jamaat leader yasin abu bakr surrenders on maraval road, port of spain
Dear Trinis,
Y’all are our family, but let’s be honest—we Bajans have to say what we see. We’ve been watching you on the news, fretting about the big, scary, hypothetical war happening just a short, chaotic pirogue ride from Port of Spain, and we have one simple observation to make, delivered with a shake of the head and the deepest Barbadian pity: You couldn’t manage Abu Bakr. How you planning to handle a real conflict?
Now, before you start telling us to mind our own business, think back to 1990. A man with a megaphone and about a hundred of his friends walks into Parliament, holds the government hostage for six days. What was the true national response? The military was involved, yes, but the overwhelming citizen reaction was not a unified democratic protest; it was a spontaneous, fire-sale fete of looting. You didn’t see an assault on democracy; you saw a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a free fridge. Your biggest national security threat wasn’t the man with the gun; it was the stampede for the sneaker store. It took six whole days for the whole thing to wrap up, and the main thing damaged was your national credibility.
A real war, between Venezuela and the US, is a serious, large-scale, international incident. But we Bajans, with our quiet efficiency, know exactly where Trinidad would fall apart: the logistics of the lime.
War requires efficiency, speed, and disciplined bureaucracy. We see how long it takes your Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) to fix a burst pipe in Curepe—sometimes weeks! If a Venezuelan submarine launches a stray torpedo that takes out a single T&TEC utility pole, the whole nation would go dark. Not from the blast, but from the three weeks of inter-ministerial meetings required to decide which contractor to hire, followed by the six public holidays required to complete the necessary paperwork. The invading force wouldn’t need to bomb you; they’d just need to request a building permit from the local town council and watch the system collapse under its own weight.
Furthermore, a major war means supply lines are cut. Here in Barbados, we panic if we run out of Flying Fish and Bajan sweet bread, but in Trinidad, if the flow of essential ingredients were halted, your nation would be over in 72 hours. This wouldn’t be due to starvation, but because of a massive, civilization-ending shortage of Chadons Bene (culantro) to season the meat. Resistance stops when the seasoning is weak. Besides, you can’t fight a war without a cold Carib and the requisite ice for a proper lime.
Finally, war requires stealth and strategic silence, yet you are a people who turn a traffic delay into an impromptu roadside party. The US Navy would be trying to conduct covert night-time operations in the Gulf of Paria, only to be constantly intercepted by a fishing trawler blasting Machel Montano so loud that it registers on the Richter scale. The whole island would accidentally expose its position because someone felt the urgent need to wine dramatically on the jetty while holding a flashlight.
So, Trini, please relax. Don’t worry about the US or Venezuela. You’re safe for one reason: no serious army will invade a country where the simple task of securing a loaf of bread requires an act of God and two hours of waiting. If you want to survive, start practicing discipline.