining the bank accounts of their friends, families and financiers—to raise questions and level accusations over what is being proposed. And then we have leaders in the business community, who presumably don’t need to go kowtowing to anyone, yet can’t summon a decent pair of testicles/ovaries to say that while there may be financial benefit in it for them, the same money, or maybe significantly less, if invested in areas where it can really make a difference will have benefits way beyond the Jetsons-style splurging being trumpeted. Can we ever escape the boom and bust cycle of behaviour shaped by an energy-driven economy? Whether or not we qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup finals—at this point it appears unlikely—there is nothing to suggest the game here will benefit from the journey. If we are effectively eliminated on Thursday against Jamaica or after the last group game against Bermuda next week Tuesday, everything will fall flat only to be revived just before the next campaign. Our experience of getting to Germany in 2006 and the subsequent fallout confirm that even historic success is not enough to shift us from a mindset that recoils in horror at the prospect of proper planning, of investing for the future, of putting systems and structures in place that create a proper pathway to success in keeping with what a nation of our size and resources can be reasonably expected to achieve. Of course there are other avenues for investment in culture and the arts—REAL culture and the arts, not the fete-obsessed industry which none of us have the backbone to question—but sport is the theme of this column, and the evidence is all around of the expensive and scandalous neglect, except that it is not scandalous in a country which accepts this management style to be perfectly normal. Would it not make sense to invest a fraction of the billions that are likely to be wasted until the next general election on not just rehabilitating our many sporting facilities but also, very importantly, putting the necessary funding and supervision in place to ensure proper maintenance of these facilities so that we don’t have to constantly hear of athletes not being able to train at so-and-so stadium or tens, no, hundreds of millions being spent to transform a rusting facility because a major event is coming up? Given that we are still influenced at all levels (public, private, rich, poor) by race, let’s go down that road and look at the potential that continues to be wasted in the shape of little black boys, and increasingly little black girls, who are lost to a cycle of abuse and violence in the midst of a flourishing gang culture. Take boxing and basketball as two examples. I note that former Olympian Kirt Sinnette is now chairman of the Boxing Board of Control and, assuming that he has the best interests of the sport at heart and isn’t just in it for the presumed status and all that it entails, he would surely embrace an initiative to revive boxing gyms, whether or not it results in another Claude Noel or Leslie “Tiger” Stewart or Jizelle Salandy or Ria Ramnarine bringing honour and glory to the nation. More importantly, if done properly and sustainably, it will give young men and women a viable alternative to gang culture and offer them a better chance of being successful, productive citizens, whether or not they achieve any degree of prominence in the sport. It is only because of narrow-mindedness, short-sightedness and political expediency that basketball courts throughout the country are not the hotbed of healthy sporting activity that they should be. If this were a nation that walks the walk of wanting a better country, just a fraction of what has been squandered on government vote-winning schemes would have had basketball right up there as one of the most prominent, most vibrant sports in the country. But we don’t want that. We don’t want to advocate for a pathway that can really make a positive difference here for generations to come. And because the “we” I kept referring to in this column are the media, what are we really doing beyond masquerading as serving the best interests of Trinidad and Tobago?
