Split Me In Two

"If they sending Indians to India
And Africans back to Africa
Somebody please just tell me
Where they sending poor me?
I am neither one nor the other
Six of one, half a dozen of the other
If they serious 'bout sending back people fuh true
Dey bound tuh split me in two." Dougla - 1961 Trinidad Calypso Monarch

The act of splitting involves taking something that was once singular and dividing it into something that is now multiple. For the Dougla it was difficult to reconcile how he could be split as it is for me, though mine is not a question of race but rather principle. It becomes difficult to find the balance between caring about a nation and preserving the self. I question my motivation, should I be concerned with what my country should do for me, or should I be concerned with what I can do for my country? Why do I even question such a thing in a place where if I point out to a fellow driver that he is doing the wrong thing only to have him describe my mother's most intimate anatomy? Why focus on doing for my country when so many others are just getting theirs and living it up? Why not follow the other trained professionals, get a government sponsored education and by extension a personal skill upgrade, and then buss it, jet off to a new place, new time, but for the same wine and dine?

What is my role in a society that is lawless? And by lawless I don't even mean the murders and robberries, I mean the simple inability of the average Trinidadian to respect the laws of the road. There was a time when a round-a-bout had a right of way, this is almost no more. There was also a time when indicators were used to signify that people are changing lanes, now they merely slow the daily flights on our nation's roads down. I am convinced that Bwee buss in the plane business so that now we have Caribbean Airlines in the sky, but Bwee wukkin taxi, P/H, transport and everything else on the ground.

Time and again we change government, and time and again we get new institutions, policies and structure. Yet every time we end back up in the same place, namely inefficiency, ineffectiveness and no accountability. Whether it be to decentralize some aspects of the health sector into regional health authorities, or to shift from URP to CEPEP, these are merely surface changes. Little if anything at all is done to address the attitude, mentality and purpose of the people within these organizations.


So many questions; maybe Dougla was right yuh know? Maybe it need two of everybody a ying (good) and a yang (bad). This way, people could really live what they saying on both sides instead of crying about crime and living lawlessly at the same time. But when they do that...I goin' Tobago.