post-colonial post-utopia

Somewhere in between the crowded beds of Port of Spain General and the murders that litter every tabloid page, you’ll probably find the dying nationalist dreams of our independence era. I’m not sure of exactly when or exactly how it got there but I’m certain that it did. If the old folks are right, at some point in time in our histories we had dreams of nation building, cultural autonomy and all that good stuff, now we dream of metropolitan educations and metropolitan passports.



Not that I’m treading on anyone’s vision of success. Like most of my “peeps”, I also can’t imagine anything short of a scruffy/cultured/unstable off white boy and a seven figure salary that could make me want to spend to the rest of my life in Trinidad. But as I pack my suitcases for the long voyage to expatriate glory I can’t help but wonder how it all got like this. How a fiercely nationalist, 1960’s Trinidad grew to have the third highest rate of emigration per capita in the world.



I think part of it has to do with culture. There are a lot of kids out there who are simply bored out of their panties with most of Trinidad’s cultural/entertainment offerings. You’ll see us sleeping on the barstool of sky, against the plastic trees in zen or on top your unwashed (ex?)boyfriends saying that we’re tired/drunk/sorry but what we really mean is please give us something better to do. Not that stimulating alternatives are going to make people feel safer leaving their houses or create jobs for Yale graduates with their PhD.’s in 16th century East-Persian erotic poetry, that only god and some opportune kidney cancer (Manning joke!) can see to. But, I definitely think they’re a small start towards a Trinidad that heavy boozing artsy fags and Nabokov reading scholastic over achievers alike could feel more at home with.