None of the traditional boxing powers from the Caribbean will be present at the Beijing Olympic games later this year. The Jamaicans, Trinis and Bajans all got eliminated in the qualifying tournament currently being held in Guatemala.

Thankfully, face was saved for the Caribbean pugilists by the Bahamians and USVI, ensuring that 3 of the 23 spaces on offer will be accounted for by us.

Check out this video on Trinidad’s financial sector and the plans for the future.

To be fair, there are challenges ahead (example – inflation) but what is clear is that this country’s leadership is not comfortable to rest on its laurels because of the current windfall from oil. Like Jamaica’s bauxite, their oil is a commodity that is likely to either run out or lose its relatively high value soon enough . Unlike Jamaica’s leadership at the time, the current TT government seem to have learned from their neighbors history and are preparing for the foreseeable possibilities accordingly.

How?

By creating industries where none existed before. link

shot of the twin towers, downtown Port of Spain – bartandlife.wordpress.com photo

Damn…you miss reading the paper for one day (Saturday) and you miss it all.

Sorry to be so late on this…Trinidad and Tobago will go to the polls on November 5, after Prime Minister Patrick Manning finally called elections on Friday, at the last sitting of the House of Representatives.

Now T&T politics is always entertaining. What I have always found interesting there is that unlike the old two-party system that has prevailed in other islands, in Trinidad, it has always been the PNM (founded by Trini father of Independence, Dr. Eric Williams) versus the latest up-and-comer. And just when you think one party has cemented itself as the ’second party’ (e.g UNC), some bacchanal does happen and a new set (or old come back as new) does throw dey hats in de ring. This election the real opposition seems to be the Congress of the People, a splinter party led by Winston Dookeran. Not surprisingly, they found they could not stand Basdeo Panday and went out on their own. Meanwhile, Bas, that old political animal, is still fighting for his place, even as he seems increasingly irrelevant and done for in Trinidad politics. His seat has been vacant since the whole conviction for corruption thing (though he can run for it again now that a new election has been called), his party has been led by Kamla Bissesar-Persaud for the last two years basically and even some of those left in the UNC don’t seem to want him to lead them into the next elections. But Bas is a wily creature so I wouldn’t count him out yet.

What really has me though is the state of the PNM. To everyone outside of TnT, they seemed like a lock to win another term, but lately it seems like they messing themselves up with this whole controversial ’screening process’ and the polls taken to assess whether sitting MPs are popular/fit enough to be the party’s candidates this time around.

Obviously, this has caused a whole lot of discomfort for the MPs who have felt like sitting ducks. Some like PNM deputy leader and Diego Martin Central MP Ken Valley have chosen to fight. Valley denounced the whole screening process as a sham.

Others, like San Fernando West MP Diane Seukeran seemingly decided to jump before they were pushed. Her withdrawal early last month leaves the precarious seat even more precariously poised for the UNC now.

What is puzzling to me and everyone else in the region, is why do this? Maybe Manning is a political whiz and he knows what he’s doing, but fomenting discord and discomfort within your own party a mere two months before the elections just does not seem smart. If he was so set on this polling and screening process to assess the strength of the candidates, why not do this much earlier to allow the bad feelings to subside a bit and the image of the party to recover?

It just seems baffling from where I stand at least. I mean, Trinidad is BOOMING. Oil and gas revenues have the country awash in money - new cars and new houses popping up everywhere, university tuition has now been made free and they have now even surpassed Barbados for per capita income. Not to mention that Trini businesses seemingly have money burning a whole in their pocket and are investing in, merging with or taking over companies around the region at will.

Rampant crime aside, Trinidadians are living sweet right now and Manning is presiding over it all. Furthmore, the opposition parties are still fractious and divided, with the UNC trying vainly to coax their breakaway flock in the COP ’back home’ and the COP stonily telling them to ‘talk to the hand’. 

Hence Manning and the PNM should be a shoo-in to win the election, not discounting the recent bad run of election form by incumbent parties in Jamaica, St. Lucia, BVI and Bahamas. This move just seems self-destructive and masochistic. Is like he want to join Portia and Kenny and Perry ‘out in de cold’.

Unless it is that Manning is so very confident that his party can win anyway that he figures now is the time he can best afford to rock the boat and shape up the party into a lean, mean, election-winning machine.

Boy, I ent know. Truth be told, Trinidad does always confuse me. It’s like some kind of parallel universe where only Trinis can figure out what seems like chaos from the outside. Look at how they held three elections in two years between 2000-2002 and Trinis ‘ent dig nutten’. A former Prime Minister got convicted of corruption and thrown in jail (briefly) and Trinis ‘ent dig nutten’. The Chief Justice and Chief Magistrate subsequently got into a big imbroglio over the whole thing (I honestly still can’t figure out who is supposed to have done what but it’s been very entertaining- had media friends of mine from TnT calling me merrily telling me how they were staking out the Chief Justice in his house and thing). Once more, Trinis ent dig nutten.

So maybe this polling/screening mess is not as big a deal as it seems from the outside. In other places, such a show of no-confidence in your own team would be a big deal. People would cross the floor, there would be hand-wringing and agonising.

But not in Trinidad. Nutten can seemingly stop the bacchanal. I look forward to their elections.

Jamaican Opposition Leader Portia Simpson-Miller’s fiery speech at the People’s National Party’s annual conference this weekend has already sparked criticism.

 In an editorial today, the Jamaica Gleaner stated:

But responsible criticism can never be confused with the kind of demagogy displayed on Sunday. It was an outrageous performance with alarming implications for Jamaica and the PNP.

The editorial in today’s Nation newspaper in Barbados was of much the same view:

The warning given by former prime minister Portia Simpson-Miller at her party’s 69th annual conference at the weekend could only have a negative impact on the yet to be structured “engagement” between government and opposition.

Both were of the opinion that Mrs. Simpson-Miller should have been more responsive to the conciliatory tone set by new Prime Minister Bruce Golding who, from his initial victory speech on September 3, has spoken of the need for bipartisan co-operation, particularly in light of the very close election results (less than 1% of the popular vote seperated the Jamaica Labour Party and the PNP).

On the one hand, I have been impressed by Golding’s call for more co-operation and rather convinced by his argument that the close election results might show that Jamaicans are weary of the vicious partisan nature of their politics and by their actions are forcing the political parties to work together in the best interest of Jamaica.

On the other hand…isn’t this what democracy is all about? Can not the closeness of the election and narrowness of the victory margin also be seen as the voters’ way of keeping checks and balances on their politicians? Mulling it over now, I wonder if it could not be a way of ensuring that the party in power does not get too comfortable.

After all, until the PNP’s unprecedented run of power began in 1989, Jamaicans were pretty much a ’two term’ electorate. Just as the party in power started to become smug and complacent…out you go! Next!

Bajans used to be that way too but that is a whole ‘nother post…

Perhaps Jamaicans realised they had erred in allowing one party to become too comfortable and by effecting such a narrow balance of power in the House, they have decided to get back to keeping politicians on their toes- as they should be.

After all, corruption is a serious issue in Jamaica and Jamaican politics. A party with a small margin of victory and a watchful, pitbull Opposition is less likely to raid the public coffers and try to get away with million-dollar hanky panky.

For example, if the party in power here was more seriously challenged, would we so many instances of ridiculous cost overruns like the one on the Operation Freeflow highway expansion project here in Barbados, where we were blithely and vaguely informed that the ’scope of the project had increased’ and so the project cost was likely to increase threefold from US$60 million to US$180 million? And would the government have been so arrogantly complacent as to remain silent about it for weeks or would they have rushed to explain and itemise exactly where this money was going? And would a government spokesman really have had the temerity to offer such a bs rationale as Clyde Mascoll did this weekend, saying ‘oh, it’s not really increasing threefold, just two-fold’?

Ok, I’m on a bit of a rant now…back to the subject at hand.

I am thinking perhaps Portia’s threat to:

Let them have sleepless nights … We are going to be their worst nightmare… So them look after themselves first and think we are going to just sit down and sup it. It not going like that, and we want to know how much all of them going to cost. Let me serve notice that we are going to ask every month for the cost and we going to check it up.

may not be such a bad thing after all. I’m still torn …. is it in JA’s best interest for the PNP to be conciliatory doves or aggressive, watchful hawks?

This post was spurred by this article in this week’s International edition of Newsweek called Land of Reggae and Homophobia which looks at the much-discussed homophobia of Jamaica.

Now having lived in Jamaica for a few years, I think Mr. Contreras is overstating the situation. I am not at all trying to make excuses for JA’s homophobia – I think it is disgusting particularly as I have several Jamaican friends who are homosexual- mostly male, one female. I would like that they could live their lives as freely and openly as they want. But the situation is not as dread as the writer makes out – it is not like they cannot live their lives because they do, fairly peaceably.

Furthermore, I find that too often foreign commentators/reporters use Jamaican dancehall music to assess the mindset of Jamaica- big mistake. Dancehall music is like a fun-house mirror to Jamaican society- it reflects, but it also exaggerates and distorts. The true Jamaica is more nuanced and complex than the simplistic, nihilistic image put across in dancehall music. Most Jamaicans are not as virulently anti-homosexual and anti-oral sex as songs make them out to be. They don’t care – do yuh thing, just don’t put it all in their face.

As to the violence against homosexuals discussed in the article, that is true. However, I cannot sincerely argue that homosexuals are any bigger a target than anyone else – Jamaica is violent, full stop. According to UNICEF, more than 300 children were murdered in Jamaica between 2000 and 2005. In the time I was there, I heard of more instances of children being murdered- often victims of drive-by shootings or gangland terrorism where whole families are murdered than of homosexuals being attacked. Shit, when I was there for about 2 weeks before and during the World Cup, I read of at least three instances of children being killed. So if a child is nothing to some Jamaicans, what is an adult homosexual? Of even more minor consequence, that’s what.

Is this a good thing? Hell no! My point is, that violence against homosexuals and general homophobia in JA is collateral damage- part of the wider murderscape and larger problem of Jamaica. That problem is poverty, ignorance wilfully inflicted and maintained by the political leadership in Jamaica and the resultant devotion of Jamaicans to an evangelical, Old Testament style mentality that urges ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’.

Newsweek should do an article on that. After all, it is a weekly magazine which by its very nature should be more focused on in-depth, investigative articles. This simplistic, surface approach taken in the article is really disappointing to me.

This morning’s post, over at Barbados Free Press got me to thinking about my own experience with QEH.I spent a number of nights in QEH last year, as well as attended the maternity clinic there.Late in my pregnancy I was admitted overnight for observation as an existing heart murmur became increasingly noisy. I laboured and delivered my son in the maternity ward at QEH, and stayed almost a week there when my son was born because of his jaundice. I simply couldn’t afford to go to Bayview or The Birthing Centre, although that is what I preferred.I posted in my own blog about my fears of being in a Third World hospital, but hear what, my son and I both received the best care I could have gotten anywhere in the world for free. However, the physical reality of the hospital is daunting and depressing for just about anyone who actually stays there. At the end of my five night stay there, I was in a state of agitation because I was tired of the narrow uncomfortable beds, the ‘rules’ of the ward, one (and only one) ‘devil nurse’ (the rest were lovely), the awesome heat and general depressed state of the building I was in.I recognised that the doctors who attended me, were some of the best on the island, but the state of the equipment, the lack of reliable computers (and computers in general) leading to the long delays of almost everything, the quality of everything patients have to use and interact with, made me realise that QEH is as much a Third World hospital as I feared.Better than most, but still not as good as the ‘Second World’ status the PM long ago asserted this country to be.So when I hear people complaining about QEH, I feel it understand, and identify, because I’ve been through it. It is a ‘free medical care’ for the most part true, but it is excellent care being provided with little to no real support by the government of Barbados.It’s a short changing of the people of Barbados to boast about the medical care on the island, and how QEH is so good, when patients sleep in awful beds, equipment doesn’t work, staff don’t get paid, and almost everything is aged and aging.Where does the money go?Or should I ask, “Into whose pocket does the money go?”

Since weekend, rumours have been flying around St. Lucia and its diaspora (of which I am unofficially part…ahem!) that Sir John Compton is dead. If he’s not, he seems to be barely hanging on to life. HTS/CMC reporter Clinton Reynolds last night practically gave the St. Lucian Prime Minister his last rites, saying that members of the Cabinet were meeting, presumably to begin ‘funeral arrangements’ and that Sir John’s family was with him to be with him in his last moments.

 Ok then.

According to reports I have been hearing this weekend, he has been hospitalised with a severe chest infection (read pneumonia – for an 82 year old, read dying) and that he was flown by air ambulance to a hospital in Martinique, where he is in intensive care.

It is perhaps rude of me to harp on this in what may be the man’s last moments (then again he could do like Fidel Castro or Ariel Sharon- just hover between life and death…then again…speaking of rumours of demise… is Castro alive?) but why did St. Lucians elect a geriatric to lead their country? I mean, was the SLP that bad? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – that was just stupid. They killed the man. No 82 year old needs that kind of stress.

Well as you can see here on the Jamaica Observer’s elections site, the results in JA’s elections – 31-29.

Not good. Not good at all. A result this close can only bring more political tension.

Not surprisingly, PNP leader Portia Simpson-Miller has refused to concede. Excerpts from her speech (as reported by an intrepid poster on Caribbean Cricket.com):

Our position – too close to call … a number of seats that the PNP will be ‘taking action’ on … We’ll be watching the count closely… A number of things happened today … people barred from exercising their right to vote … We will not stand by and allow people to use criminals to decide the future of the Jamaican people … After the count and after pursuing matters in the court, I will speak to you tomorrow … No concession until the final count tomorrow and until taking advice on some constitutional matters … I am proud to be the leader of this great and noble movement … Commend party members for their discipline … Too close to call – too many constituencies are in contention.

The “constitutional matters” which Simpson-Miller is speaking of are the reports, not denied by the JLP, that two of their candidates (who won their seats) have foreign citizenship - allegedly American.

Section 41 (2) of the Jamaican constitution states:

“No person shall be qualified to be appointed as a senator or elected as a member of the House of Representatives who “is, by virtue of his own act, under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience or adherence to a foreign Power or State.”

Furthermore, a few days ago, the Gleaner reported that the PNP was intending to take court action against the JLP candidates.

People would remember that the JLP’s long-time leader, Eddie Seaga (aka ‘The Don’) was actually American born – in Boston to be specific. However, he long ago renounced his citizenship in 1959, as he recounted here in his regular Gleaner column.

But back to the issue at hand. 31-29. Not quite the dreaded 30-30 situation, but barely better. Whoever comes out of this the official winner has a real mean and grudging mandate with which to work. George W. Bush could empathise tonight…

Hopefully, it won’t be so. Jamaicans go to the polls today, the conclusion of a protracted elections campaign- eight weeks! I never was convinced it should have been so long and Sista P may well live to regret it.

After Hurricane Dean, the state of emergency, the increasingly ominous polls which foretold an increasingly close election and increasing violence as elections drew closer, it shall hopefully be all over today.

A good Jamaican friend of mine who flew in to Bim this weekend (and back out yesterday so he could vote) told me there were some 13 incidents in the two days before he left. Aside from the not-unfamiliar ‘background chatter’ of regular gunshots that you can hear in Jamaica, especially Kingston on many nights, he said the night before he left, he heard a shot louder than any he had ever heard before in his life. According to him, it did not even sound like it came from a regular gun but from a more powerful weapon. If a Jamaican is freaked out at the sound of a gunshot, that is a remarkable thing.

Anyhow, to the title of this blog. With this election seemingly (have to say seemingly- after what happened in SLU last year, who can predict anything eh?) so close, people have of course turned their minds to what will happen if there is a tie.

I hope and pray with all my heart that that does not occur. When Trinidad had a tie in 2001 and it had to be decided by the Governor General (in the end, surprisingly in favour of the Opposition party), I was amused and bemused at how cool Trinis were about it. Trinis really ‘din dig no horrors dread’ at such a torturous political event. They went to the polls about 3 times in two years and were cool about it. Basdeo Panday griped bitterly about the GG basically backraising him (in such a circumstance, the protocol is usually to find in favour of the ruling party so as to ensure continuity) but he ceded power and Trinidad went on as usual – nutten could stop the mas in TnT.

I said jokingly then I could never imagine Jamaicans ‘tekking it so light’ as Trinis did. The prospect of a 30-all tie in JA’s elections…well. First thing, there is no concept of ‘tekking it light’ in Jamaica. When I lived there, I could not even find an equivalent expression in patwa. Jamaicans don’t take it light.

Furthermore, Jamaicans have very little sense of humour about their politics. In the last elections, when for a second things looked a bit tight and sticky for the PNP when they started counting the ballots, I texted a ‘comrade’ (PNP) friend of mine and teasingly asked “For whom does the bell toll? I think it tolls for thee.”

I thought I was being very witty, see, because the symbol of the JLP is a bell and you know, the poem about for whom the bell tolls and well…Jamaicans (aside from those in West Kingston) did not like Eddie Seaga- dem was not going to vote for him so it was not a big deal.

Er.

My friend (ye, I see you mj!) was not amused. He called me and BLINDED me- furthermore, I could hear people in the background at party HQ where he was, cussing all kind of ‘clat’ offa me. Poor me. I was begging off  “Um, it’s a joke. Tek it light.”

Worse, could you imagine if the GG had to make a decision about which party to go for in a tie and he did like ANR Robinson and chose the Opposition? After it was the incumbent party that made him GG? I would genuinely fear for his life.

Anyhow, enough with the doom and gloom. Elections are on today, people are out to make an important decision and as they go out to do so, I think it would be appropriate to invoke the words of the Jamaican anthem:

Eternal father, bless our land

Guide us with thy mighty hand

Keep us from evil powers

Be our light through countless hours

To our leaders, Great Defender

Grant true wisdom from above

Justice, truth be ours forever

Jamaica, land we love.

And I do. God be with you all today.

Clearly Jamaican sprinter Veronica Campbell personifies this expression. Her come-from-behind victory in the 100 metres at the World Championships proves she is a true champion of the highest calibre, even amongst Caribbean athletes. With her 100 m gold at the Worlds added to her 2004 Olympic 100m gold, 200m silver and 4×100 gold, not to mention her 100m silver at the 2005 Worlds, she is showing that she may well be one of the best Caribbean sprinters ever.

What was most striking was how she won her race. She started badly and was well behind but she never gave up.  Man, if you see the replays of the race…Ronnie Campbell clawed her way in there, she was fighting every step for that gold. God knows, I rate her even more now.

And on the other hand there is Asafa Powell, the 100m world record holder. He has clocked 9.77 THREE TIMES in the last two years, so clearly his speed is no fluke. But when it comes to the big events, the ones that make the difference between being a legend and an also ran…Asafa just ‘na mek it. A very different c-word is floating around him and it’s not champion. He’s starting to look a lot like a choker.

No-one is more bitterly disappointed than I am that he is not living up to his potential. I was annoyed at the 2004 Olympics but I was willing to forgive. He was a contender then, not a world leader. But now I cannot be so forgiving. He came into the race as the man to beat. The world record holder. Di big man. And he failed. Don’t even tell me nothing bout bronze, cos bronze at 9.96 don’t cut it when you running 9.7s like water otherwise. For Asafa Powell, less than gold is failure. But what was most striking is how he lost the race.

Man, if you see the replays. It was the exact inverse of Ronnie Campbell’s race. The man was LEADING you know, had that pissy American Tyson Gay well beat. And then when Gay started to rally, he just…gave up. He just literally started to pull up and slow down and it was like ‘WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?’

In an insightful article in Barbados’ Monday Nation, long-time sports writer Mike King made a very good point about Powell’s continuing failures at the big events.

For all the hoopla about Powell, he seems to suffer from panic cramps when the major meets come up.

At the Athens Olympics in 2004, he left without a medal and at the previous World Championships, he was a no-show, claiming he was injured. World records without Olympic gold or World Championship glory mean little. A case in point is American Leroy Burrell. He held the world record at 9.85 secs, but never shone at the Olympics and is just a footnote in the history of track and field.

Carl Lewis, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Michael Schumacher and Roger Federer are modern-day greats because they all delivered when it mattered.

Now you know things gotta be bad if I agreeing with Mike King!

Jamaica Gleaner writer Audley Boyd also wrote a good piece outlining the difference between a champ like Campbell and a seeming choker like Powell.

Powell said he panicked. Clearly the burden of expectation on him was huge. But he has choked before at other times when he was just one of many of whom there were great expectations. The pressure will only get worse, not better and he has made bad for himself. This is even more so now that there seems to be a (for now since I have no trust in American athleres) legitimate contender for the title of World’s Fastest Man in Tyson Gay and yet another in Bahamian Derrick Atkins (who by the way is Powell’s 2nd cousin who migrated when he was 2- that is a seriously impressive gene pool there).

His defeat now will mean that by next year’s Olympics, the expectations and anticipations and snide ‘he’s a choker’ comments will have had a whole year to simmer and intensify and reach a high boil. Pressure? He ent start to feel pressure yet.