Endorsement of HOPE as hope for Trinidad and Tobago

Dear Editor,

I was sitting at a meeting recently with HOPE’s executive. One member was stating how disappointed he was with the population’s response to HOPE and how despair was setting in.

I looked on my left to the political leader and he said to me despair is not an option for me. I must give my best, all that I can do, now at this time.

I looked at Timothy Hamel-Smith, an elderly man who is perhaps personally wealthier than many in our politics today. He does not need any government contracts or kickbacks. He does not need office and, most certainly, he does not have to live in TT with a population that is growing more lawless daily, where murders are beginning to seem the order of the day, and where solutions to our problems are ignored for political popularity.

HOPE is not Tim or Louis or Steve, it is not the leaders or a specific grouping of people. HOPE is a place where we, the people who love our country, the people who sincerely believe in good over evil, the people who understand that in their little way they can contribute to the change that our country desperately needs, can find a home.

HOPE calls for everyone, our poor, our rich, our middle class, people of all races and classes, to come forward and say we are better than this. We can fix our country. We are not going to be manipulated by distractions of racial prejudices, party politics and the attraction of sharing in the limited state resources.

HOPE calls for a concerted effort to fight crime, poverty, mismanagement and nepotism. It calls for the housewife, the doubles vendor, the farmer, the police personnel, the soldiers, the teachers, every person of every walk in this life, to come together and say we are in this country together experiencing the negatives and we are willing to be the positive force to fix our country.

The politics of state contracts, temporary jobs for supporters and gangs, kickbacks, racism and classism, and hatred and anger must end. That kind of politics can only end if the good people of our country come forward together and do the best they can with all that they have.

Tim and many others at the current leadership of HOPE can walk away, they can go to another country and live a fantastic life, but they dare to believe in the people of TT . Every meeting they hold out hope that our people will answer the call and begin to form circles of HOPE in every community until all of TT embraces HOPE and gives birth to a new day, a new era. An era where love overcomes hate, where people begin to live together in harmony again, and where hope overcomes despair.

There are no other viable alternatives. Our response to HOPE determines who we are as a country and a people, and will determine our future.

STEVE ALVAREZ