Trinidad & Tobago Is Angry. Here’s Why.
I had the intention to write this article about the joys of Trinidad & Tobago’s Carnival season. As someone who only joined the mas three years ago, I’m freshly passionate about it and what it represents. It’s an indescribable type of feeling: j’ouvert morning, marching down the streets of Port of Spain, just being free, feeling that connection to the ones around you, to the vibrations of the music that’s been in your very bone marrow since the day you were born, to the very soil of your homeland. It’s a truly magical feeling. It’s the reason why so many of us are mourning heavily the loss of it due to the You Know Who virus.
But now, I think it’s apt that we’ve been forced to sit this year out.
With the kidnapping and murders of Ashanti Riley and Andrea Bharrat both within mere months of each other, Trinidad & Tobago has some serious discussion to do. Several nationwide mentalities are in need of change, our justice system has been exposed to be hilariously anti-justice, the police force that is supposed to “protect and serve” the citizens is doing such a hilariously awful job at that, I can’t even find it in me to laugh,and with a nation sent in a frenzy, we have to decide — do we want revenge, justice or change?
There have been demands for the reinstallation of the death penalty, and while I can see the logic in that statement, (I had to see the logic, some of my closest friends were in favour of that solution) there’s a lot of consequences to unpack that are very important to unpack. So let’s open up that suitcase.
With the death penalty being reinstated, we have to ask ourselves — what justice will this bring. and what injustice can it possibly cause? As for the former, if the court decides to change Ashanti Riley’s murderer’s sentence to the death penalty, there would be justice there, and seeing as Andrea Bharrat’s suspected murderer is already dead, well, it wasn’t the system’s doing, but hopefully someone of Andrea’s friends and relatives feels a small bit of justice has been served. And for the latter, we have to dig into hypotheticals. Will the death penalty be dealt out fairly? Will prisoners serving time for petty crimes such as drug possession or vandalism be put to death? Will it be entirely up to the court or will public opinion have a sway in the decision? How can we know that executioners and prison wardens won’t execute the death penalty off-the-books? We know that the TTPS is not hesitant to kill civilians in the streets, who’s holding them accountable if a prisoner mysteriously turns up dead? And the answers to these questions will vary, and everyone is entitled to their own answers. I know where I stand on it, you may also know. Or you may not, that’s okay. But It’s important that these questions and more are asked before we demand that we bring back something that only 53 of the 196 countries on Earth still implement.
Regarding the justice system itself as it stands, though, it took a pitifully small thread pulled to unravel the entire operation and reveal that it is, oxymoronically, very anti-justice. Rightfully so, a plethora of citizens were outraged to learn that Andrea Bharrat’s murderer had at least seventy assault charges made against him. And he was let free on bail. Why do we have a system that allows predators to continue being a threat to society once we catch them? In psychiatric wards, they don’t release patients until they’re positive they’re no longer a threat to themselves or anyone else. You can’t pay your way out of there, why is it different in prisons? Laws are written for a society to keep order and peace amongst its citizens. Too often, Trinidad & Tobago has been in a state of disarray. Two plus two is equalling three here, and something needs to change. But we still have questions we need to ask ourselves. Mainly one, big, scary one: when, and/or if, new laws are put in place; when and/or if sentencing for any crimes that fall under assault are adjusted to suit the severity of said crime, will we see justice under those laws? It’s a scary truth to recognize that the justice system isn’t very just. What is a government without its corruption? Most anywhere you go to, there are marginalized communities suffering at the hands of sentences overinflated to cause them harm while any real menace to society can get away unharmed and unpunished unless we as a society call bullshit.
And now we get to the big third one. Change.
It’s almost fitting that this month’s article was originally going to be in the spirit of Carnival. I think we tend to forget its roots. It’s rooted in our ancestors being so tired of the way they were treated, being tired of living in. society that gives them no justice, and any justice given was done in such a backwards, twisted, roundabout way that it was just easier to not seek justice at all. Carnival at its core was about revelry found in revolting, and that spirit is still in us. We have the power to not only seek change, but fight for it, and not give up until it’s done right. Our, like many, justice and policing systems need a massive overhaul, and the people in seats of power are oh so aware of that.
We Trinbagonians are loud. We are bold and brave and in your face about everything. That’s what I love about us. We’re forged from passion and fire and from the love of liberty, and I don’t want us to forget it. There’s a fight that we have to fight that requires everything in us. Justice has been kept from so many; Ashanti and Andrea were not the first. We want them to be the last.
