Left right
Left right
in the government boots
the government boots
-Boots, Gabby
Ask your mother. This is not a rhetorical question. Ask your mother how we got to be here. What was the series of unfortunate events that led to this abomination of a Minister of National Security. Ask her for me, if she had a relative who was there when they killed the policeman Charlie King in Fyzabad in 1937. When the colonial authorities sent them for Butler and the crowd refused to let them take him. Ask your mother about how he used to disappear. How they called him an extremist. How they branded him as too radical to be in government. How they put Albert Gomes as Chief Minister instead.
Ask your mother if you had any nana or nani who got shot down in cold blood at Balidan Tola in 1884. When Captain Baker, that son of a who cut he navel-string, read the riot act and they shot down and killed over 100 jahajees from plantations all across the country who were marching for their right to celebrate themselves.
Ask your mother for me if anybody calls their names, aside from Uncle Ravi ji and his small determined army of Kendra warriors. Ask your mother how come there are no monuments to them. Ask her how we could be independent for a whole 50 years and already we forget about certain people who made it possible for us to be here.
They say Tantie Elizabeth was fed up of us anyway. How they sign a document and just like that we ended up free. Ask your mother for me if there was never anybody who ever stood up for Trinidad, ever. Ask your mother about CLR James. Ask her how Uncle Nello felt when the bright boy he mentored named Eric, whom he helped vision a party called the People's National Movement, then turned and put him under house arrest. Ask your mother if we will ever learn what respect is.
Ask your mother for me if she remembers April 6, 1970. When a policeman shot Basil Davis in cold blood outside Woodford Square. Ask your mother if she remembers the thousands of people who took to the streets for his funeral. Ask her. Ask your mother where she was when the news broke that there was a mutiny at Teteron. Ask her what it was like to think that the soldiers were on the side of the people. Ask her what it was like to think that they were not just unfeeling robots, following orders from superiors who have nothing but contempt for poor people. Embarrassed perhaps by their own illiterate grandmother.
Ask your mother. Ask her if she remembers when her mother got a nervous breakdown because that bald head man used to send one of his Flying Squad members to tell them about the bullet they had for her daughter. Ask your mother the shade of red the St Joseph river ran when they killed Guy Harewood. Ask her about the haunted look in the eyes of the portrait of Beverly Jones in the living room.
Ask your mother where she was in 1986 when they sent the Guard and Emergency Branch to beat anti-apartheid protesters outside the Oval. Ask your mother how she felt the day in September 2006 when they sent the army to the camp on Foodcrop Road in Chatham, the day they pick up Burton Sankeralli like a bag of aloo and they point guns at children.
Ask your mother how she felt about Papa Patos and his megalomanical ways. The way he sneered at his own people like they were worthless than the dust of the 800 acres laid bare to build their smelter. Ask your mother how many people she sent to the St James Police Station to tell them that the law against drumming in public was repealed in 2002. Ask your mother how many messages she left on your phone begging you not go and shout at the police. Ask your mother if she saw Shivonne make the policeman cry.
Ask your mother if she remembers how many of the current government were there in the St James Amphitheatre. Defending the right for communities' voices to be heard. Offering their support. Promising to change things once and for all. Time pass, Trinidad nice. We forget. We always forget. Or maybe we remember. We remember what they don't tell our children about what passed before. We remember what the media omit or fail to make connections to.
Call your mother and ask her. Ask her if you should come back home. Ask her if we really like it so. Ask her if we will ever stop repeating the mistakes of our history. Ask your mother if we will ever grow up. Ask her if we will ever have leaders who don't behave powerful stupid and antagonise communities because they can. Ask her if there will ever be a time when the police do protect and serve instead of abuse and intimidate. Ask her for me. I hope she has answers.
