When I read Thomas Sowell's article, The Man Who Wouldn't Swallow, it resonated. It isn't that I'm a blind adherent to the writings of Ayn Rand, or that I am an Objectivist. It's simply the way that I grew up myself - making things work, not accepting charity and retaining one's dignity through trial and error (as opposed to trials and tribulations). It's about standing on one's own and having some self respect every morning when one looks one's self in the mirror. As Sowell writes:
...From even further back in time, I received a letter recently from a man who grew up in my old neighborhood back in Harlem. When he and I were in the same junior high school, one day a teacher who saw him eating his brown bag lunch suddenly arranged for him to get a lunch from the school cafeteria without having to pay for it.
It happened so fast that my schoolmate had already taken a bite from the school lunch when he suddenly realized that he had been given charity — and he wouldn't swallow the food. Instead he went to the toilet and spat it out.
By now his brown bag lunch had been thrown out, so he just went hungry that day. He went on to become a very successful psychiatrist...
In an age where marketers make philanthropy seem so appropriate, I recall a conversation with the father of a friend of mine - an Apache on a reservation. He was telling his son, and myself, "Do not say that you are owed by any people. Do not say that they do not play fair. Learn the rules. Then beat them. There is no other way."
Over time, I learned the truth in what he said. TANSTAAFL. I had learned that while growing up in an environment anything but normal, where I worked when I was not in school and I was in school when I was not working. I missed my own prom; I didn't even ask because I knew we couldn't afford the suit and I refused to go in anything but something I earned. Because of this, and much more, Sowell's article resonated.
Examination Papers Leaked to Students
But then, I am in Trinidad and Tobago. And consider that Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) tests were sold to parents of students so that the students would be able to simply study the test that they would be given. That there was a leak was bad - but what sort of parents purchase exams in advance to assure that their children do not have to study, but can simply cheat their way to better positions? Is this 'education'? Is this appropriate parental behavior? Is this a contributor toward a nation's dignity, self respect? To get grades not earned? Is this what Trinidad and Tobago is?
Maybe it is. If you don't like a land valuation, you bribe someone. If you can't earn a driver's license, you buy one. If you want free land, you just dodge paying rent on land for 13 years or more and then make a claim for adverse possession - while honest, dignified people pay their rent. It seems everywhere one turns around in Trinidad and Tobago, there is some dark alley to bypass the rules of dignity - shortcuts to get something for nothing. I've been told on many occasions that I shouldn't rock the boat or buck the system - indeed, I shouldn't. One has to learn the system to operate in it, but to change it is beyond any one person or even a small group of people. Still, it doesn't mean one has to like it - and if one can cling to one's dignity, one should. In almost every context, things are downright murky here in Trinidad and Tobago. I do not know why. I cannot explain it.
It isn't about blaming people, as the Minister of Education, Esther Le Gendre, is quoted as saying1:
..."I think the major issue here is finding the criminals who are perpetrating this injustice on our nation's children,"...
The criminals, as she rightfully calls them, should probably include the parents. It is an injustice. But that injustice is visited everywhere around us. People didn't just suddenly start buying exams- they worked their way up to it, I'm sure. A bribe here for this, a bribe here for that. I'm waiting for the day someone tells me that they have to bribe someone in a fast food outlet so that they don't screw up the order. People in the pristine parts of the country may not see this every day - but those of us in the less than pristine know it. It's not even something to be angry - it's a bit of a joke. When someone gets into trouble, we may think that they bribed the wrong person rather than they didn't bribe anyone at all. No one is innocent.
But then, am I guilty? Of course I am. I have to be to survive. You probably are as well. I've not bribed anyone to date and I have no intentions of doing so, but I have been privy to much - or, maybe, too much. I won't write of the things I have heard; there are enough allegations to make a nation blush if it were still innocent.
It's the way things work. It's the game. Good game or not, it's the only game in town. Is it just Trinidad and Tobago, though? No, not really. Look at Halliburton.
Maybe the key is understanding the difference between ego and dignity. I don't know. What I do know is that the same mindset that celebrates those that use back channels to get things done erode the very channels that are for those of dignity. And perhaps, somehow, this affects democracy all over the world.
Meanwhile, there are artists somewhere peddling their work surrounded by garbage. Contrast, indeed.
1 Do people even use the word 'perpetrating' anymore? It's so... 1980s...
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