Third World Country Check List

It matters not how many skyscrapers, malls, American chain restaurants or chemical plants a country has or how many international sports and beauty pageant events it hosts. If that country possesses at least five or more of these signs of underdevelopment and tyranny, in any of the categories below, then it is still a third world country at the very core.

Ineffective Justice And Law Enforcement

1. Outdated laws deter progressive law enforcement; offer little to no victims rights and hinder application of any of the innovations in law enforcement and crime prevention over the last 20 years.

Cameras cameras everywhere in Trinidad and Tobago! But for what purpose? Our laws are so outdated that footage of a crime caught on camera is still inadmissible in court.

2. Easily bribed public officials and law enforcement result in more unsolved cases than solved ones. Police brutality is the norm. Crimes committed by the working to poorer sectors of society are prosecuted differently to crimes committed by those of a certain economic class.

The inefficiency of the public services supports a shadow industry of bribery to get things done effectively at a reasonable pace.

3. Third world prison systems that are non-rehabilitative and repugnant in their inhumane and sadistic conditions. They are criminal factories, turning soft core, non violent criminals into hard core violent criminals.

Inadequate Educational, Health and Social Services

4. Education is no longer a means to advance one’s station in life as only exceptional and/or privileged children from the best economic and/or domestic circumstances benefit from a blind, under-funded, ineffective education system. Children with special needs, learning disabilities, emotional problems or a less than favorable domestic/economic background will most likely be unemployable, barely literate graduates/dropouts thus widening the gap between the haves and have nots.

Most children have access to free education in Trinidad and Tobago. However only those who are naturally exceptional or have the ideal domestic life with highly involved parents who can afford or are willing to sacrifice for expensive additional coaching and extra cirriculuar activities, can withstand the difficult, unspecialised, non-holistic memorisation and regurgitation examination-based academic programme. All others are left behind.

5. Lack of or poorly funded social programmes to address the needs of the severely mentally ill; drug addicts; battered women, abused or parentless children, stray animals and others who will inevitably fall through the cracks. Vagrants, homeless children and prostitution become commonplace everywhere.

6. Rapid drop in life expectancy among the youth because of civil unrest, crime, AIDS, poor health care, malnourishment and increased use of drugs and alcohol. Young males are particularly affected by criminal violence. Young women are systematically targeted for sexual violence and the social and legal systems are unable to deal with it.




7. Hospitals look, smell and feel like diseased, third world clinics in a war zone, with constant shortage of drugs, beds and equipment and frustrated medical staff, high infant mortality rates, high death rates for simple surgical procedures, high infection rates.



Development In Defiance Of The Environment

8. Stray dogs and garbage everywhere and recycling, conservation and green energy are not even considerations.



9. Haphazard, unsafe, unreliable and inadequate public transportation.


10. Loss of green spaces, flora, fauna, clean beaches and air to unplanned, unfettered development. Nature constantly striking back with floods, pests and diseases. No natural disaster national emergency plan or resources and mass fatalities will result if a major disaster hit.

Impotent Media & Cultural Stagnation



11. News is either sensationalist, politically biased or pedestrian. Lack of press and media freedom, journalists are threatened if they probe too deeply, criticize the government too frequently much less dare to run a true exposé. Therefore there is no investigative journalism beyond the headlines.




12. Begrudging recognition of talented locals. Migration to succeed is the norm as the country has no confident barometer for its own beauty, talent and voices leading to easy takeover by foreign culture. Music, art, film is too expensive and unavailable to most to explore as a form of expression. The intellectual and artistic community continues to be insular, elitist and irrelevant to most of the population.

Brain Drain is a serious problem still in Trinidad and Tobago and those who leave really cannot be blamed if there is simply no where for them to grow, no where safe to raise their families and little opportunties for their children within their own country.

Banana Republic Economy

13. Only the salaries of top government officials, corporate CEOs and expatriate professionals rise with the skyrocketing cost of living. The rich send their money abroad and do not reinvest it inside the country.

14. Natural resource wealth and industrialization is not reflected in the standard of living by the majority of the population. The middle class disappears, upward mobility disappears. Left behind are only a handful of very wealthy land and business owners supported by a miniscule, well compensated upper managerial class (increasingly comprised of expats) and the rest of the population, no matter their educatioanal status just above or below the poverty line, including public servants.



15. The country is unable to feed itself with its own agriculture. Locals get the dregs of the sea and land produce, the best is exported and then unaffordable produce is imported. Food and other basic items are prohibitively priced. In the event of any world crisis or major natural disaster affecting trade, people will starve.

Tyranny and Unfettered Corruption Is Standard Operating Procedure

16. Political leverage to win favors is gained through unethical means. There is intimidation and/or bribery of the growing class of desperate citizens stuck in daily survival mode.

17. Increased autocratic spending of revenues by the government. The public feels powerless to stop anything the government wants to do, even though the government is supposed to be their servant.

What the Prime Minister wants, the Prime Minister gets, regardless of what his citizens say. Disempowered citizens allow him to blow hundreds of millions on a one-time international event, while children are starving, young people shoot one another and hospital patients sleep on the floor. Sadly, they'll let it happen again even in the midst of the worse recession ever!

18. The frequent presence of less than reputable foreign “experts” and companies involved in large scale, unsustainable pork barrel projects. Some of these companies even have a track record of exploitation of third world revenues aided and abetted by their corrupt governments.

19. Tribal, dirty, petty politics is the custom and the electoral process is so emotionally charged, it lacks rationality, civility, intellect and credibility. Leaders are not treated like public servants but demagogues by a blindly enamored and easily manipulated populace.

20. Blatant, unapologetic cronyism and scoring a measly 3.6 out of 10 (10 being little to no corruption) on the Corruptions Perception Index by Transparency International. Public servants fear accountability and crisis management is about PR rather than problem solving.


I ask you please to take some time today and think of the opposing, positive 20 signs of a developed, truly democratic country. Use your imagination and visualise Trinidad and Tobago as a first world country in every way. When you get that picture in your head, ask yourself if the petty differences politicians love to exploit are worth getting distracted over.

The truth is that people get exactly the government they think they deserve. The epitome of insanity is applying the same ineffective method to a problem over and over, expecting a different outcome. Can we honestly claim to be so disappointed when the same selection methods fuelled by our fears, self-doubt and self-imposed limitations are what we use to pick our leaders? We are like a battered woman, who continues to stay in an abusive relationship, or jump from one abusive man to the next.

The truth is many will always “like it so” because they are lazy, disempowered, ignorant or are getting exactly what they need from the system. But the beauty of how easily change can happen is that not all Trinbagonians need to transform. If only a few courageous, stalwart number of citizens made up their collective mind that we deserve better and remained vocal, risking everything to focus on the issues that truly matter, it can happen.

Never underestimate the power of a few community organisers, look at Obama’s campaign. If only two media houses decided to grow some balls and not settle for mediocre journalism and demand answers from our leaders, it can happen. Look at how the media refused to buy into the shallow Sarah Palin image. A strong media can literally decide an election or change the cultural landscape to be more tolerant, rational and informed. A strong media ensures we get strong leaders as President Obama expressed at the White House Correspondent's Dinner. The ease and affability this man displayed with the media is a stark contrast from our Prime Minster who storms into media houses that express unflinching and strong disagreement with his policies.

If our visionary music, mas men, beauty queens, sportsmen and artists got together and pushed messages of tolerance, environmental awareness and social responsibility, standing behind political figures and raising money for them because of shared ideals, we could turn the nation around. Once again, look at what the Hollywood machine did for Obama.



I am willing to toss my name in the hat right now. I will volunteer my creative and advertising strategy expertise for any local candidate or party who wowed me with their objectivity, integrity, patriotism, holistic environmentalism, fiscal responsibility and unwavering servitude to the people of this country. I would design a campaign for you that would set a whole new standard in local politics; honest, eloquent, people-empowering and steadfast in its focus on the issues without resorting to smear tactics. There would be televised town-hall discussions, open invitation to live, televised debate, outreach strategies for party entrenched areas. It would use all the new media available and some you may have never thought about.

You see, I have faith that there are enough people in Trinidad and Tobago who are ready for something different. I believe those who are fair-minded outnumber those who are petty and ignorant. I believe those who are racially unbiased outnumber those who are easily baited by religion and ethnicity. I believe the private sector has had enough, period and are chomping at the bit to realise their “first-world” goals and are grinding their teeth as the government drags its feet. I believe the middle-class and professional class has had enough. I believe young people are much smarter than we give them credit for and can be persuaded to vote for change if properly motivated. YES WE CAN experience a Vision 20/20 that reflects the real signs of progress instead of just pomp and ceremony.

Lost Generation Not Just Indian Men

Anand Ramlogan’s “Lost Generation” article in the January 25thSunday Guardian was insightful. I took a long time before I responded to it because I did not want to be offensive in doing so. Then I realised, if he could speak of Indian men being unable to hold on to Indian women as a matter of grave concern, without seeing anything particularly racist about it, I should not worry too much about being frank about my response. Here it is.



In this Bollywood adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice, the forward-thinking Indian beauty shuns her Indian suitor, who is presented as a buffoon and falls for the more modern Caucasian American man. It is subtle commentary to say the least.

As a past student of Naparima Girls’ High School, I saw with my own eyes the transformation of my Indian classmates when we later attended UWI together and went abroad on our academic and career adventures and were free from prying parental eyes while being offered a wider choice of men from up North, up the Caribbean islands and all over the world. They jumped whole heartedly into a brave new world so much so, Naps Girls started to get a reputation.

Anand is right, there is a growing chasm between the modern Indian woman and her Indian male counterparts, many of whom are still raised to think of and treat with their women like it was still 1950 and so, as he pointed out, they simply lack the skills to woo today’s savvy Indian woman.

As the ever world-wise black chic and mother hen, I was often the one being called on by my Indian girlfriends to buy birth control and cover for them to their parents while they were dating non-Indian men and venturing to night clubs and I offered shoulders to cry on over broken hearts and pregnancy scares. Their clueless parents were still expecting them to be virgins and marry nice Indian doctors, lawyers and businessmen. In fact, in my little circle of friends, which comprised of girls of all racial backgrounds, none of my Indian girlfriends ended up with Indian men or are still unmarried.

When you talk to them, they will tell you that the glaring difference in mentality and expectations is comparable to what I feel as a black woman when a Nigerian man aggressively and often obnoxiously approaches me with hopes of snagging a doting, submissive wife. In this respect Anand is right, there is a growing chasm between the modern Indian woman and her Indian male counterparts, many of whom are still raised to think of and treat with their women like it was still 1950 and so, as he pointed out, they simply lack the skills to woo today’s savvy Indian woman. While he points to hip hip and dancehall pop culture. I think the new age, intellectual, emotionally adept Indian women I know were more influenced by “Jane Austen, Oprah, Deepak Chopra and Joy of Sex” as far as their expectations of what a romantic partnership should be. It’s not that there aren’t Indian men who “get it” but some complain there are just too few to go around. Accomplished black women often make a similar complaint about available black men who can match their level.



It's not just Indian women who are looking outside their ethnicity. Indian men have been doing it for a long time, without so much fuss being made. Therein lies the double standard.

What I find a little off-putting about Anand's article is that it totally ignores that interracial relationships are also being pursued by savvy, world wise Indian men as well. Why this double standard of, 'Protect our Indian women' but our Indian men can do whatever they like.

It is already hard for women to find quality mates; being further restricted to searching only in your own ethnicity is really unfair especially when your ideal soul mate could actually be someone your parents may not have had in mind.

Here is a very objective stance on the subject. Honestly, there are advantages to dating in your own ethnic/cultural group. Chances are that my Indian sisters going for what they consider to be the more “modern” man outside of their ethnicity are going to be presented with either the same or a lesser version of the exact same problem she is trying to avoid. In fact, she may be worse off because the non-Indian man may actually be choosing an Indian woman because of a stereotype. He may have the false expectation she will be more submissive and acquiescing to his sexual and ego requirements than say a black or white woman. It is similar to what a black woman faces when white and Asian men assume that because she is black, she is a wild cat in the sack and will fall into the role of “Ever Loving Mama” who will carry their burdens for them.



Interracial relationships do come with their share of challenges.

In many respects, dating outside your ethnicity or culture can be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire when it comes to facing stereotypes and prejudices. However, that is about all I can see that is negative about it and as I type this, the world is changing. As the world gets smaller and people start to see each other more honestly we are beginning to actively challenge these stereotypes.


The willingness to cross cultures and ethnicities increases the more one travels, reads, learns and accomplishes. Which is why keeping people ignorant and insular is always part of segregationist governments. You see, with knowledge of the world and travel of the world, you develop a greater sense of individual identity in relation to the entire world and not just one tribe in your own hometown.

It is therefore unrealistic to expect that todays’ woman who is well read, well travelled and open to a range of experiences will limit intimate relationships by ethnicity, religion or culture. Those things may superficially help but do not guarantee lasting happiness and fulfillment in a relationship. It is already hard for women to find quality mates; being further restricted to searching only in your own ethnicity is really unfair especially when your ideal soul mate could actually be someone your parents may not have had in mind.

Mr. Ramlogan’s advice to fathers to take an active interest in developing emotionally intelligence in their sons is not just for Indian men but all men. I am heartened that he did not fall into the trap other “male activists” have of whining about the loss of their comfort zone. That ship has sailed and re-oppressing women is not the answer.

While I can understand Anand’s cultural and ethnic focus on Indian men, the issues he mentioned are part of a wider problem that is affecting all young men. Let’s face it, for generations we in the Caribbean have spoiled our men. There, I’ve said it! So, whether ethnicity is Chinese, Indian, Syrian, African, European or a mix of any, chances are, if that man is from the Caribbean, he has been handicapped by:

1. Overbearing mothers who substitute the relationship fulfillment they did not get from their emotionally retarded or absent husbands by overly codling her sons. These Goddesses of domestic martyrdom, easy forgiveness and indiscriminate ego-stroking without demanding responsibility, turn boys into a men who are useless emotional cripples with unfounded self-importance. These megalomaniacs in the making now expect the wife to take over where the Holy Mother left off, this time with “fringe benefits”. The role of maid, sycophant and sex slave is one the modern woman no longer wants, sorry.



"And after I am done the housework after coming home from my job, I will tend the kids, supervise their homework, whip you up a three course dinner and pleasure you any way you like till you fall asleep." Dream on guys!

2. Unfair and damaging sexual double standards which for centuries have said that a woman’s chastity is somehow more crucial than a man’s. Biology is now showing that both genders are equally licentious, in fact women have far more sexual capacity for pleasure than men. However while allowances and excuses have always been made for men to fully explore their libido before, during, inside and outside of marriage, women were required to exercise self-restraint, commitment, self-sacrifice, forgiveness and emotional strength. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise for now that we have achieved sexual liberation we are now far more empowered to strategically wield our sexuality than men are. Karma is a… you-know-what.

3. The expectation of automatic leadership simply by virtue of being born male has led to big egos with no substance to back it up. The truth is, respect is earned and leadership is not a Divine reward for having a penis. Leadership comes after you have self-searched, developed mind, body and spirit to acquire positive leadership qualities. You then use those qualities to uplift a household or community by humbly understanding you are first a servant, not the master of everyone else. In today’s ideal household, who gets to “lead” is expected to be fluid not predetermined. The leader is whoever is best at it at the task, in that particular time, in that situation, no matter the gender. So, if the husband is the better cook, his has the last word in the kitchen. If the wife is a financial wiz, her budget is law and in both cases, opinions are solicited and considered. This team-playing is what modern women expect. So if a man approaches her quoting the Apostle Paul (a man who never had a wife) or the koran with some kind of entitlement to special deference, he is going to be put in his place. Rightly so.

4. The false belief that boys are not as emotionally fragile as girls. Guess what? They are! They require just as much emotional nurturing, attention to developing their communication skills and learning how to be empathetic and socially adept.

Mr. Ramlogan’s advice to fathers to take an active interest in developing emotionally intelligence in their sons is not just for Indian men but all men. I am heartened that he did not fall into the trap other “male activists” have of whining about the loss of their comfort zone. That ship has sailed and re-oppressing women is not the answer.

The answer lies in understanding that your masculinity can never be taken away from you. How can it? It’s in your genes. However, it is the man-made self-definition of what it means to be a man that is evolving. You are very fortunate that now you get to actively participate in reshaping it. You can finally weed out the traditional socialisations that have proven to be unhealthy and keep those that are beneficial. If you ask me, you should be just as excited about this chance to grow just as we women were when we started questioning those same man-made definitions of our gender role. Just as many of us discovered, our inner-being and its potential transcend gender completely.