Every generation have emotion
They need love care and attention
We must consider love for the elder
As a culture to teach the youngster
Respect those who have gone before
And endeavour to contribute more
For when you lift up the elderly
You enrich the society
-Blessed are the Elders Sheldon Blackman
Dear Uncle Keith, I started off being blasted vex with your astoundingly ignorant comment about Aunty Kamla touching the feet of the President of India. But then I just felt terribly sorry for you. That you could reach to be a big hard-back man and not understand or know that civilised people-people who have a sense that elders are of value-bow as a sign of respect and as a way of ensuring future blessings. But such is the profound dotishness of public office. Worse yet public office without a sense of rootedness to anything but some bizarre Western capitalist notion of protocol. Who decided on what the rules of protocol should be? Who became the authority on how people in public office recognise others?
The notion of separation of church and state is dodgy and difficult at best. We should, according to your line of logic, not sing our anthem which refers to some god blessing our nation. I suppose it is only the Christian god for whom your predecessor wanted to build a church that blesses our nation. As if the wajangery and winery of Carnival was not enough distraction from the fact that the country is falling apart, you just had to go and get all jammette on a serious issue. But if you knew anything about jammettes you would understand that they had their own codes of respect and regard for tradition and the way that they were able to defy authority was to root themselves in something that was much more ancient and sacred than Victorian colonial notions of decency and political correctness.
Had you not been so distracted by your lack of knowledge, you would have stayed focused on the fact that the whole trip to India in and of itself was a bit of unnecessary excess that is likely not to solve the many problems that are plaguing our beloved twin-island state. Like the fact that there is no viable opposition and no alternative to the uselessness of the two main political parties that continue to take us down this road to nowhere. You could have been a little more clever and questioned what value a trip like that will have for the 99 per cent. The majority of Trinidadians will see no advancement. The one per cent of wealthy people who have the businesses will woo other businesses from India. And the millions of people who live in a kind of poverty that we cannot even begin to imagine in India will see nothing of any investments made in Trinidad. Talk about that instead of the ego-tripping that really betrays the sense of emptiness you feel because you are rootless. That you do not remember or pay respect to your ancestors on whose shoulders you stand and speak with such contempt is really an indictment of you.
That has nothing to do with religion. That has to do with honouring those who went before. That's what the Bible, if you took time to open it and read, it would tell you. They recount the stories of their ancestors for the majority of the Old Testament. Even to call their names is to honour them. Call the names of your own ancestors some time. It might change your perspective on respect and who you need to bow to. But this brings into glaring clarity the real problem with the PNM and why you find yourself out of power right now. It is because of that same contempt for people, particularly for elders, that is the reason why you lost the last election. Had you ever bothered to bow at the feet of all the women of Laventille and Diego Martin and Maloney, the mothers and sisters who ensured that PNM was in power for so many years through their canvassing and their prayers and the pelau they made for the meetings, maybe your lot would be different now.
But your skin just happens to be black. You are about as culturally and ideologically African as Vybz Kartel. You wouldn't be so disrespectful to someone else paying respect if you had any respect for your own. You would have bothered to know that it's not just Hindus who touch the feet of their elders. The Yoruba people of Nigeria bow to their elders. The people of Vietnam bow to their elders. The Filipino people bow to their elders. And anyway your protestations are just a variation on the Republican hysterics of 2009 when President Obama bowed to the Japanese Emperor Akihito. I hold no brief for Aunty Kamla. I would prefer that she was spending money at home instead of running hither, thither and yon to attract investors when T&T's greatest resource goes rotten in the schools, on the blocks, in the prisons. While her cronies and yours, the rich ones in the suits and ties who bow to no one except the almighty dollar, continue to run amok.
PNM has respect for nothing. Not for the environment. Not for elders. Not even for its own supporters. You use your Christianity like ole mas and discard it when convenient. I'd rather a sincere bow than an insincere exploitation of people's ignorance for political gain. I don't want to goat-mouth you and ask for your arrogance to curse you with that nightmarish fate Derek Walcott describes in the Saddhu of Couva -the fate of not being an elder. But just an old person. Useless and lacking in wisdom. You still have time to save yourself. But you're definitely going to have to learn to bow.
