Commentary
Marina Salandy-Brown
It is anybody’s guess how many millions of people await tomorrow with a mixture of enthusiasm and apprehension.
For us in TT, it is a day of reckoning. We will know in a few hours, when the much-awaited budget is presented, whether the government has made the hard choices necessary to enable our country to escape from the economic hole we have been digging ourselves into, or if it lacks the courage to do so and will commit us to an abysmal future.
For the Palestinians, it is nothing short of their Armageddon, although some might argue that day had already come. The world wants to believe the 20-point plan to end the Gaza war, which President Trump is credited with forcing upon Israeli PM Netanyahu and the Palestinian militant group Hamas last week, is the beginning of a real end to armed conflict.
Tomorrow Hamas should start releasing the remaining 45 Israeli hostages, assuming 250 Palestinian prisoners have been released following Israelis’ accepting the deal. It is only the first stage of a plan to end the Gaza war, but there is no guarantee that the promise of tomorrow will be realised. By the time this column is published, all the dreams and hopes of the many millions might have been dashed.
At the moment of writing, the divided Israeli government still has not approved the outline peace deal, and Hamas, while announcing that a deal has been struck, is still arguing over the details.
It is hard to see how Hamas benefits, since once all the hostages (dead and alive) are released, it loses its bargaining chip. Furthermore, it will no longer be a viable political entity or fighting force after agreeing to disarm.
The Israelis, for their part, have already proven to be unreliable. They broke a ceasefire earlier this year and Netanyahu insists he is determined to destroy Hamas. It is hard to see what he, in particular, gets out of the deal. Prolonging the war and staying out of jail for umpteen felonies and possibly genocide, too, are Netanyahu’s prime interests, but it is rumoured that he overstepped when Israel murdered Qataris – Trump allies – on Qatari soil along with members of Hamas leadership during peace talks. Mr Trump apparently decided to take him down. The saying goes, never trust a desperate person.
The unbelievably wretched, genocidal war started on October 7, 2023, when Hamas sprang an equally wretched and totally unexpected attack, murdering over 1,200 Jewish people who were at home and at play, and taking 251 more hostage.
The scale of Israeli retaliation and vengeance upon the people of Gaza is of epic proportions –67,000 people – 70 per cent children and women – slaughtered, 1.1 million displaced, 170,000 maimed, hundreds starved to death, their homes, schools, hospitals and 78 per cent of Gaza’s infrastructure destroyed. Hundreds more journalists, medics and international aid and peace workers have been killed, deliberately and accidentally, by Israeli forces. The overall death toll is approaching 100,000, according to some sources. It is the price of putting Palestine back on the world’s agenda.
It may not feel like a similar question of life and death for us in TT, but tomorrow’s budget may become the tipping point, the moment when we lose the plot and tumble irrevocably into the abyss we all fear.
Like everywhere else in the world, the gap between the rich and the poor is becoming too wide. Working people and families are feeling the pinch, and it hurts, and when people are in acute pain they lose their reason. They kick out, become susceptible to dogma, negative influences and even deadly behaviour.
It happened here before, several times, in case we forget. The budget has to go a long way to creating the possibility for society to start healing.
It is not just about a trade imbalance, the increase in deficit spending or forex shortages; the budget must show that it is devised to facilitate a better tomorrow. We talk about diversifying the economy and growing our own food. We once did that and newer schemes exist to train educated young farmers and to apportion them land.
The question is, what happens afterwards? How do we make an economy that provides good jobs and markets for innovative new products at home and abroad? How can people feel useful and contribute through paying taxes, which gives them a stake in society? Handouts are a cop-out. Spending strategically on 21st-century education and human development are vital.
We have weak institutions and persist in disconnected government and poor economic planning; therefore it was interesting to hear how certain ministries are being streamlined to become more efficient.
Let’s hope the budget reveals how serious the government is about creating the infrastructure for the private sector to become more productive and aligned to government planning policies.
Let’s hope we have lots to cheer about tomorrow, along with the Palestinians.
