The Manicou Report

There are some things that about Trinbago that disturb me a great deal. Yes crime is a big issue, so are food prices, homelessness etc, but what really worries me a lot is our rhetoric.

Last week while I was browsing Facebook profiles, I came across this group: called F*** the PNM.

Just because a man is a member of a political party or votes a certain way that does not make him evil. Yes many people are misguided, many let race decide how they vote, but to call everyone who voted for the PNM racial and dotish is unproductive.

Man, is stick we stick in this rut? I could just be since I don’t talk like that and I try to be a little more diplomatic than that, that I was offended as I was. But upon reading this, I was dismayed. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m about ready for people to start voting their consciences and stop voting party – in fact I’m in a hurry for that to happen. So when I read thing like that it feels as though we’re not really making any progress.

And if you see the people in this 356 member group – young smart-looking people. Some even university educated.

Sometimes I feel T&T will be a much better place if we could just tone down the political rhetoric a little. If we could just watch what we say and learn to express ourselves more constructively, we’d be in a much better place than we are now. Yes I understand that people are angry and that people need to vent some steam. But at some point they will have to realize that they are making things progressively worse.

At the end of it all what is the goal here? If the makers of the group are trying to propagate the same type of tribalism by setting people even firmer in their ways than they are now,then they are on the right track. But if they want to get people to think for themselves and change voting patterns, then an “F*** the PNM” group on Facebook couldn’t possible be the way to do it. You can’t woo people over to your side by insulting them – a point lost on some politicians.

It’s a sad thing when people use great vehicles such as social networking sites to spread this kind of rhetoric. And I have to wonder how much longer thing will carry on in this manner before we get the point, which is that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. If we don’t get the point, pretty soon we will become a country of angry, belligerent people capable only of hurling the basest of insults towards each other and incapable of any kind of civility or fraternity.

In the end it boils down to what we as a people want and what we are going to do to get it. It’s entirely within the rights of the group’s founders to say what they want, but nasty rhetoric probably won’t get them (or us) anywhere. People who are genuinely interested in seeing Trinidad prosper, I feel, would choose their words more carefully than that.