Farley: Secession, Expulsion, Devolution, Revolution, whatever…
…Whatever is required, but Tobago must be jettisoned, severed, dismembered, distanced, disconnected, from its navel string ties with Trinidad as a most urgent constitutional or un-constitutional matter.
Simple question: why are we of Trinidad accepting responsibility for Tobago when all Tobago does is eat its cake and have it too; when the revenue it receives from tourism etc, goes to the THA and into the pockets of those who have the keys to their treasury, while we take precious revenues from Trinidad – money that should be spent here in Central and South, in Debe, Barrackpore, Princes Town, Chaguanas, Rio Claro – and squander it in Mason Hall, Roxborough, Scarborough, where their roads, for example, are of international standard, while ours in Trinidad look more like tracks and traces of prehistoric times.
Tobago is of no use to us in Trinidad. If it’s a tourist destination that could still be so but as an island separate from us that we occasionally visit. Why are we bothering about air bridge and sea bridge and how much hundreds of millions needed to keep these bridges functional when that is there problem. Tobago has to know that it cannot depend on Trinidad to nurse it forever, especially since it is there just to vote PNM.
Tobago, for your info, you don’t have to depend on Trinidad for your bread and butter but if you decide to seceded from Trinidad, you would be doing yourself a great favour by no longer being seen as a voter bank for the PNM whose only agenda is to fulfill Dr. Williams’ egocentric ethnic chauvinism. In short, Williams did not care for Tobago except that it guaranteed him two seats at the GE. Your economic well-being means zilch to balisier house except at election time.
Knowing this, one wondered why Panday did not make Tobago a free state when he was PM thus making the PNM two safe seats there redundant. Why Kamla boasts that she spent more money in Tobago than the PNM when her own Siparia constituency is an impoverished one and when by some simple constitutional sleight-of-hand, she could have got rid of Tobago and (Rowley).
Now Tobago understand this as a GPS to navigate yourself into the world of independent countries. Take note Farley: You know that Singapore is one of the wealthiest countries in the world today but do you know that up till 1965 it was in a merger with Malaya akin to the mother and child relation Tobago has with Trinidad. However, in August 1965, just 58 years ago, Malaya expelled Singapore from the merger they had. Without the mother ship to take care of them, Singaporeans were in a state of distress as if the sky had fallen upon them but it is a truth that necessity is the mother of invention and so left to fend for themselves, Singapore left Malaysia behind and went on to create a society that is the envy of nations across the globe.
You get the point Farley? You don’t have to kiss and lick the butt and boots of the PNM, you have more resources than Singapore had in 1965 to become another economic success in the global sphere just by going it alone. Two years ago, I wrote an anthem for you, get a flag and you could tell Rowley and Balisier House, go to hell.
L. Siddhartha Orie