VVIP assness

"And I look in the rearview and see a man
exactly like me, and the man was weeping
for the houses, the street, that whole fucking island...
But they had started to poison my soul
with their big house, big car, big time bohbohl,
coolie, nigger, Syrian and French Creole,so I leave it for them and their carnival...
I have seen things that would make a slave sickin this Trinidad, the Limers' Republic. "

Derek Walcott, Schooner's Flight


I have always said that I could live in Trinidad. Easy easy I could I said. A small island style metropolis- a place that is like no other in the Caribbean, where village marries with town so easily, where glass and steel structures coexist with an amalgam of prideful plywood and galavanise houses, and where the doubles man sells hot curry on the side of the road near Woodbrook (home of international gourmet fare). Trinidad likes to call itself a melting pot but it's more like its national dish- the pelau, the basic ingredients still keep their character when they are mixed and the result is heavenly. Even on my first visit to Trinidad, I remember saying to my mother that I was probably a Trini in a past life- I like mas, I like kaiso, I like pan, I like carnival, I like curry and corn soup and I like pepper too bad!

In fact, a lot of Trinidad reminded me of Grenada. Too much of it. A mahogany toned Rasta selling intricate leather slippers and bags that reminded me of a mountain "jola". A crowded market stall brimming with the aroma of metal-hot pepper sauce and steaming curry. Local restaurants tucked in between a shoe store and a shopping centre with surly service (why can't Caribbean people get this right?) but they slowly and eventually win you over with dishes so vibrant and tasty and unusual (rice an pig tail cookup) that you forgive it. A stray dog liming in the road. And a baby faced youth with a straw hat asking "Fresh coconut water for you miss?" This time Trinidad reminded me of Grenada so much so that I had a sense of the invincible, of walking on my own territory and home-turf and my friend and local Trinis constantly had to remind me "Yuh in Trinidad.. hold you bag close to you... don't let nobody hear yuh mix-up Grenada English accent...doh ask nobody no question, doh let dem know yuh from foreign... doh wear that dress, it look too English". Doh do this doh do that. At times I really thought I had entered Baghdad. I went to Bethlehem last year, an occupied territory, and even there I didn't feel this sense of precaution and uneasiness.

It began again and culminated "Doh go in Brass Fete, dey go rob yuh. Doh go in Insomnia General. Doh go Soca Monarch General- yuh mad, yuh ehn know who dere. Yuh hadda go VVIP". VVIP? Explain. It was explained to me that there was an economic stratification of fetes. General- which costs about $200 EC (£20). VIP (Very Important Persons) which costs $400 (40) and the pinnacle, VVIP (Very Very Important Persons) ($600) (£65). Ah set ah assness.

Some fetes did not have this stratification but they were there by default- Beach House and Lara Fete cost $750(£75) and $1300 (£130) respectively, far out of the reach of the average Trinidad citizen. With this stratification there is an obvious social demarcation. I had not encountered anything like this before (except maybe on Bobby's Trinidad inspired summer cruise) and I don't know whether it exists in the rest of the Caribbean. Of course, I am familiar with VIP or premium tickets at international events but this was the first time there was this connotation or connection of these words with class. I was told that the people buying general tickets were naturally the less well to do Trinidadians, but not only were they deemed to be less well off, they were also assumed to be an unsafe wild crowd (as opposed to be just out to have a good time) who would take every opportunity to prey, steal and attack, a "different class ah people- Doh go there wid no bag" I was told. In other words the general patrons were regarded as corbeaux. VIP was an aspirational category. Fuckery by another name (excuse me French). Not quite as good as VVIP but you were trying, you were on the up. You wouldn't get robbed but there would be no amenities. ("Who de hell need amenities in ah fete?). So to place yourself out of the reach of the ordinary people, the girl who work she ass off in Samaroos to save up for she one ticket, the guy who come with all his padnas on his day off from his hard construction job, you need to go sit down on a bench, with a few other people whose noses are stiff from being pointed upwards for so long, and view Soca Monarch like it's a damn opera. "Was that Patrice? Oh Patrice. She is mmmmarvelllous dahling" Applause.


Professor Bridget Brereton published an article on post colonial Trinidad. It said "During the generations of emancipation, Trinidad was clearly a segmented society made or different sectors... divided primarily by national origin and race... but also by education and economic position. The segments formed a hierarchy, with one clearly dominant and the others clearly subordinate". Professor Brereton would be appalled to know that this very passage could be applied to some issues and segments of society in Trinidad today.

It has always confused me as to why Grenada merely two heartbeats from Trinidad does not face the issues of crime and cold hearted violence in quite the same way. Surely, of all the Caribbean islands, we are probably most similar in culture and identity. We eat the same food, tell the same jokes, use the same dialect and yes, half of Grenada is in Trinidad. (After this article, they might put them out!). Yes, we are a lot smaller but size is no shield to violence. I am no sociologist but I think that this racial and economic formation I noted is a big part of the answer. Apart from a very very select few (less than 1% I would say) who can be tucked away in Lance Aux Epines and True Blue, the rest of Grenada for the most part coexists - the big wall house in the Villa St Mark's started from a small board house and is aspirational to the rest of the board house dwellers, we work in the same Ministries, we ride on the same buses, we go to the same hospital, we attend the same fetes, we pay the same price .The Trinidad story therefore is a warning to us that the wealth of a nation can be a curse and that its unequal distribution can rob a country of its cohesion.

How can you expect to be left in peace when you turn your noses down and refuse to intermingle with certain sectors of your society? When the line between the haves and the have nots are drawn and displayed even in the way you party, what leavest thou for this line in areas where it really matters- education, healthcare, jobs? I am afraid to ask or even to enquire. Professor Nunez of City University New York explores this theme in her fiction- there is for instance health care for the poor, and a much higher standard or healthcare for those who can afford to pay. I am not saying that this does not exist elsewhere but I think perhaps this socio-economic line is drawn rather harshly and loudly and the people who are on the wrong side of it perhaps feel wronged.

Violence is often the exteriorisation of frustration with the status quo. Sure there are some people who are just "bad minded" but when citizens are treated like they are second class, they often respond with a boomerang reverberation and protest where it hurts. Why shouldn't they have what you have? Why shouldn't they sip wine within a gated community and earn $20,000 TT a month? Why should just you be living the high life, sending your children to the best schools and living at the upper echelons of society while their children are surviving on a diet of flour dumpling and Solo? We all know that Trinidad's wealth has not trickled down to a majority of the masses and this surge in violence and crime, may just be born of severe discontent and "fedupness" with the status quo. They smell your fear when you walk through the streets of Port of Spain, afraid to engage in dialogue, clutching your Coach handbag. They can see you through the fences in VVIP swigging your champagne and flaunting what you have. They know that you that you wouldn't choose to associate with them. They don't think it's fair that on their wages alone they can't visit their own clubs or play in the extortionate carnival bands. They resent the fact that you can. So they think its fair play to stick your wives up in the streets, threaten to rape them, to kidnap your daughters and to stab, shoot and kill, to break into your house and steal your ipods and blackberries and laptops because they have nothing more to lose and the chance to gain at least, just a little bit of your life, your privilege.


I still love Trinidad. And I could still live there. It's just a pity these issues of inclusion and separateness are not being addressed head on because I sincerely believe in Haile Selassie's prophecy that "until there are no longer first class and second class citizens of any nation... that until that day, the dream of lasting peace and universal morality will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued and never attained"


(Ah know de Trinis go have plenty to say but doh worry- Grenada own coming up soon!)