As told to BC Pires

My name is Fuad Abu Bakr and, 25 years ago to­day, my fa­ther led an at­tempt­ed coup.

My life be­gan five years be­fore the coup, as the son of Yasin and Atiyah Abu Bakr, who was once Grace Teles­ford. My mom was from a staunch Catholic back­ground. My fam­i­ly is the Pan­tins, the Grana­dos.

We start­ed off at school in our preschool. In 1990, they de­stroyed all our build­ings ex­cept the mosque. We end­ed up at St Gabriel's Pri­vate School. I could sing every hymn for you: "Je­sus' love is a-bub­bling over/Al­leluia!"

At pri­ma­ry school, some par­ents used to [say], "Stay away from those Abu Bakr chil­dren!" But kids are such that, if you're shar­ing your salt prune and Bob­by, play­ing foot­ball with the Chub­by bot­tle in the yard, and all-you laugh­ing to­geth­er, every­body cool.

I kin­da re­mem­ber the vis­its to my fa­ther while he was in Gold­en Grove and Fred­er­ick Street, Roy­al Gaol, but not well. When we lost all our homes and stuff, I re­mem­ber all of us liv­ing to­geth­er in a house in Gon­za­les. I think it was 27 of us, but we just thought of it as fun, as kids.

I get that most Trinida­di­ans would con­demn the coup. Grap­pling, in my teens, with what tran­spired, his­tor­i­cal­ly, I read books, asked ques­tions, lis­tened to doc­u­men­taries [and] ca­lyp­sos. To try to de­rive, "Where is this from?" I know my fa­ther is not a mad man. I tried to un­der­stand, what is the cause? What is the root?

I would give a bounce to any­one who said their favourite film was the God­fa­ther.

You could say the Mus­limeen have been tied to crimes, but you could say tied and tar­get­ed. No oth­er re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tion, when mem­bers do wrong things, gets their in­sti­tu­tion put up on the news­pa­per. Pires from St Agnes Church com­mit­ted mur­der yes­ter­day but St Agnes Church nev­er gets at­tacked.

It's just wrong to say there are more Mus­limeen peo­ple [than any oth­er group] end­ing up in ditch­es with a bul­let in the head. If you look at the 114 peo­ple in the coup, most have led de­cent lives. Khalid Khan is a top busi­ness­man. Imam Naz­im, Bi­lal Ab­dul­lah, Kwe­si At­i­ba, top busi­ness­men; Ja­mal Shabazz: [na­tion­al] foot­ball coach. Their chil­dren have made ster­ling con­tri­bu­tions: Tariq Haq: Olympic medal­list; Radan­fah Abu Bakr: TT foot­baller; Muham­mud Muwak­il: Free­town Col­lec­tive, ex­cel­lent po­et; At­i­ba Ak­i­boa: med­ical doc­tor. It is not fair, but we have just been con­di­tioned to think that way.

Not for oth­er peo­ple, just for my­self, in my own soul, I need to be fair.

I wouldn't put my head on a block for any­one, not even my­self. You say to your­self, "I not go­ing to check that woman ever again!" And, the next day, you gone!

I don't see why I shouldn't go to the Hy­att, or All Out, or Aria or any­where else. I get­ting a lit­tle too old for 51 De­grees tee­ny-bop­pers now. I guard my­self from the neg­a­tives–I don't drink, I don't smoke, and you won't see me win­ing up, be­cause I'll hide. No, I won't do it.

In pri­ma­ry school, I re­alised who my fa­ther was from oth­er peo­ple but I just knew my fa­ther-fa­ther. In sec­ondary school, I start­ed to see, some­times, dis­crim­i­na­tion. At times, you ben­e­fit­ted from be­ing, "the son of..." At oth­er times, you were vic­itimised for it. I ac­tu­al­ly stopped fights be­tween St James and QRC be­cause of re­spect: he is Abu Bakr' son.

I didn't even re­alise one of the judges in a mat­ter with my fa­ther, his son, Matthew Tam, went to school with us, and we were friends. That is one of the beau­ti­ful things of QRC, that mix. Who you in­ter­act with, you be­come com­fort­able with. When you put just one race or re­li­gion to­geth­er, it breeds a type of clan­nish­ness we don't need.

I am open to dif­fer­ent peo­ple, cul­tures, re­li­gions. I'm easy­go­ing, lov­ing. I think this is what a Trin­bag­on­ian is, be­cause I be­lieve I am the epit­o­me of a Trin­bag­on­ian.

I choose to call my­self a Trin­bag­on­ian be­cause I en­joy Store Bay. And I don't want To­bag­o­ni­ans to cuss me when I go there. Or poi­son my cur­ry crab and dumpling!

I lived in Lon­don for four years. I love Switzer­land. Dubai is ex­cit­ing. But there is no oth­er place I'd pre­fer to live than here. Trinidad & To­ba­go should start with the let­ter "p", for "po­ten­tial". I want to help us reach there.

Read a longer ver­sion of this fea­ture at www.BCRaw.com

Fuad Abu Bakr is as com­fort­able at the bar at the Hy­att Re­gency as he is at One Mu­cu­rapo Road.