The Corridor Strikes Back!

19, Jul 1999
The East/West Corridor is a hard nut to crack. We learnt that the hard way, a long time ago. It has always been the most politicised area of the nation of Trinidad and Tobago.

There has always been therein the consciousness of urbanity and worldliness.

From ever since with the pride of place of probably the busiest port in the Caribbean, the Port of Spain, there was a firm recognition of the importance of constant contact with the rest of the region and the greater outside world.

Organised labour, as a modern 20th century social force, first came to life on that Port, with its heavy concentration of people from almost everywhere and the influx of all kinds of literature and communique dealing with every single burning socio-political issue of modern existence.

Then with the coming of the World Wars and the locating of military bases with myriad sets of sophisticated equipment and trained personnel at Chaguaramas and Waller Field, almost end to end of the Corridor, this sense of urbanity and worldly culture was further compounded.

The other factor is the Public Service that administrates on behalf of central government, collecting and redistributing national income, and therefore because of what it does and how it is set up usually tends also to be urban concentrated.

It is, therefore, in this social context and milieu, with Port, US Military bases (1939-1950) and the Public Service as the major sources of economic activity, that the Corridor grew up to be the hub that it is today, populated by approximately 75 per cent of the total population of T&T, as people constantly migrate from outlying areas into the urban catchments in search of better paying jobs and better educational and social and cultural facilities.

Obviously, with such great concentration of people there must come to exist great explosions of cultural dynamics expressed in all kinds of socio-political avenues and mannerisms, coupled with the increasing of an under-class of unemployed and underemployed landless people whose only salvation lies with the social safety net of expenditure provided by the State in various forms, for example, URP.

If you disrespectfully see the Corridor as merely a bastion of unemployment relief dependency, if you see them as merely the children of "jagabats" and whores and bandits as do some "half-idiot" parliamentarians, then you shall understand nothing about T&T.

Worse yet, if like the powers that be you grew up and out of a contrasting rural "plantation-consciousness" rather than an urban "port-consciousness" your strategies and tactics will be informed by different variables. The major variable being a definition of what in fact is democratic practice! Democracy to an urban worker is vastly different to democracy for a peasant-type.

It is in this context that one can so wrongly come to conclude that the handouts of "jerseys" and sums of money could turn the minds of people on the Corridor.

But it was on the very Corridor that there existed in the '60s and '70s political entities and activists representing every single known ideological tendency that existed in this modern world.

The Corridor was the stomping ground of indepth political contesting and debating. On every block from Carenage to Valencia there existed some political entity. Political consciousness was so high, rife and diverse that no one could command blind loyalty and following.

The influx of heavy drugs in the communities was geared, we still believe, to curtail such political developments, but it certainly could not detract from the level of collective wisdom.

Today on the Corridor one finds the largest percentage of non-voters in T&T because so many there sense that the system of politics can no longer be legitimised by what obtains structurally. That is now so obvious that all politicians who wish to hold and maintain sway know that they must, first of all, win the Corridor.

But mere charisma of leaders will not bring the Corridor to heel. Democracy in practice has to be broadened to include all and sundry and nothing else shall suffice. In the mean the people of the Corridor, of all races and classes, shall take the money and the trinkets and strike back against those whomsoever view them cheaply and insult their native intelligence.

Any incumbent who loses so heavily in a low poll elections is in very serious trouble. Low polls traditionally favour incumbents. High polls indicate great swings and surely that shall be the case in the national elections due in 18 months.

The powers that be are quite aware of all this, their hopes have come to naught, so we can well expect from them a "feeding frenzy" in the remaining months. Expect a Caroni settlement of cash and land. The poor sugar workers and farmers must fight to ensure that they and not the big boys are the ones to benefit from any settlement.

Likewise State enterprises, such as TCL, NFM and Lake Asphalt, may be faced with speedy privatisation. But again we shall hear what the Corridor has to say.

'If you disrespectfully see the Corridor as merely a bastion of unemployment relief dependency as merely the children of "jagabats" and whores and banditsÉ then you shall understand nothing about T&T'. 'Today on the Corridor one finds the largest percentage of non-voters in T&T because so many there sense that the system of politics can no longer be legitimised by what obtains structurally'.