This statement is attributed to Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France before the French Revolution, upon being told that the peasants had no bread.
It conjures up a sense of insensitivity and suffering of citizens.
In Trinidad and Tobago, it is clear that the lockdown restrictions and the Covid-19 pandemic are being mishandled by the Dr Keith Rowley-led Government at this time.
As I sit home on yet another weekend lockdown with further restrictions, I wonder what exactly was the purpose of them this weekend of the Labour Day public holiday and Father’s Day.
All it has managed to do is cause more frustration, depression and hardship for our citizens. We are not seeing a light at the end of this tunnel and it has been a total failure, in my humble view, to keep citizens indoors last weekend and more to come, as it increased the anxiety of the population and caused a mad dash since Thursday morning to late Friday afternoon to buy much needed necessities that we would require over the weekend.
This resulted in a jam up of the roadways with gridlock traffic along Churchill Roosevelt Highway and the Uriah Butler Highway. The long lines of people seen without proper social distancing at the major supermarkets across the country were another disappointing sight and unforeseen by an out of touch Government which does not understand their own people that voted them into power.
Clearly, the Government is out of touch with the average citizen and how we live in T&T. The leaders are too aloof, so much so that they truly have lost touch with the common man as the French monarchy in the 18th Century. The Rowley-led Government does not understand how the small man or woman lives during these hard times and especially during the pandemic.
Daily-paid people are on the breadline barely making ends meet with little to no income stream, while dealing with lost of their livelihoods and the lives of their loved ones.
They just have nowhere to turn and many are unable to access the relief programmes by the Government, unable to pay their utility bills far less to buy food to provide basic necessities for their families.
They are however, continually asked to stay home, to not venture out and not to gather, while in fact, the lockdowns are having the opposite effect. They cause anxiety and increased hardships on the daily-paid workers and people that live day-to-day with minimum wages.
That is why the phrase “let them eat cake” is so pertinent to this Government to take heed as they have lost touch with the population and this course of action of only opening up limited times, 5am to 10 am, during a public holiday has had the opposite of what the Government is trying to prevent.
It will be difficult to survive the social and economic fallout as post Covid-19 restrictions continue to impact on our civil and human rights. When a family is infected with the coronavirus after being exposed at a line up for food, the domino effect is obvious. More death to their family members and livelihoods as the whole family is now forced into quarantine. This situation is further exacerbated as family members contract the virus are not allowed to earn any cash to assist the family to survive during these harsh times and the cycle continues.
Empathy has been abandoned with blatant disregard of citizens’ feelings and hardships.
Unless we take stock of the situation and implement social support to assist the small man, we are doomed to eat the cake that the devil kneaded.
Neil Gosine is an insurance executive, the North East Regional Coordinator of the United National Congress and a former chairman of NP. The comments and opinions expressed by him in this column are not necessary those of AZPNews.com, a division of Complete Image Limited.
T&T’s Lockdown Measures Not Working
LET them eat cake!
This statement is attributed to Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France before the French Revolution, upon being told that the peasants had no bread.
It conjures up a sense of insensitivity and suffering of citizens.
In Trinidad and Tobago, it is clear that the lockdown restrictions and the Covid-19 pandemic are being mishandled by the Dr Keith Rowley-led Government at this time.
As I sit home on yet another weekend lockdown with further restrictions, I wonder what exactly was the purpose of them this weekend of the Labour Day public holiday and Father’s Day.
All it has managed to do is cause more frustration, depression and hardship for our citizens. We are not seeing a light at the end of this tunnel and it has been a total failure, in my humble view, to keep citizens indoors last weekend and more to come, as it increased the anxiety of the population and caused a mad dash since Thursday morning to late Friday afternoon to buy much needed necessities that we would require over the weekend.
This resulted in a jam up of the roadways with gridlock traffic along Churchill Roosevelt Highway and the Uriah Butler Highway. The long lines of people seen without proper social distancing at the major supermarkets across the country were another disappointing sight and unforeseen by an out of touch Government which does not understand their own people that voted them into power.
Clearly, the Government is out of touch with the average citizen and how we live in T&T. The leaders are too aloof, so much so that they truly have lost touch with the common man as the French monarchy in the 18th Century. The Rowley-led Government does not understand how the small man or woman lives during these hard times and especially during the pandemic.
Daily-paid people are on the breadline barely making ends meet with little to no income stream, while dealing with lost of their livelihoods and the lives of their loved ones.
They just have nowhere to turn and many are unable to access the relief programmes by the Government, unable to pay their utility bills far less to buy food to provide basic necessities for their families.
They are however, continually asked to stay home, to not venture out and not to gather, while in fact, the lockdowns are having the opposite effect. They cause anxiety and increased hardships on the daily-paid workers and people that live day-to-day with minimum wages.
That is why the phrase “let them eat cake” is so pertinent to this Government to take heed as they have lost touch with the population and this course of action of only opening up limited times, 5am to 10 am, during a public holiday has had the opposite of what the Government is trying to prevent.
It will be difficult to survive the social and economic fallout as post Covid-19 restrictions continue to impact on our civil and human rights. When a family is infected with the coronavirus after being exposed at a line up for food, the domino effect is obvious. More death to their family members and livelihoods as the whole family is now forced into quarantine. This situation is further exacerbated as family members contract the virus are not allowed to earn any cash to assist the family to survive during these harsh times and the cycle continues.
Empathy has been abandoned with blatant disregard of citizens’ feelings and hardships.
Unless we take stock of the situation and implement social support to assist the small man, we are doomed to eat the cake that the devil kneaded.
Neil Gosine is an insurance executive, the North East Regional Coordinator of the United National Congress and a former chairman of NP. The comments and opinions expressed by him in this column are not necessary those of AZPNews.com, a division of Complete Image Limited.