IT WAS billed as a national day of prayer, but it was more like a national day of buff.

Among the speakers at Sunday's event held at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann's, was President Paula-Mae Weekes, who used the opportunity to chide people over how they have responded - or rather, not responded - to the covid19 crisis.

At a time of intense political divisiveness, Ms Weekes can normally be relied on to tell it as it is: to speak truth to power and edify and inspire the population.

Her address to the nation on Sunday did not meet her normally high, judicious standard, however.

Prayer and reflection did not prevent the President from falling into error when, in a clumsy and distracting rhetorical aside during a pre-recorded segment, she characterised the national identity as having a 'somewhat schizophrenic nature.'

'We exhibit the disorder in its classic dictionary definition,' opined Ms Weekes, who was a judge before becoming president. The symptoms: a breakdown between thought, emotion and behaviour, leading to delusions and contradictory impulses.

The President surely had the best of intentions. Nonetheless, her analogy was thoughtless and inaccurate. It managed to trivalise schizophrenia while also being completely unsympathetic to the real emotional distress and turmoil the population has been going through.

The fact that the remark came on the eve of World Schizophrenia Day, which was observed on Monday, made it all the more tone-deaf.

While schizophrenia is not as common as other mental illnesses, its prevalence is high in this country. Some years ago, a team of researchers at King's College London and the University of the West Indies found rates of psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia in TT higher than expected, based on previous international research (26.5 per 100,000 person-years.)

In the context of a society that is sometimes dismissive, if not downright negligent, when it comes to addressing mental health issues, the President should be genuinely raising awareness - not using careless analogies to make a rhetorical point.

While we look upon this aspect of Ms Weekes's speech with disfavour, we nonetheless still concur with her more general call for national unity at what has been a time of national disunity.

At least the President struck a less abrasive tone than other leaders and officials, who have hectored the population to no real effect.

If we blame the population for being lax, we must also blame leaders for stoking divisions and for not finding more effective ways of communicating basic information. They are also to blame for not providing enough social support and for not finding enough vaccines.

'Why did we have to get to this point?' the President asked.

In seeking a diagnosis for the country's current quandary, at least, she was correct.

The post Mistaken mindset appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.

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