KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While many Chris­tians re­flect­ed on Je­sus’ cru­ci­fix­ion yes­ter­day, sev­er­al peo­ple ho­n­oured the an­nu­al Good Fri­day tra­di­tion of beat­ing bobolees, with Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, for­mer Ch­agua­nas East MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly and Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump among those com­ing in for some “licks.”

The bobolee, a tra­di­tion­al Good Fri­day ef­fi­gy in T&T, rep­re­sents Ju­das Is­car­i­ot, the dis­ci­ple who be­trayed Je­sus by hand­ing Him over to the re­li­gious au­thor­i­ties in ex­change for 30 pieces of sil­ver. Ac­cord­ing to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Ju­das arranged to be­tray Je­sus by iden­ti­fy­ing Him with a kiss in the Gar­den of Geth­se­mane, al­low­ing the Ro­man sol­diers and chief priests to ar­rest Him.

In an act re­venge an­nu­al­ly on Good Fri­day, peo­ple cre­ate bobolees from old clothes stuffed with ma­te­ri­als like straw or news­pa­per. They then place the ef­fi­gies in pub­lic spaces, and passers­by sym­bol­i­cal­ly beat them as an act of ret­ri­bu­tion for Ju­das’ be­tray­al. Over time, the tra­di­tion has evolved, with bobolees some­times rep­re­sent­ing politi­cians or pub­lic fig­ures, al­low­ing com­mu­ni­ties to vent frus­tra­tions sym­bol­i­cal­ly.

As Guardian Me­dia roved through the south­ern vil­lages, Ty­rone Nanan dis­played his bobolee out­side his King Street home. It wore a red and yel­low shirt, blue jeans, and for the head, a pic­ture of a younger Trump stuck on a box. It sat on a chair un­der a card­board sign that stat­ed, “TRUMP SAY GREAT IS D PNM AND YEL­LOW IS D CODE.”

Ac­knowl­edg­ing that Good Fri­day com­mem­o­rates Je­sus Christ’s cru­ci­fix­ion on the cross, Nanan not­ed that His dis­ci­ple Ju­das be­trayed Him. He ex­plained the tra­di­tion, say­ing peo­ple iden­ti­fy a char­ac­ter they be­lieve has be­trayed or spo­ken ill of some­one and make a bobolee of them.

“To­day, we are high­light­ing Don­ald Trump, who is play­ing a dou­ble role,” he said.

The sign, he ex­plained, means that no one knows which side Trump is back­ing in T&T’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

“It shows that he is a dou­ble-stan­dard per­son,” Nanan added be­fore lev­el­ling some blows on the Trump bobolee.

Mean­while, there was a head­less Row­ley in Princes Town along Buen In­ten­to Road, with its cre­ator, Sunil Ram­roop, say­ing it con­veyed the for­mer prime min­is­ter’s lack of brains or head. Ram­roop clar­i­fied that it did not de­pict any­thing sin­is­ter but was a play­ful dig at Row­ley’s lev­el of think­ing. The bobolee was seat­ed on a plas­tic chair by the road­side.

Ram­roop said he took his time on Thurs­day to make the bobolee, as it was a Good Fri­day tra­di­tion in his fam­i­ly passed down by his fa­ther. He said he chose Row­ley be­cause of his de­ci­sions.

The bobolee, made from sponge and pa­per, in­clud­ed a work over­all with a dol­lar in its pock­et, a buck­et hat, sun­shades, sneak­ers, wa­ter, and a ba­nana flower. Ram­roop said he planned to add a chain lat­er when oth­ers came along to beat the bobolee. How­ev­er, he did give it a few lash­es him­self.

Even in a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) strong­hold, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Bri­an Man­ning found him­self be­ing a bobolee in Pleas­antville. The com­mu­ni­ty falls in the heart of Man­ning’s San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy, where he seeks re-elec­tion in the April 28 elec­tion.

The bobolee wore a grey busi­ness suit, white shirt, blue cap with the word “Fes­ti­val” em­broi­dered, sun­shades, and a sign around its neck that read: “Good Fri­day Bobolee: 30 pieces of sil­ver. $3 mil per ounce.”

At a round­about in Debe, there was a bobolee of for­mer Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, at­tached to a gro­cery cart that was placed as an ad­ver­tise­ment. With a rope around its neck, it dis­played a sign that read: “DIN­ISH RAM­BAL­LY. NO IS RAM­BUL­LY. O YES, I GET A WORK.”

Ram­bal­ly is one of five for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress MPs who ei­ther did not seek re-elec­tion or were re­ject­ed as can­di­dates af­ter crit­i­cis­ing par­ty leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and los­ing in the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tions.

Low­er down was Young’s bobolee, dressed in a white suit and hold­ing fake mon­ey. A sign above it stat­ed: “AL­LYUH VOTE FOR MEH.”

So­cial me­dia users al­so post­ed their bobolees, with All Peo­ple’s Par­ty (APP) San Fer­nan­do East can­di­date Ak­leea­ha Stafford fea­tur­ing on Tik­Tok. The bobolee of the con­tro­ver­sial so­cial me­dia per­son­al­i­ty, known for her vlog The Re­al Raw Talk, sat on a plas­tic chair hold­ing a co­coyea broom and a sign that read: “Grab ah snak, leh we blag ah bit.”

Some peo­ple who chose not to make bobolees shared posts on so­cial me­dia, des­ig­nat­ing var­i­ous politi­cians as be­tray­ers of the coun­try.