Sunday January 13, 2013
Day 352
I awaken this morning to
noise. a compendium of noise. the neighbor who plays one selection of
music on endless rotation. no mix. the same song. one song for hours on
end. I have been/We have been listening to the one song since Christmas.
I only presume the brain dead got it for that special occasion. And
yes, it is a gospel. I have had two heavy trucks if not a truck and an
earth mover pass by in this residential neighborhood. There is another
resident somewhere farther playing music. Cars buzzing by. The sound
volume of banal activities turned loud because of small spaces. All of
that for just an hour's time. On a Sunday. No quiet, no reflection. No
Peace...and I wonder and ask myself, What is Activism in a landscape
where the most basic of civilities are missing? How do you fight for the
right to rewrite a constitution when citizens are not even geared
created toward minding the quality of life for themselves or their
neighbor, far less for their common man or woman? what is activism among
beasts? I cannot even write animals, for Animals have a strict no
disturb, no desecration of personal space, quality of life, respect,
decency. Can you walk into a pride of lions and set up another clique in their midst/ disturbing their equilibrium? No you would be run off. Here in this land, no one is run off. but allowed to stay and entrench their disturbance. then when opposition is raised long after the appropriate time, the offender will rise up to kill you. For simple small bullshit that all should know but they dont because it is as if man here are birthed and raised by wolves, and even the wolves would not accept them. Even wolf pack rules are transgressed by these special beings
These beings who want you to be an activist, to get off the sidelines but are in fact willing to attack you. Crabs. And never would they see the dissonance. So on whose interest and benefit are you fighting, for your killers and saboteurs? Really?
What is the activism here in actuality when the basic tenets of decent living are not observed, is it not all performance theatre and farce. obscuring personal agendas and motivations on the public stage where comfort and support is attained, for whatever your dastardly plots. How many times do we see the same story play out time and time again. All who show up pretending to be savior are in fact wolf in sheep costuming? Benefiting by what land, position, money, infamy? Activism?
What is activism in a country and region that was robbed and raped by one smart man? who is me to that man? Not in jail. Not under a jail. But in Africa building more monuments to his own hands with Trinidad and Caribbean money. A man with a name Du Prey and we need to wonder and ask where and why I am not an activist. For whom> For what? where? In this criminal land and space? I dare not. MY ancestors and parents did not accident make me for me to spend my life force and energy. And not to those who would hate and criticise. {Loud Rap music in a car is slowly passing by.}
Let me tell you what i learned from other people's experience in 2006, mainly Attilah Springer. I remember her writing, talking and testifying about the patriarchy in the Anti Smelter campaign, a campaign in which I had a passing in, 'as activist' for i gave a presentation /talk at the Symposium organized by UWI>..and I will never forget that For I think, If a warrior is going to the front lines. IS going to stand up and take a stand on the behalf and for the benefit for others, that warrior should never have to be on guard, to watch their back among others who are supposedly on the same side, or be concerned for their passing through unimpeded. IF none of that is possible, then they dont need to be there. wrong environment.
you belong to the space and people who make a way for you. no where, no thing, no body else anything beyond that is you looking for trauma and tragedy.
Oddly enough, when i awaken with noise it disturbs my very physicality so I may have tension headache or neck ache...I do think i may suffer from a peculiar sensitivity and response to disturbance.
But the point i am making is what is activism in a landscape where nothing is stabilized. Nothing is assured. No safety is guaranteed .No standard established. When any and everything is permissible. so what farce is protest? Protest what? The peeing and shitting on the street? The lack of education or the farce of education for industrial ignorance construction? Hospitals that house murderers and maimers? Road signs that make no sense. "maraval highway" through woodbrook? Shysters and stick up men for parliamentarians. And a puppet vapid for prime sinister? Where does one fit in that.
So many thoughts and critiques. Especially the biggest one of all:Protests and Activists their Activism are just means and ways to justify and maintain a death system. Revolution and Overturn is what is necessary. Wake me up when you all decide to take up arms
To talk of activism of larger ideas that supersede basic human community functioning behaviors is itself preposterous and a circus carnivale I will not engage.
And i have had this conversation before> We have not been taught in this place to be quiet and reverential. Who would have taught the slaves and the absconders to be respectful of themselves, their lives and bodies, and therefore every structure emanating therefrom? the brutalizers? so we have become the murderous lot that stole and colonized us... Self Same Bruts. Man Woman Child Alike
Tell me then, where there, Activism?
==========
But look at my blessings and crosses== Look what Peter OConnor writes Just for me This Sunday...His Sunday Column.....
INABILITY
TO COMPLETE ANYTHING
By Peter
O’Connor, for publication Sunday 13th January 2013.
"When things go wrong, we tend to rush in to try to correct
the problem, and we often do so without any planning for the consequences of
the presumed “corrective action”. And many, if not most, sudden impulses
towards corrective action bring new, and longer-term issues to the original
problem.
The festering situation of Grande Riviere beach is one such
issue. A sudden “rush of blood” to belatedly try to rectify the original
problem—beach erosion by the meandering river—brought great calumny down upon
the authorities, and that fallout now prevents any authority from completing a
job started, but left incomplete since last September.
Nothing will postpone the turtle-nesting season on Grand
Riviere Beach. The giant leatherback turtles will begin arriving in a few
weeks, to lay their eggs in the sand. They will arrive whether the beach is
“ready or not”, and will deposit many of their eggs in damp or wet sand—and
these eggs will not hatch—left behind by the still incomplete work on the
beach.
Trinidad and Tobago “sells” the nature experience at Grande
Riviere, as an important attraction to naturalists around the world. We were
doing this at the big Travel Industry fair held last November in London.
People, including Tour Operators, who asked about the beach at Grande Riviere,
were told that it was being fixed, so please bring your people and come to
Grande Riviere!
There is only one thing wrong with this promise held out to
potential visitors: The work has not been completed. There is a large festering
“pond” in the middle of Grande Riviere beach, right where the access road meets
the beach, and right in front of one of the hotels on the beach! To me, and
probably to most of you, the obvious thing to do to remove this stinking
eyesore, which will probably affect some of the eggs laid nearby, would be to
drain it and then fill it with clean sand.
But when will this—or some other mitigating activity—take
place? And who will be responsible for implementing it? Recent reports have
indicated that the “Pontius Pilate Principle” is at work here, preventing
anyone from doing anything. The Pontius Pilate Principle dictates that the EMA,
having taken some flack for using excavators to straighten the river in
September will never, ever, order a piece of equipment on to any beach---ever
again! “Allyou blame me? Well, allyou could wait, I not going to order a
backhoe to go and fill that fetid hole on Grande Riviere beach!”
We thus embrace the ultimate in childish immaturity and
petulance by spiting ourselves, the situation, and indeed our country when we
totally abandon common sense and the effort—to say nothing of responsibility --
required to complete, to the public’s satisfaction, the restoration of the
beach. And many of us will actually sympathize with the whiners and moaners who
are giving us “good reason” why they will not (they will say “cannot”) finish
the job, restore the beach and make Grande Riviere welcoming to the turtles, to
us citizens and to the hundreds of visitors expected from overseas. We will
actually say “what you expect those EMA people to do? We bouffe them when they
sent in the excavator, and therefore they are right to do nothing from now on”.
Of course, as a nation of moaners and whiners, we are always
too ready to make and accept any stupid or trivial excuse for our failings, for
our inability to try again, and this millstone of excuse and sympathy is
dragging us down beyond even our understanding. But we like it so, we are
eternally comfortable in our failings and in our excuses.
So, are we going to stay comfortable in this current shame?
And it is shame we should be feeling, when we look at that stagnant, fetid hole
in the middle of Grande Riviere beach.
Promises were made to Grande Riviere. They were promised, by
the Minister of Tourism, and by the Minister of the Environment and Water
Resources, that the river would have been straightened, and that the beach
would have been restored before the turtles began arriving. Well, the river was
straightened, but the beach is still a stinking eyesore, which will turn away
every T&T citizen who seeks a “turtle experience” this year. And it will
bring such a torrent of negative publicity from the overseas visitors, from
which the village—as a site for Eco-tourism—will probably never recover.
And what a shame this would be—if a little rural village, by
its own concerns and working with almost no help, put itself on the world map
for nature lovers, might actually be wiped off the tourism map because our
government and its agencies could not restore a damaged beach. "
------------------
Maven Huggins:
i
going to a memorial so dont have time to write much...but rbhara
charged me today with being on the sidelines, not being an activist,
not being part of the "action" and when and what is important enough
i
dont know if you friends with her to see the thread . at first i
thought she was attacking me, but i saw it differently, or at least i
chose to, cause it was an attack but they dont understand me
they
cant comprehend how i detest all of them: uncppnm and anything in this
country come and is them/that...and they dont understand that i see it
all as futility...
and that article an all that happens proves that
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/commentaries/War_against_Tobago-186244391.html
gotta run. we will pick up
stay
strong soldier///that is it. they do not understand stealth, quiet
soldiers, and vanguard. they have no clue or material to contextualize
me. i must be on the road rah rahing...but she called my number too so i
had to check myself...she say how i rail and rant on fb but no action
high. i eh able with these philistines"
Richard Anthony Luke
"Ok.
So much. No I did not see it in the news. I picked it up between the
lines in the post you wrote about your mother's advice. As time went by
the story revealed itself.I had my run in with T&T Ent, so I did not
know the gentleman. Additionally, I don't seek funding from any
government organization, as I said not even a hospital bed.
Now unto
RB, the thing about being an activist and actually doing or
trying to help in this town, is that you are only allowed to do so
within the confines of a debate that they set up. Step out of the
confines and they will kill you.
You can run a ra-te-ra-te-ray and
talk about this or that, and eventually someone will toss you a bone
like RuVic and offer you a position on a board. Or you can do
like 3Canal and be the voice of the voiceless, a dull bladed weapon of
the "militant."
I think I better shut-up. We both understand the
futility, but still, the messianic wild card - which is what they like -
can come along and fuck de whole ting up. The question is. R U the
messianic wild card?"
---------------
activism?
I read this post and it reminds me of yet another concern i have long had about this place: my deep fear of becoming like them, behaving like them. I feel if I immerse myself in their landscape, platforms, operations and stirrings, I will become just like them...
John Arnold: "Well
blessing in Plymouth ,Kamla in church with Certica praying for a TOP
victory. They would also pray for Skippy who abused Godwin on a big
truck yesterday in front Godwin mother house.bible says pray without
ceasing."
======
it gets richer....
"
What can I add--that I agree and endorse? Of course,
we are on the same road here, i have always maintained that lions and
wolves (even ants!) are more "civilized" than Trinidadians!. All those
big new empty buildings rising out of our flooded, blooded streets are
our Tuesday mas'--our real selves is jourvert mud.
RB and the fb group well bouffe me up about a year
ago when i called them FB critics, doing nothing but writing bitchiness
on fb all day. they tell me how FB create the Arab Spring and all that. I
tell them when they sending out the "calls to arms", let me know---I
still waiting.... " from my YOWA
