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With lots of help from some friends.

 Awardees for the 50th Independence national awards ceremony:
Trinity Cross

Keshorn Walcott Athlete Sport
George Chambers (Posthumously) Fmr Prime Minister Public Service
Adrian ‘Cola’ Rienzi (Posthumously) Fmr Labour Leader Labour

Chaconia Medal (Gold)
Therese Mills Journalist Journalism
Hamid Ghany Educator Education
Justice Amrika Tiwary-Reddy Ret Judge Law

In every society there lies challenges, and ours is no different.  How a society firstly identifies those challenges and then deals with it would verily indicate how evolved its leadership and people are. Where then on that intangible sliding scale of progress does ours lie? In answering that an examination of the three variables mentioned would be a good starting point.

So the State of Emergency is extended. Effective today, the curfew as announced by the Prime Minister will be from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. We all knew it would happen; the government has a luxury of a strong majority that made the Opposition no more than a lubricant for all of this. In fact, the Opposition was as effective as oiled brakes - a result of their own time as government and it's democratically judged efficacy.

But I'm apolitical. I'm more interested in issues. And in the issues department, the best equivalent of most of the debate was, "my mummy can beat up your mummy". It was a true embarassment to watch. But the grandstanding was in full force, I suppose, with live cameras on the scene and a captive audience of those who want to know what's going on in Trinidad and Tobago.

Let me get to the issues.

An article of the Trinidad Express, which is no longer online but can be found in the Internet's cache, states:

...online information exchange Jahaji Bhai, Bahen was shut down yesterday after its moderators were warned that some of its internet posts might be in violation of the current State of Emergency in Trinidad and Tobago.

The nature of the posts has not been revealed, but it seems an opportune moment to explain to the Government of Trinidad and Tobago that on the Internet people have their own identities and express their own opinions - and that the closure of any site, any email list, any Facebook group or any other form of expression on the Internet is folly because those willing to express their opinions will do so elsewhere.

Heavy handed threats to publishers for the postings of others is not something unfamiliar in Trinidad and Tobago; indeed, KnowTnT.com has received emails from lawyers in the past that culminated in some blog entries having comments frozen or locked. That lawyers confuse blog posts with comments is disconcerting enough - but this latest development demonstrates the government apparently lacks the capacity to understand that an email list or Facebook Group is not the owner of the opinions expressed.

If people are breaking the laws of Trinidad and Tobago under the State of Emergency through publication of opinion on, for example, a Yahoo Group, it would seem that the government will threaten the coordinators of the group with jail - as alluded to by Mr. Deosaran Bisnath in the article:

...Our moderators perform a voluntary service, 2 or 3 hours every day, but we cannot cope with moderating thousands of messages, posts, and comments every week. We cannot afford to hire full-time moderators; we cannot afford lawyers to represent us in court; and none of us wants to spend time in jail...

Why should a moderator spend time in jail for an opinion expressed by another? An email sent to a list is easily tracked, traced to its source and dealt with accordingly. To fault the moderators is akin to faulting Yahoo, to fault Yahoo is akin to faulting the Internet - and faulting the Internet leads to draconian attempts by government to block internet access. That hasn't worked too well in the past.

The government needs to get a better handle on what social media is, what social media means, and only after those things are done should it consider strategies in dealing with whatever form of postings that could cause issues.

You just can't play chess with the rules of draughts. It is in the government's interests to get this right.

There's a few things that I'd love to hear come up when the House of Representatives debates the specific grounds on which the decision to declare a State of Emergency was based, according to Section 1 (9) of the Trinidad and Tobago Constitution. The public was not made aware of the specifics of why, exactly, the State of Emergency was declared other than some vague references to information that cannot be shared in the interests of National Security.

With the State of Emergency, there are questions raised as to what freedom of expression remains - something that Judy Raymond touches on in her Trinidad Express article, 'The real state of emergency...' (emphasis mine):

The form of the regulations that the authorities chose to issue really has a wartime ring: they allow for "censorship and the control and suppression of publications, writings, maps, plans, photographs, communications and means of communication."

Citizens may not possess documents that may "cause disaffection or discontent," nor try to "influence public opinion in a manner likely to be prejudicial to public safety and order."

You can be jailed, it seems, for having not only illegal weapons but illegal opinions.

 

Hat tip to Clarence Rambharat for finding this one.

30 Aug 2011, 21:48

The lights are out. I'm writing this on paper with pen to upload later, a flickering candle sputtering its resistance to the breeze. I write in its light, my hand casting a shadow upon the page. Being prepared meant having the candle and the flashlight at the ready - the candle neatly wedged into a Malta Carib bottle on a table outside, the flashlight near at hand, a cup of cool juice at hand. The issue with electricity in parts of Trinidad had caught my attention yesterday.

From a few different angles...

The Government

If there's one thing that is apparent, it's that the government is doing a lot of talking, trying to assure the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago that things are going well. This is a necessity as to do otherwise would make people think things aren't going as well or that the government is using the State of Emergency to its own ends, whatever those might be imagined to be - or whatever they may be. Unfortunately, the government hasn't been as eloquent in its speech and the Prime Minister has been lacking in her own appearance on the television - probably because she doesn't want her person associated with the State of Emergency. Instead, she has handed the reins over to the National Security Minister, John Sandy, Attorney General, Anand Ramlogan,  the Chief of Police, Mr. Dwayne Douglas Gibbs, and Chief of Defence Staff Brigadier Kenrick Maraj have been representing the government in media interviews.