Faith has been lost

Days before my return to the U.S. in 2007, I sat with Leroy Clarke in his artsy Mt. Hope condo, pen, pad and femininity in hand, interviewing the prolific artist on his new book.

That I was willingly leaving Trinidad to get back to my job as a writer abroad, he felt, was a travesty—abandonment of a country that loses its most brilliant minds too soon. "If I could come back and make it, who is you?" he countered. "It’s people like us who they need to turn things around."

Whenever I visit Trinidad, there’s reluctance, a strange sense of apprehension, whether it’s for seven months or seven days. It’s an old life, yes, but there’s also something else I haven’t been able to put my finger on until my last trip there for Christmas: Chaos and powerlessness.

It hit home today when I read a first-person column by Trinidad Express journalist, Anna Ramdass, whose home was raided in the early morning hours of New Years Eve. Her family was terrorized at gunpoint while the men, who barely identified themselves as police, refused to show IDs or search warrants as they trashed a portion of the family’s Valsayn home.

Nothing was found. She’s still searching for answers. And I’m scared for Anna—and Trinidad.

It’s funny how everything is tied in. These are the men who are supposed to guard our streets and keep us safe, and who don’t. And so people drink, speed, crash and die on the nation's roads. Criminals rage; police turn a blind eye—or join in. There are no laws to abide by, no law enforcement, really, to trust.

And we have as much faith in the law as we do in our corrupt, shortsighted, childish leaders, which is none. As a people we have no recourse without the nepotism network. More than 500 people were murdered in Trinidad in 2008. People pray and host candlelight vigils for the dead and try to hold the Minister of National Security accountable. By the third day of 2009? Four murders.

Standing up against the status quo in Trinidad means making yourself a target. Demands for rights are ignored and laughed at. It’s why the police can raid a journalist’s home, no questions asked, or doctors can slice a baby’s face open during a routine C-section with no one to answer to, or a rental car company can give me a poorly working car and get angry when I ask for better, or a store with poor customer service can continue to do well.

We accept; we tolerate; we endure. We kick a fuss; nothing happens; we grumble and move on. This is the land that I’m from and this is the land I’m ashamed of what it's become. And am afraid to return to.

As the plane began its decent into Ft. Lauderdale on New Years Day, I eyed the perfectly organized streets and neighborhoods from above. I thought about my nighttime descent into Trinidad before Christmas, how pretty the disordered lights looked snaking up into the dark hills. Beautiful chaos. But sometimes beauty is not enough to bury the ungentle dissolve.

I might not always be where I am now and with certainty I will never forget or disregard the place that made me who I am and sent me out into the world. But I have learned that order is safe and my life, my rights as a human being, the chance to succeed, to be appreciated rather then punished for my talent are more important to me than any sentimental inklings to return, to try to give back and to fail—again.


Photo Available in All Leading Stores (2006), cardboard & ink, by Christopher Cozier