Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has urged politi­cians in Trinidad to show greater re­straint and ma­tu­ri­ty amid es­ca­lat­ing racial ten­sions. 

“On­ly Trinidad and To­ba­go could de­stroy Trinidad and To­ba­go. We have to get to the place where we ap­pre­ci­ate that we have dif­fer­ing po­lit­i­cal views, that we have dif­fer­ent method­olo­gies to achieve some­times the same goals, that we vote dif­fer­ent­ly, we like dif­fer­ent colours, that we were raised in some in­stances cul­tur­al­ly dif­fer­ent to our neigh­bours, but that should not stop us from achiev­ing uni­ty as a coun­try,” Au­gus­tine said on Wednes­day night dur­ing an ur­gent meet­ing called to ad­dress the cur­rent at­mos­phere in the coun­try by the To­ba­go Mus­lim Com­mu­ni­ty at its masjid in Low­lands.

The com­ment comes amid con­tin­ued racist rhetoric be­ing spewed be­tween the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led Gov­ern­ment and the Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-led Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Op­po­si­tion in re­cent weeks.

The ten­sions be­tween the two par­ties in­ten­si­fied last week­end af­ter Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Michelle Ben­jamin was booed dur­ing an event host­ed by the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee out­side the Trea­sury in Port-of-Spain and the crowd’s re­sponse to an an­nounce­ment that the Prime Min­is­ter would not be at­tend­ing an Eman­ci­pa­tion event at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah last Sat­ur­day.

This was pre­ced­ed by the dis­sem­i­na­tion of a leaked tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion be­tween Genevieve Hadeed and her rel­a­tive Star Sab­ga, in which the lat­ter was heard us­ing a racist slur to re­fer to the PM. The au­dio is be­ing used in the State’s mur­der con­spir­a­cy case against busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed, his wife Genevieve and Sab­ga.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­peat­ed­ly used the deroga­to­ry word used by Sab­ga sev­er­al times in so­cial me­dia posts since then, and the UNC and PNM have ac­cused each oth­er of sow­ing racial di­vi­sion with­in the coun­try.

Asked whether he in­tends to seek a con­ver­sa­tion with Per­sad-Bisses­sar to voice his con­cerns, Au­gus­tine said, “That might be some­thing I need to pray about.”

How­ev­er, the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty leader said his ap­proach has al­ways been to let Trinida­di­ans solve their prob­lems.

“In To­ba­go, there are two things we learn: cock­roach don’t go in fowl par­ty...and some­times when ele­phants fight­ing is the lit­tle blade of grass that gets tram­pled, and for us in To­ba­go, we just try­ing not to get tram­pled.”

Pressed on whether phys­i­cal con­flict could arise if the racial di­vide in the coun­try is left unchecked, Au­gus­tine said this was a pos­si­bil­i­ty, but he not­ed there are many plat­forms where even the most un­e­d­u­cat­ed opin­ions get aired. He said he be­lieves this has al­lowed peo­ple to vent and pre­vent­ed dis­agree­ments from es­ca­lat­ing in­to phys­i­cal con­fronta­tions.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing To­ba­go was not a per­fect ex­am­ple, Au­gus­tine not­ed that racial con­flict acts as a de­ter­rent to po­ten­tial tourists and in­vestors, adding that vis­i­tors look­ing on would be ask­ing them­selves whether this coun­try was safe to spend their va­ca­tion.

De­scrib­ing cit­i­zens as con­ve­nient­ly racist, Au­gus­tine quot­ed ca­lyp­so leg­end David Rud­der, as he not­ed “how we vote is not how we par­ty.”

He be­lieves cit­i­zens face far greater eco­nom­ic chal­lenges dai­ly and the ma­jor­i­ty have no time to fo­cus on racism.

“Suf­fer­ers don’t care about race,” he said, draw­ing on the lyrics of the late Black Stal­in.

Al­so ad­dress­ing the is­sue, To­ba­go Mus­lim Com­mu­ni­ty leader Kameel Ali told Guardian Me­dia the cur­rent cli­mate has left many cit­i­zens grave­ly con­cerned, as he too urged lead­ers to tone down the rhetoric. Ali said he be­lieves the onus is on lead­ers to set a bet­ter ex­am­ple for chil­dren.

“When you are in a lead­er­ship po­si­tion and when you be­have in that way and when you car­ry on. What is gonna hap­pen? Peo­ple are gonna fol­low suit. If you look at the com­ments on Face­book and all the me­dia, it is re­al­ly, re­al­ly ter­ri­ble,” he said.

To­ba­go Hin­du So­ci­ety trea­sur­er De­vi­ka Sam­my said she be­lieved the ten­sions have been brew­ing for some time, as she ap­pealed for hon­est con­ver­sa­tions, heal­ing and re­spect among cit­i­zens.

Vish­nu Per­sad, of the Sev­enth-day Ad­ven­tist Church, en­dorsed the mes­sage, adding that there is beau­ty in di­ver­si­ty and the gospel of Christ is for every­one.

Regi­nald Vi­dale, head of the Dr Er­ic Williams Memo­r­i­al Com­mit­tee, be­lieves the sit­u­a­tion was en­tire­ly pre­ventable and called for a meet­ing with the Prime Min­is­ter and Op­po­si­tion Leader to low­er the tem­per­a­ture and en­sure there is no re­peat.

Among those al­so at­tend­ing were Fi­nance Sec­re­tary Petal-Ann Roberts, var­i­ous re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions, civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions, To­ba­go ACP Rishi Singh and Snr Supt Rod­hill Kirk.

AS­JA con­cerned about at­mos­phere

Mean­while, the An­ju­man Sun­nat ul Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA) is urg­ing cit­i­zens to re­ject racial di­vi­sion and reaf­firm their com­mit­ment to uni­ty, say­ing it is deeply con­cerned by what it de­scribed as the spread of “ex­treme­ly un­for­tu­nate racial nar­ra­tives” on so­cial me­dia and oth­er print and elec­tron­ic plat­forms.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the or­gan­i­sa­tion said it has “al­ways main­tained a high moral code of con­duct” based on Quran­ic prin­ci­ples and has “al­ways worked har­mo­nious­ly with any de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly ap­point­ed gov­ern­ment, civ­il so­ci­ety, and all pub­lic and pri­vate groups” to pro­mote de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rights and re­spect for all cit­i­zens “ir­re­spec­tive of race, po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion, or eco­nom­ic sta­tus.”

The or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so cit­ed the Prophet Muham­mad’s teach­ing that “a white has no su­pe­ri­or­i­ty over black, nor a black has any su­pe­ri­or­i­ty over white ex­cept by piety and good ac­tion,” be­fore urg­ing “all cit­i­zens, groups, and in­sti­tu­tions” to em­brace “fair­ness, re­spect, jus­tice, and equal­i­ty” while “strong­ly con­demn[ing] racism and dis­crim­i­na­tion in all its forms.”