JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Strange dogs were barking

by

20140730

Twice, the colum­nist Raoul Pan­tin has got in the back of my taxi, trav­el­ling in­to Port-of-Spain.

On both oc­ca­sions there was some ma­jor law­less­ness in the news and, on both oc­ca­sions, his open­ing gam­bit was, "See every­thing what go­ing on in this coun­try? It can be traced di­rect­ly back to 1990."

In the near­ly quar­ter of a cen­tu­ry that has passed since Abu Bakr's boys stormed the Red House, the spec­tre of the at­tempt­ed coup has, for that gen­er­a­tion, nev­er gone away. It's one of those things, I've no­ticed, that bare­ly goes a week with­out be­ing men­tioned.

And why would it go away? It's still there in every­body's faces, clear as day.

Ques­tions per­sist. Does Abu Bakr still con­trol (or could at least mo­bilise) a crim­i­nal em­pire, ca­pa­ble of an­oth­er coup at­tempt? Is he mid-rung, with enough longevi­ty and pow­er to still ob­tain large con­struc­tion con­tracts for pub­lic projects? Or is he a "re­tired" smooth-talk­er with the charm, charis­ma, rous­ing voice and steely gaze of some­body to­tal­ly un­afraid of reprisals, de­spite his past ac­tions?

I saw his abil­i­ty to charm, first-hand, a month af­ter I ar­rived in Trinidad.

To mark the 23rd an­niver­sary of the coup, his Ja­maat al Mus­limeen, 100 strong, marched from Wood­ford Square, down Fred­er­ick Street, chant­i­ng "There is on­ly one God, Al­lah." The march end­ed at the Wa­ter­front Tow­ers and he leant against a wall shel­ter­ing from the rain that had be­gun falling on the pa­rade as it had gone along the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade.

The mem­bers of the me­dia ap­peared ner­vous to ap­proach so, in my best cock­ney, I asked him what my ed­i­tor had told me to ask: would he tes­ti­fy at the com­mis­sion of en­quiry?

"How much are they pay­ing the chair­man of the en­quiry?" he replied.

"If they pay me the same, then I'll tes­ti­fy." Soon the cam­eras and tape recorders were gath­ered round, pressed in his face.

I was amazed–with 24 peo­ple hav­ing died in the coup, an es­sen­tial­ly ter­ror­ist act–that they should brazen­ly com­mem­o­rate the act.

As I hur­ried along be­side the marchers I had spot­ted Am­bas­sador Mervyn As­sam, a man who recog­nis­es my face if not nec­es­sar­i­ly my name.

He ac­knowl­edged me, cheer­ful as ever, so I scut­tled over and asked what he thought of the day's events.

"If they want to march, let them march," he said, diplo­mat­i­cal­ly.

Some­times, in Trinidad, it's eas­i­er to let crim­i­nals off. Some­times Trinidad even elects crim­i­nals in­to gov­ern­ment, so I'm told. Abu Bakr says that's why he staged the coup d'etat. The gov­ern­ment-ne­go­ti­at­ed, legal­ly-up­held amnesty paints its own pic­ture.

Pan­tin ar­gues that in a West­ern democ­ra­cy the coup would have end­ed with the army shoot­ing the ter­ror­ists.

Read­ing Pan­tin's Days of Wrath on the beach one day, I put it down to for a sec­ond and a wave came and drenched it.

"It's still read­able," I per­suad­ed the book's lender, our very own ed­i­tor-in-chief, al­though I had to ad­mit that Pan­tin's sig­na­ture–for it had been a signed copy–had been smudged in­to il­leg­i­bil­i­ty.

That the 24th an­niver­sary of 1990 fell so close to Eid this week high­light­ed the ev­i­dent plu­ral­i­ty of mod­ern Is­lam.

Re­li­gion and crim­i­nal gangs are odd bed­fel­lows in most re­li­gions but, in Is­lam, such is its di­ver­si­ty, de­vout wor­ship­pers and sec­u­lar Mus­lims fall un­der the same um­brel­la as po­lit­i­cal ac­tivists and even armed mil­i­tant or­gan­i­sa­tions in­tent on vi­o­lent­ly en­forc­ing Is­lam­ic so­cio-cul­tur­al and re­li­gious be­liefs.

No oth­er cul­ture or re­li­gion has seen such in­fight­ing since the days of the Vikings and their Norse gods.

Alaw­ite and Shia gov­ern­ment troops in Syr­ia fight Sun­nis and Is­lam­ic ji­had fight­ers from else­where, in­clud­ing Britain.

Hamas in Pales­tine, com­mit­ted to op­pos­ing Zion­ism, is at odds with its own Pales­tin­ian Au­thor­i­ty which ac­cepts Is­rael as a Jew­ish state.

But is Bakr (a for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer) re­al­ly a man of God or a man of the gun? How can one be both, I of­ten won­der? God, if he or she ex­ists, does not wish death or killing.

In as much as the Ja­maat con­sists of black con­verts, would take up arms and is re­li­gious­ly syn­cret­ic, it is sim­i­lar to the Na­tion of Is­lam; re­li­gion as ac­com­pa­ni­ment to a com­mu­ni­ty-fo­cused strug­gle.

The fact that Bakr is able to do and say what he pleas­es ap­pears to be symp­to­matic of the state of Trinida­di­an law and or­der.

Promis­ing­ly, his most re­cent mes­sage was one of peace.

"I don't even own a gun," he said, "I have a heart filled with love."

This came just days af­ter he had promised "ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion" against the three high­est se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials in the land, over ar­rests of his men at Cara­po mosque.

Bakr be­lieves he has more con­trol over the crime rate than po­lice do and says that he will "even co-op­er­ate with the po­lice."

Abu too sweet, yes.

In the same Guardian in­ter­view he called Gary Grif­fith a "clown." Which begs the ques­tion, Abu for Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty?

Un­til next week, In­shal­lah.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored