SOME HOPEFUL SIGNS

I DIDN'T watch The Human Body the first night it aired on TV6. But
when I heard they were repeating the first episode due to public
demand, I tuned in to see what had so fascinated viewers.

It wasn't the naked people, who are obviously chosen for their
plainness.

But the series is extremely well-done and, what is more important,
scientifically up-to-date.

In this land where superstition is so pervasive, and where pleasure in
knowledge seems virtually non-existent, I was frankly surprised that a
series like The Human Body should be aired at all. That some people
were interested enough to call in to ask for a repeat was even more
surprising.

This, after all, was an episode in which the presenter, pointing out
all the trauma a woman's body undergoes when pregnant--pressure on the
heart, spleen and liver squeezed, spine twisted--remarked, "It seems as
though our bodies are badly designed for pregnancy. And that, of
course, is the point: our bodies aren't designed at all." (I can only
assume that the lack of protest from Pentecostal pastors means that
they have been too busy watching cable to know that such blasphemy is
being aired on local TV.)

Mind you, I've always been aware that there's an interest in science
out there. Smaller bookstores like Lexicon do carry popular books on
cosmology, physics and biology, and even chains like RIK occasionally
have some good texts (though they invariably put them next to books
about palmistry and interpreting dreams).

I was surprised again some weeks ago when Ken Ramchand got up in
Parliament and called for the decriminalisation of weed. Apart from
Emile Elias, I can't think of another prominent person who has made
such a bold and honest statement in public. Predictably, Ramchand has
been getting pounded ever since by people who have no interest in
rational discussion.

(These people's dotishness is shown most clearly by their argument that
young people would be influenced by Ramchand's admission. Only adults
who know nothing about young people, and who have forgotten their own
youth, could believe that youths would be influenced by what
respectable adults think. If anything, Ramchand may have made youths
feel that marijuana is not cool.)

The fact that tobacco and alcohol are much more harmful than
marijuana, and that the only reason those drugs are legal and
marijuana is not is that the latter was a crop best produced in poor
countries, whereas the former had vested interests in the rich
nations--such facts mean nothing to people who cannot think for
themselves.

Yet the illegal substance of Senator Ramchand's statement is not as
significant as the statement itself. Hypocrisy, in my view, has
undermined our society more than any other single factor. If,
therefore, we can have more people from our elites being so forthright
and rational, then our development may accelerate faster than we have
any right to expect.

I was also somewhat encouraged by the results of a survey carried out
by the Trinidad and Tobago Transparency Institute, which found that
nearly 91 per cent of its respondents thought politicians were corrupt,
80 per cent thought business people were the same, and 92 per cent want
corruption stamped out.

Mind you, I'm pretty sure that 99 per cent of those same persons
surveyed, if they were politicians or businessmen, would behave exactly
like those who are actually in those roles. But the survey does imply
that there is an awareness of ethical standards which will become
reality in time (barring economic hardship or political regression or
religious/racial conflict--and there are easily identified individuals
and groups working assiduously to bring about one or more of those
things).

My other reasons to feel encouraged are mostly personal. There is my
niece, Shirlena, whom I think is an average five-year-old. But she
already uses words like "disrupt" in sentences and, when I asked her
teasingly some weeks ago what was the difference between her and a
little monkey, she replied, "Monkeys don't have a thumb."

There are also the responses I get to my column in this paper. More
than half the people who write me are in their late teens or early 20s.
I cannot help but feel optimistic when young people display interest in
the kind of issues I deal with here. (What is even more interesting is
that most young people who write just to say they like the column
usually mention my clear writing style, whereas several older people
have complained that my writing is hard to follow.)

All of this is trivial enough, and maybe I'm just a drowning man
clutching at straws. But enough straws can make a raft once (to kill
the metaphor dead dead) you keep your head above water. That's good
enough for now.