IT'S DIFFICULT to calculate that a national tragedy which tore out the soul of a nation could be made worse.
This, however, is TT.
The deaths of four divers, entombed in the dark, bereft of hope without knowing it, was and is a horror too malevolent for most of us to process. Yet this unprecedented catastrophe was met with the casual Trini incompetence, bungling and insensitivity that are our stock-in-trade. This was a terror that called for resolute leadership, contingency planning and, above all else, strident empathy.
It was a call that would go unanswered.
This column offers no opinion on the cause of the accident. With the announcement of a commission of enquiry, we can get the transparency, accountability and justice that this tragedy deserves - in theory, anyway.
In the meantime, what we do know about this industrial accident is troubling enough. The chaotic handling of the crisis, the bizarre communications "strategy" of Paria management, the contemptuous treatment of victims' families. It all played out in public with familiar callous amateurism.
We saw shades of this in the helter-skelter tackling of the Venezuelan migrant crisis, the comprehensively botched vaccine registration process - virtually any challenge that demands logistics or basic planning.
Still, with human lives hanging in the balance, some of us hoped hidden competencies would surface and take charge. In TT, it's hope itself that crushes the spirit.
Judging by the comments online, the nation was reeling. That fact seemed completely lost on the Prime Minister, in whose name a terse, officious and patently sterile press release was issued remarking on the incident.
The statement concluded thusly, "It is in times like these that we are called upon to be caring and comforting and I have every confidence that our nation will not be found wanting."
The caring and comforting expected of everyone else, it seems, was wanting in the PM. The unfolding tragedy demanded nothing less than a meeting with the families by the leader of this country. Such a gesture would have shown solidarity with the grief of relatives and, by extension, a traumatised nation in need of commiseration. This, apparently, couldn't be managed.
The PNM junta, dutifully defending the PM, has suggested that had he gone to meet with the bereaved he would have borne the brunt of their hurt and frustration.
Yes. That's the job. To confront anguish with a moderating influence that acknowledges the pain and offers the assurance of answers, justice and empathy. That's what leadership looks like.
The President of the republic, Paula-Mae Weekes, didn't fare much better. On this matter it would have been best if she had stuck to her customary absence, rattling around in President's House like a phantasm of that colonial appendix.
The release issued in her name, apart from its lazy brevity, was replete with numbing insensitivity.
The very first line in that statement was problematic: "Last weekend, the entire country held its breath..." Apparently
