MARION O'CALLAGHAN Monday, August 31 2009

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MAS VETERANS: Mas men, from left, Raoul Garib, Geraldo Viera and Harold Saldenah Jr, son of the late bandleader Harold Saldenah, were among the Carniv...

I had wondered what the picture of a giant corkscrew was doing high on the front wall of what used to be Kong’s pharmacy. It was only after the presence of the hoi poloi of every kind and manner had been reported, that I got the name of the corkscrew place.

An easy name to remember: DRINK. It is the latest in the wave of bars that have followed the wave of casinos — oops Members Clubs — that have followed the boutiques, which followed the move of Carnival from Down Town to Woodbrook, which followed the transformation of Carnival as popular participatory culture into Carnival leggo no-constraints commerce of the multi-billion globalised entertainment industry. And which cut down the magnificent Ceylon Willow which stood in Adam Smith Square to make way for the three day Carnival stands and which hacked down the glyricidia of the cherry blossom branches of pink flowers. Boutiques, restaurants, club-casinos, bars swept away discreet Woodbrook with its handkerchief front gardens and its neat roads interspersed with squares.

It was not that anyone planned to destroy Woodbrook. No one planned to bring the world’s financial institutions to the brink of collapse either.

They just saw an entrepreneurial moment when they could make money. It just happened that the young adults of Westmoorings, St Clair, Haleland Park et al, flushed with new money, needed a casual drinking recreation place nearer to the new binge culture that was London’s contribution to the Entertainment Industry, nearer to the casino culture which had invaded North America, and nearer to the centre than Pier One. Oh yes and a little away from their own dwelling areas where, after the St Clair kidnapping affair, “sleeping policemen” slowed the passage of potential get away cars and collective watchfulness ensured that there was that air of noiseless gentility with no Unwanteds wandering around.

“D Avenue” they called Ariapita Avenue traversing the heart of Woodbrook.



The Magnificent Seven

It was not only Woodbrook. One of our tourist urban delights was the Magnificent Seven. There, around that stretch of the savannah were the coconut lorries marking a technological leap from the old coconut donkey cart. Whoever thought up these falsetto gilded affairs that we now have? Probably of the same authorship as the change from the historic name “The Breakfast Shed” with its memory of penny working class lunches and Audrey Jeffers, to the “Femmes des Chalet.” Opposite to the gilded coconut carts is the Anglican Bishop’s house with its marvel of tiny Elizabethan windows and the finest of lattice work. It has the grubby look of the unkempt. One of our contributions to what is now considered a specific period of architecture: the Ironage was the elaborate house there among the Magnificent Seven. It is almost a ruin. But then our other contribution to the Iron Age of Architecture, the overhanging balconies with their wrought iron railings and slender iron-sculpted pillars, have well nigh disappeared. There is something compulsive about our dismantling of beauty and of history.

This Independence I look at the Northern Range as I have from the time I can remember. It is now a jumble of houses and scooped out mud for other houses. Once upon a time we were but a colony then and infected by Western culture along with Wordsworth’s Daffodils, Shakespeare and Mozart — colonial laws made and kept, forbade us from building above a certain mountain height. That was before the developers arrived, here like elsewhere. Whatever constraints that were here on paper, turned out to be Paper Tigers.

We are surrounded by Paper Tigers. I open my Newsday on this day of writing. There it is: First Israel Khan and now Kenneth Sirju put in question on the UFF commission. Who thought, who was farse enough to think, that we could have an Inquiry into Calder Hart’s Udecott? I turn the pages. Trans-parency International calls for the report on the collapse of the Caroni Bridge one year before the Balandra Bridge collapsed. Emile Elias calls for the publication of the Lindquist Cleaver Heights Inquiry Report. What’s this? We know that the result of Inquiries are hardly ever published or reported. They are Paper Tigers.

New Politics

I wonder at the optimism of those who see the UNC imploding, perhaps the PNM following, and “New Politics” to quote Lloyd Best or Winston Dookeran, emerging. Really? But it isn’t just the Political Instance. Rather the quality of our democracy and the political behaviour we can command does not depend on Mr Manning or Mr Panday or Mr Dookeran. Our problem is neither PNM nor UNC. It is the far more worrying collapse of every social institution and our inability to stem the decline. Nor can we. The crucial social institution is education. We know that we dare not look at that as the 80 percent Indian doctors and Dr Tim Gopeesingh’s charge of ethnic cleansing illustrates. As did the SEA results. As did the CAPE results. We are producing a number of people who have passed exams. We are not producing people who are educated. The system at present is not throwing up enough people with the academic curiosity and breadth of intellectual culture that we need if we are to turn things around. This is not surprising. Our education system was already weakened by learning by rote. It has been further weakened by the introduction of teaching to the examination paper, or “teaching to the test” if you like. It is now further threatened by the philistine demand that students should be taught so that they leave school “job ready.” Strange that the question of “teaching to the test” has not emerged as an issue for debate here.

The question of why certain groups with the present multiplicity of exams are doing better than others is on the table in a number of countries. In Ireland girls have been doing better than boys in English and in Irish since the 1930’s. They now do better than boys in every subject except Additional Maths. And yes some see this as proof that men are now an endangered species. But this is by no means the majority view.



Rewarding Compliance

Breda O’Brien argues that this focus on girls’ success masks deeper problems in Irish education. Among those problems is that at all levels the majority of students who drop out are Working Class boys. But is this just a problem for the Working Class? O’Brien quotes with approval Prof Tom Collins, head of the education department at Maynouth. “A school — based education system built upon ‘teaching to the test’ rewards compliance and penalises non-conformity” Prof Collins suggests that if the Irish education system had placed greater emphasis on critical thinking, creativity and joy of learning, Ireland would not be in the “crisis” mess it is in today. Agreed for here in Trinidad and Tobago, but why then are we caught with “race?”

The answer is in the use of “race” and of fixed attributes or if you like quasi-race, as the justification and the explanation of all social phenomena. It is this which makes us a racist society and which ensures that the present pattern of inequalities continues. Had Prof Tom Collins said that about teaching is the test in Trinidad, the Maha Saba would have immediately yelled that “merit” was in danger, Indians discriminated against and pan-beating Africans benefiting from Affirmative Action. End of story. I am not very optimistic on this Independence Day August, 2009.