Kevin Baldeosingh
Unlike most religious leaders, Pastor Winston Cuffie always backs up his claims with proof, usually by manufacturing it.
You see, Cuffie is a man who became the country's best-known pastor by claiming to perform miracles, hence the name of his church: Miracle Ministries (Fully Air-Conditioned). In other words, Pastor Cuffie never found it sufficient to claim that he has the power of God–instead, he had to demonstrate it by curing illnesses ranging from cancer to diabetes, but not poor fashion sense.
People under 30 years of age might not know that this is Pastor Cuffie's claim to fame, though, because he stopped performing miracles around the same time that he became a multi-millionaire: hence proving that the real miracle was that God created so many gullible people with money to give him.
Even so, Pastor Cuffie never changed his approach in respect to proof, and so a couple weeks ago he published a full-page newspaper ad of his fourth daughter graduating from the University of London this year: but, social media soon revealed, photo-shopped her into a 2013 graduation picture at the institution sandwiching her between two East Asian girls and removing the bespectacled girl with a short skirt who was originally in the photograph.
Now, since his daughter apparently did graduate, why did Pastor Cuffie feel the need to fake a photo of her? Did he think nobody would believe he has a daughter with a degree from foreign unless they saw her among white people in full colour? Did he not like the looks of the people she actually sat next to in the 2016 ceremony? Or does he just want to be known as Pastor Cuffie Shop?
It is very odd, especially since his daughter seems to have a real degree from an accredited university. Even more odd was Pastor Cuffie's congregants leaping to his defence by quoting Matthew 7:1-3 "Judge not lest ye be judged," never mind that they do that to homosexuals and humanists and shrimp in tomato sauce all the time. But, since the fake pic was quickly removed from the Miracle Ministries online page, the oddest aspect is that Pastor Cuffie was apparently worried that this incident might harm his image.
In fact, nothing is less likely to happen, except Jesus's second coming. After all, Pastor Cuffie's "PhD" didn't stop the Ministry of Education giving him a licence to open a secondary school, or even object to the purple uniform. Nor did then-Prime Minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar consider it inappropriate to give him the Chaconia Medal (Gold) in 2011.
I myself think letting someone like him make children wear purple trousers is equivalent to child abuse, and giving him a national award proves that community service includes writing gushing ads in praise of the Prime Minister. But I am just a peewat writer, whereas Pastor Cuffie is an eminent and wealthy citizen, and his careless approach to proof is not unique to him nor, indeed, religious believers.
For example, last year the Women's Institute for Alternative Development and the infamous Institute of Gender Studies and Development conducted a survey from which they concluded that T&T women, as a group, are being abused by T&T men, as a group.
How did they prove this? By interviewing abused women, organisations which help abused women and activists who help abused women. This was their proof because, according to feminist theory, "truth is individual or paramount." In other word, anecdote trumps data.
Similarly, in a panel discussion at the recently concluded Bocas Literary Festival, the head of the Equal Opportunities Commission Lynette Seebaran Suite allegedly claimed that the average man in T&T earned US$30,000 a year whereas women earn half that.
Yet nobody in the audience challenged this obviously absurd figure, perhaps because the people who go to such events are literate but not numerate. And even if the actual figure was in TT dollars, it would still be irrelevant since women spend nine times as much as men, which is why 90 per cent of the stores in malls cater to them.
So this is why we should not be too hard on Pastor Cuffie, since the only proof Trinbagonians are really concerned about is the puncheon they drink.
–Kevin Baldeosingh is a professional writer, author of three novels, and co-author of a Caribbean history textbook.