This poisonous divisiveness that is politics is spreading too far, seeping into humble, ordinary fields of play and threatening to fatally infect sincere efforts at reformation for the good of the young people of the nation.
We've always had to cope with the favouritism, the biases and the victimisation associated with sport in Trinidad and Tobago, not to mention the shameless dishonesty of persons engaged in such practices feigning innocence even as they aggressively pursue a destructive, narrow-minded agenda. Now though, the situation appears much worse, the divisions much more deeply entrenched, the willingness to cut off the nose to spite the face so much more prevalent that it's accepted as just the way things are done around here.
Everything seems to hinge upon which "side" you're on, whether you are one of "them" or one of "us". But who's on the side of sport as a tool of discipline and national development? Who's on the side of sport as an avenue for national and international recognition, for bringing glory and honour to the country and the promise of a secure financial future for the outstanding performer?
Barring a sensational capitulation against Anguilla last evening in Basseterre, Trinidad and Tobago's senior men's footballers should now be looking forward to the second phase of qualification for the Caribbean Cup finals to be held here next month. Of course, in previous years this would have been passed over as a fait accompli, in the same way that a top four finish and advancement to the CONCACAF Gold Cup would have been taken for granted.
But we are enduring different times now. Defeats to Cuba and Grenada in the group stage of the last Caribbean Cup finals two years ago, followed by an early World Cup finals elimination courtesy of the "Golden Jaguars" of Guyana late last year, have confirmed that appearing on the global stage at Germany 2006 was not a springboard but a cavernous sinkhole into which the national game has since collapsed. Few nations can match the breakneck pace at which we have managed to achieve such a reversal.
Yet listen to arguments raging over the game. It's not about its depressed state or the preferred route to haul ourselves out of the depths of mediocrity. It's about who's to blame, as if any compelling evidence one way or the other will change the minds and opinions of the different factions of flag-wavers.
The flourishing of the broadcast media especially over the past 20 years has nurtured a culture of highly-opinionated and occasionally well-informed contributors, almost all sectioned off based on their political or ethnic biases and happily accommodated by market vendor-type hosts, announcers and barely-literate deejays who are only too willing to entertain views that are in concert with their own.
All of this vacuous free speech is not limited to the ordinary folk though. If it's not university lecturers or other assorted intellectuals wasting time with their long-winded dissertations on West Indies cricket without getting anywhere close to offering any practical solutions, it's veteran footballers taking turns at the microphone to trot out their verbal autobiographies of victimisation as if the minutiae of each oh-so-similar tale presents any fundamentally different insight on the search for a way forward.
And what is the end result of all this freedom of expression? Merely a hardening of opinions on Jack, Anil and, lately, Tony Harford. In the meantime, disillusioned and dispirited fans continue to stay away in droves from the top level of the national club game and, interestingly of late, from the secondary schools scene, which, even in the hardest of previous hard times—like the scandal of November 19, 1989—was almost always the bountiful beneficiary of old-school loyalties and community identity.
It is in this context that you watch youngsters—boys and girls—enthusiastically going through their training drills on a Sunday morning on fields, parks and savannahs across this twin-island state and wonder how many of them, having chosen to seriously pursue their opportunities in the sport, will fall victim to the games that devious adults play, grown men and women who never miss an opportunity to play petty politics while at the same time claiming ownership of a grand vision of nation-building through sport.
This is not to say that the lack of support for anything national, at least until significant progress is made, is anything new. Before a reputed 40,000 were crammed into the 25,000-capacity Hasely Crawford Stadium for the decisive game against the United States almost 23 years ago, only a handful would have turned up for the early games of the road to Italia '90. Wholesale indifference followed by frantic bandwagon-jumping has been the common thread of supposed support for sport in this land.
Now however, there is the added dimension of politically-tainted spite. Support or lack thereof for football is taken to represent something way beyond the issues of the quality of play or the competence (or incompetence) of administrators. We seem to find it so much easier to identify with a party insignia than with the national flag, to rally around institutions that exist to divide and rule rather than be united behind our national team.
Then again, this is a nation where many rejoice when the West Indies cricketers lose for reasons of race, alienation or the perceived persecution of Brian Lara. There is something seriously wrong with this place, and the spiteful nature of our politics has a lot to do with it.
By Fazeer Mohammed
Source: www.trinidadexpress.com