Re: A Message To All Mausicans, from Linda Edwards (Romain)

2007-Dec-07-1215hrs
"God Bless Our Nation,

of many varied races.

May we possess the common love,

that binds and makes us one.

Let it be known around the world,

that we can boast of unity,

and take a pride

in our liberty."

When that hymn to our country was composed for Independence in 1962, I was twenty-one, and was so proud of the fact that my country and I had come of age together. I still love that land with a pasion, that if a man was the beneficiary of it, it would burn him to ashes, so intense it is.

Recently, though, in reading the Express on-line(www,trinidadexpress.com) I have become aware that a lot of Trinis do not love their country, begining with the speech given by the leader of the opposition when his party lost. Daily, if you read the comments that bloggers are allowed to attach to the Express, you would see that absence of love coming through, even though most of the comments stick to the topic of the news.(I have met political refugees from brutal regimes in their countries, who if the leadership changed, would go home tomorrow. Some have had legs or arms chopped off. They still love their country).

I live five minutes from a mall where a young woman on opening her store, was shot to death by a man who then committed suicide. There was another major shooting at a mall in Omaha this week. Americans do not talk of moving from their country because of crime, they work to try to find solutions to the problem. Canadians do not move from their country because an overzealous immigration official tazered a Polish immigrant and caused his death, they work to try to prevent this from happening again, through the legislative process and other means.This is love of country.

It well may be, that those who constantly condemn Trinidad and Tobago in the media were not the beneficiaries of anything- not free education, free medical care, free and low-cost computers that the government subsidized for children, low cost housing, or anything else, including the invaluable fact of living and growing in a multi-racial society. This results in our ability to fit in to any country in the world. There are those who see no good whatsover in the place.

Occasionally, I help prepare oil company personnel to go down there to work. The picture they are given by all this is one of a nation on the edge of imminent racial warfare.If this were so, no person would dare take a maxi or other taxi if it was driven by someone other than their own race. No person would buy food in a restaurant, if it was prepared by someone of another race, no person would have friends of any other race but their own. Many of us have families that include every race.African,Chinese, European and Indian.

You all know that none of this is happening. During the summer just ended, after the reunion, my American friend and I ,she is a high school counsellor, spent two weeks living on the campus of UWI, and taking maxi-taxis to the St. Mary's Children's Home, where along with Merle Howe, and Rodney Foster, we volunteered to help as reading teachers. My friend and I walked from Citizen's Bank in Tunapuna, back to the campus, so she could get a sense of small stores and wayside markets. We walked from the campus to Hi-Lo and came back carrying gallon bottles of water. We walked all over the shopping areas of down-town Port-of-Spain, including Charlotte Street. We took taxi to Diego Martin, and got soaked at the Emancipation Celebration. We flirted with the ten year old boy being money-minder for his parent's bake and shark stall at the Emancipation Village. We saw no crime. We were not threatened. We came to no harm. Perhaps because we were praying souls, doing God's work? It has to be more than that.

We drove through Central, shopped at the Chaguanas Market, and at roadside stalls, accompanied by two men in their late seventies. We came to no harm.

Yet, if you read the commentaries, and the headlines in the papers, you would think that the place was a wild west village, where shooting up each other was the order of the day. Of course, none of us are involved in drugs either, so that may have something to do with how we coped.

There is also a tendency, I have observed in some of the daily papers, to ridicule every institution in the country, beginning with the Office of the President. It is as if a whole lot of people wish they were born elsewhere, and had loyalties other than that owed to their land of birth. Loyalties that they could be proud of. Many of us are retired, and can no longer direct students in the ideas of being loyal to their country, but I appeal to you, at this Advent time of renewal, and preparation, to pray daily for our country, for all of our people, of whatever faith, that they may turn their thoughts and actions towards the good of all; that they will act as people of goodwill towards all men and women.

There must be a thousand of us left alive still, and if these one thousand people say the words of that song at the start of this piece, daily, with fervour, I am sure we would have moved our country closer to where all desire it to be. Leaders of a nation are not God, but God can direct their paths in working for the good of all. Let us pray that the composer of God Bless Our Nation, would be blessed,he and his descendants, for giving us those words of inspiration.

During the Christmas holidays, I will host two African scholars at my home, one from North Africa, is a Muslim, the other is from Burundi and is a Christian. Include all three of us, in your prayers and good wishes also. The Fulbright Program, under whose aegis they are in the USA, aims to bring people closer to understanding through education. It also sends Americans abroad for the same purpose. We can move closer to the Peace of God that passeth all understanding. All good wishes for the new year, to all of you.

Have an enjoyable Christmas season, and remember, the most significant message of HIS ministry is: Love One Another As I Have Loved You.

Linda Edwards

former lecturer in History and English

Mausica.1967-69