Gordon Robinson | The essence of CARICOM

The ink hadn’t dried on last Tuesday’s column before this facety query arrived from a Gleaner editor:

“Teacher, how you preaching English and yuh misspell ‘practice’ as a verb?”

This is the same Nosey Parker editor with whom I once had a contentious “discussion” as to whether the adjective from “indiscipline” was, as I knew it, “indisciplined” or, as he contended, “undisciplined”. He won.

There’s that pirate’s parrot perching on my shoulder again. Aaarrrggghhh!

The worst part about his unwelcome intrusion was the difference between “practice” (noun) and “practise” (verb) has been a buzzing insect under my car’s hood forever. Yet (I double-checked) last Tuesday’s column contained this linguistic atrocity: “Why are we asked to practice the oxymoron ‘social distance’ when what they really want us to practice is ‘physical distance’?”

TWICE! As a “practicing” lawyer, this is disastrous. Then I just realised what had gone wrong. Looking back, I noticed that my American computer arrogantly changed what I typed (“practising”) to “practicing”. Aha! So, Smarty Pants, as Orville Burrell taught, “It wasn’t me!” Nyaaaaah!

Speaking of Shaggy, his mantra seems a Caribbean philosophy. Recent breaking news suggested mercenaries strolled into the Haitian president’s home unhindered by inconveniences like security officers and slaughtered Jovenel Moïse. Already, it’s rumoured as being foreign interventionists’ fault.

Sigh. Generally (Barbados a standout exception), Caribbean nations won’t accept that they’re the authors of their destinies. Recently, I was speaking to a bright, beautiful Bajan lady and argued that the difference between Barbados and Jamaica is Barbados recognises Barbadians as the most valuable resource so ensured (before Sandiford) that all were tertiary educated. Except for a brief period in the 1970s, not so here!

A TRINIDADIAN PERSPECTIVE

Here’s a Trinidadian perspective from the legendary Lord Kitchener:

A Bajan and a Trinidadian

dying wit’ starvation.

Di Bajan say

Look, Trini, le’ we make a cook.

I put di rice, you going put di meat

Den we going both have something to eat.

But when the pot was nearly to done,

di Ba jan decide to pull a fast one.

Bajans’ superior education out-thinks and outwits CARICOM neighbours.

He said, Trini

I’m a born Barbajan

I don’t like to foight.

But when come to the occasion

Man, I stick for my roight

You put in a twelve cents meat bone

Yu wuss than a lice

I going give you a word of advice

Take yu meat out mi roice!

It gets better,

Trini got in a big rage.

Wha’ wrong with you, Baj?

I goan’ tell you flat,

Baj, I ain’t taking that.

When we were shopping we both agree

di food will be cook and share equally

I put mi last penny in this meat

And I ain’t moving until I eat.

But did Baj REALLY say that? Review Baj’s clever misdirection. He eventually unveils his con to a dumbfounded Trini.

Di Bajan then said to Trini

Man, don’t tell loies ’pon me

I never told you

that we goin’ join and cook up in two

What I mention I can repeat

I said to lend me a piece of meat.

Trini so vex, he begin to cry.

Baj, in front mi eye, you tellin a lie!

Verbally battered and bruised Trini is in a daze. Overeducated Baj lays the hammer down:

By dis time di pot finish

Trini pick up a dish

The Bajan said no! no! no!

Never happen so!

If yu wanted something to eat

Man, take a fork and pick out yu meat

But if yu add one grain a rice,

bi Crise, I squeeze yu t’roat like a vice.

If Claude Joseph, Haiti’s seventh PM in five years, travelled to fantasyland Apocrypha and asked Oma D’unn, solver of political problems by parable, how Haiti could dig out of the shambles into which it inserted itself, Oma would tell Claude to import a Bajan MP. Then Oma would tell the Bajan Backbenchers’ story.

Budget debate was raging, but two opposing backbenchers, bored at senior colleagues’ ramblings, met in the Parliamentary vestibule.

One MP: ‘I know how to solve Barbados’ economic problems.’

Second MP: ‘How?’

‘Simple,’ first MP explained, ‘Declare war against USA.’

‘WHAT?’

‘Germany did do it. Germany one of di richest countries now. Japan did do it. Japan richer than USA. All we gotta do is declare war against USA.’

Second MP thought for a while then asked, ‘But what happen if we win?’

Ah, education. Sometimes we can get too much of it.

Peace and love!

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.