Den­zil Mo­hammed

Dr Kei­th Row­ley's tirade about the Prime Min­is­ter's bow­ing to In­di­an Pres­i­dent Prat­i­b­ha Patil was dis­grace­ful, un­be­com­ing and dis­re­spect­ful-not just to Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar but to the en­tire na­tion. If his aim is to lead this mul­ti­cul­tur­al coun­try, then all cred­i­bil­i­ty for such a po­si­tion has just been lost. The Op­po­si­tion leader and po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment ap­peared to dis­par­age an en­tire eth­nic group and an en­tire re­li­gious group to score po­lit­i­cal mileage and rouse his lack­lus­tre sup­port base. At a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in an Open Bible church, he is quot­ed in a news­pa­per as say­ing the PM's bow­ing to the In­di­an Pres­i­dent was "the ul­ti­mate sub­servient of su­pe­ri­or­i­ty and in­fe­ri­or­i­ty be­ing demon­strat­ed."

Er­ror num­ber one, and I don't mean the wrong word choice. It takes not a ge­nius to know bow­ing in the Hin­du con­text is an act of def­er­ence, not a mas­sa vs slave act. It has been done since the be­gin­ning of time the world over. I imag­ine at the end of a scin­til­lat­ing mu­si­cal per­for­mance, the po­lit­i­cal leader might twirl, or per­haps wine, since bow­ing may mean he's sub­servient to the au­di­ence. In T&T, in Hin­du homes and at Hin­du prayers, it is done co­pi­ous­ly. In In­dia, it is less of a re­li­gious act as a cul­tur­al act. The PM was in that coun­try, so she chose, as PM, to fol­low that tra­di­tion. Row­ley said: "I take um­brage at my Prime Min­is­ter go­ing to any­body's coun­try and kiss­ing any of­fice hold­er's foot." Er­ror num­ber two. Un­til her scan­dalous bi­og­ra­phy is pub­lished, it has yet to be re­vealed whether the PM has a foot fetish. Some­how, Row­ley felt com­fort­able enough to change "bow­ing" to "kiss­ing" feet. He said it more than once.

What would Oba­ma do?

He said: "No­body sent the Prime Min­is­ter abroad to rep­re­sent her re­li­gion or her race. She went abroad to rep­re­sent all the peo­ple of T&T and...she must stand there proud rep­re­sent­ing the peo­ple of T&T. "...we are a proud na­tion. When In­dia votes at the Unit­ed Na­tions, if we vote dif­fer­ent­ly, we can­cel out In­dia's vote. One bil­lion peo­ple against one mil­lion peo­ple. We are equal in the eyes of the world. Size and pow­er are no longer your sta­tion." Er­ror num­ber three. As I've learned time and time again, to my ut­ter sur­prise, T&T is not the cen­tre of the world. The world knows us less for one mil­lion strong and more for Nic­ki Mi­naj. Should our in­ter­na­tion­al be­hav­iour be based on a self-right­eous, na­tion­al­is­tic stance of one's ar­ro­gance and self-im­por­tance?

Row­ley goes on: "...now we ex­pect, ac­cord­ing to her log­ic, if (US Pres­i­dent Barack) Oba­ma ever goes to Kenya he will bend down and kiss the foot of some­body in Kenya be­cause his grand­fa­ther came from Kenya." Er­ror num­ber four. No, Oba­ma shouldn't. He is the sin­gle most pow­er­ful man, the leader of the free world, the man who just opened his mouth and out popped a No­bel Prize. Yet the great­est man on the plan­et bowed to the King of Sau­di Ara­bia at the G-20 meet­ing in 2009. He al­so bowed to the Em­per­or of Japan at his palace. It is not a mat­ter of as­sert­ing one's au­thor­i­ty, of de­clar­ing one's im­por­tance, of be­lit­tling the oth­er. It is a mat­ter of re­spect in this glob­al vil­lage in which we live. Per­haps, in the cramped Open Bible church, such a vista was not vis­i­ble.

Them vs oth­er

Row­ley claimed that a Times of In­dia news­pa­per sto­ry said Per­sad-Bisses­sar "went too far to demon­strate her In­di­an-ness." I am still search­ing for that sto­ry. One imag­ines that, per­haps, Row­ley would give a vig­or­ous hand­shake to Queen Eliz­a­beth if he were to meet her. Or per­haps his wife would not wear a head scarf on a vis­it to the Mid­dle East. Hillary Clin­ton did it. Bar­bara Wal­ters did it when she in­ter­viewed the Syr­i­an pres­i­dent last year. Hell, even a princess did it, the late Princess Di­ana. But Tri­nis? One mil­lion strong! Fi­nal­ly, and most damn­ing­ly, Row­ley said: "I am not con­cerned about her re­li­gious per­sua­sion... We are very tol­er­ant." Er­ror num­ber five. It is a point­ed ref­er­ence of "them vs the oth­er." It is a sug­ges­tion that one is in the mid­dle and the oth­er is on the out­skirts "in this coun­try". It is a con­ces­sion that the ones in the mid­dle, well, en­dure the oth­ers. Row­ley ap­par­ent­ly played up­on a well-en­trenched scorn for all things Hin­du, with which some peo­ple grow up and cap­i­talised on a racist and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry pre­dis­po­si­tion but­tressed by po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion that some peo­ple have to­wards Hin­dus and In­do-Trinida­di­ans.

There are more In­do-Trinida­di­ans than Afro-Trinida­di­ans in this coun­try. There are more Hin­dus than An­gli­cans, Pen­te­costals and Mus­lims com­bined. In oth­er words, there are al­most more peo­ple who would bow than there are who won't. And with all the talk about how far we've come and how im­por­tant we are, ap­par­ent­ly we still re­sort to the basest at­tacks to as­sert our­selves. In our "rain­bow coun­try," it makes plain that while one was hum­ble enough to bow, the oth­er is clear­ly un­fit to lead.