Renu­ka Singh

Leader of the New Na­tion­al Vi­sion (NNV) par­ty Fuad Abu Bakr, son of in­sur­rec­tion­ist Yasin Abu Bakr, is blam­ing pre­vail­ing spec­u­la­tion about a coup on fear-mon­ger­ing by politi­cians. How­ev­er, he warned that ex­ist­ing con­di­tions were ripe for "some­thing to ex­plode."In an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian, the 28-year-old dou­ble de­gree hold­er de­scribed him­self as a busi­ness­man by pro­fes­sion, an ac­tivist by pas­sion, and a politi­cian by ne­ces­si­ty.

"I have found my pur­pose in ser­vice to man and help­ing oth­ers," Abu Bakr said.In an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian at the Femmes du Chalet on the wa­ter­front on Thurs­day, Abu Bakr said he was ini­ti­at­ing a se­ries of "rev­o­lu­tion­ary" po­lit­i­cal strate­gies, and while beat­ing ef­fi­gies of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley was part of that plan, a coup d'etat is not.

"I have a lot left, but I am keep­ing it qui­et. I thought this (beat­ing of the ef­fi­gies) would have passed over a lot quick­er. I am glad it is mak­ing waves the way it is be­cause I have ac­tu­al­ly post­poned plans for oth­er protests," he said.With de­grees in both law and busi­ness, Abu Bakr could be do­ing al­most any­thing else, yet he said he felt com­pelled to en­ter pol­i­tics.

"I refuse to be led un­less it is by some­one with an ide­ol­o­gy. As a young per­son, I feel as though it is time for that gen­er­a­tional shift. I feel as though new blood has to come, peo­ple who don't have the bag­gage," he said.Abu Bakr de­scribed the ru­mours of a sec­ond coup plot as "ex­treme­ly laugh­able," but warned that peo­ple were so frus­trat­ed "things could ex­plode.""You nev­er know," he said.

De­spite that state­ment, Abu Bakr de­nied that he or any groups that he knew were plan­ning a coup."The peo­ple who con­trol our so­ci­ety, they push fear up­on us be­cause if we are afraid we can­not take the time to know each oth­er. They rule by di­vide and con­quer and that is ar­cha­ic pol­i­tics. We need to de­mand bet­ter from them," he said.He said in­stead of point­ing fin­gers at his fa­ther and his fa­ther's ac­tions, more could be learned by ex­am­in­ing the cir­cum­stances that cre­at­ed sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions.

"We need to point fin­gers cor­rect­ly...If we don't just blame, we don't just say 'oh that guy was mad.' But if we look at the his­tor­i­cal con­text, we need to be­come a more ed­u­cat­ed and in­formed peo­ple," he said.He said the coun­try need­ed rev­o­lu­tion­ary think­ing."T&T is in a re­al­ly bad place," he added.

Abu Bakr said there were no ex­ist­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ties that he would join and that was what prompt­ed him to start his own. He said he had been court­ed be­fore by both the PNM and UNC. One par­ty, he said, asked that he head up their youth arm, but he de­clined.

"I look at the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and if it was re­al­ly a na­tion­al move­ment for peo­ple, I wouldn't be here, but to me that is not what it is. I looked at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) and if it was re­al­ly a unit­ed con­gress of the na­tion, I would have been there. But what it is, is the in­ter­est of a small few, a big­ger pool be­ing ma­nip­u­lat­ed and bought, di­vi­sive, neg­a­tive, and racial ideas that are be­ing pushed on peo­ple–that is the core of these or­gan­i­sa­tions," he said.

He said there were one or two pos­i­tive peo­ple as­so­ci­at­ed with both par­ties, but those were out­num­bered by the neg­a­tive ones."Don't get me wrong, there has been a lot of pos­i­tives, be­cause even the worst per­son can have their good days. So I draw on pos­i­tives that Mr Bas­deo Pan­day did. I think Mr Dhan­raj Singh was a pos­i­tive guy, very colour­ful but very lov­ing and close to the peo­ple. Mr Ed­die Hart...I hear about oth­ers but I have not seen it first hand," he said.

When asked to name a cur­rent politi­cian that he ad­mired, Abu Bakr said that was a "tough job.""The ac­tion of your peers some­times re­flects on you as well, so the pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tions some­times are lost. I think Faris (Al Rawi, PNM PRO) some­times ar­tic­u­lates him­self well. On the UNC side, Dr Fuad Khan is free-spir­it­ed," he said.When the Sun­day Guardian point­ed out that he named two politi­cians that share his re­li­gious be­liefs, he added for­mer Min­is­ter Ver­na St Rose-Greaves to the line up.

"I have lots of re­spect for Ver­na St Rose, I think she is pas­sion­ate. Not every­one would ar­tic­u­late them­selves in the same way," he said.He said po­lit­i­cal par­ties preached di­vi­sive­ness, while the NNV was more about in­clu­sion."I al­ways said to peo­ple, if my par­ty was to get in­to gov­ern­ment, I would be draw­ing up­on the re­sources of our en­tire na­tion re­gard­less of creed, race. The cul­ture of oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties has tak­en away from where the na­tion needs to be," he said.

Beat­ing the bobolee

On the beat­ing of the bobolee, Abu Bakr said,"That is a cul­tur­al ex­pres­sion in T&T, con­sid­er­ing this is where I learned it."Abu Bakr said there was no right sea­son to do any­thing."Right is right and wrong is wrong at what­ev­er time."He said his po­lit­i­cal ire was not di­rect­ed at the Prime Min­is­ter as a per­son but at her pol­i­tics, her of­fice, and the en­ti­ty that she led. The same, he said, went for Row­ley.

He said the same arms of the UNC which called for an apol­o­gy, need­ed to call for their own lead­ers to apol­o­gise for "ir­re­spon­si­ble state­ments" they had made."Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials say­ing 'we will crush all the cock­roach­es' and 'un­leash the dogs of war'...Wow. I heard those state­ments and no one came out to cas­ti­gate or chas­tise that. It seems as though right is wrong when it is not in their favour," he said.He said many peo­ple would like to make the strong state­ments and ac­tions that he did, but many were afraid.

"I don't know if brav­ery runs in your blood, but I sat back for a while and thought about things. I felt this strong de­sire to change the so­ci­ety that I plan to live in, and I feel as though if I could con­tribute pos­i­tive­ly and make T&T bet­ter in a re­al way, I would have ful­filled my goal."