RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Across the coun­try, in both rur­al and ur­ban ar­eas, bobolee ef­fi­gies cropped up, de­pict­ing politi­cians from both sides of the po­lit­i­cal di­vides.

But it was Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley who got the most bobolee por­tray­als of all.

At SS Erin Road out­side the Debe Mar­ket, a bobolee with Im­bert’s smil­ing face, stood propped against a pole with a plac­ard read­ing: “Ah raise gas prices three times so shut up. And doh ri­ot.”

Res­i­dent Derek Ram­per­sad hit the bobolee light­ly say­ing, “Doh raise tax­es, Im­bert, leave the gas price alone.”

An­oth­er man stood laugh­ing near­by and told Ram­per­sad: “Doh hit it too hard eh. I had­da use back that man­nequin next week.”

Fur­ther down the SS Erin Road, near Reyes Road, a bobolee of Sinanan al­so dan­gled.

“It read: “Min­is­ter of Pot­holes.”

And at Pokhor Road, a mus­cu­lar look­ing bobolee of Hinds stood.

In Cou­va, two head­less bobolees were placed near a bridge with plac­ards read­ing: “Two head­less bobolees lead­ing T&T. Row­ley and Im­bert”

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Lec­tur­er in His­to­ry at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Dr Jerome Teelucks­ingh said bobolee is one of the unique Good Fri­day tra­di­tions of T&T.

“It is dif­fi­cult to trace the ex­act year in which the tra­di­tion be­gan in Trinidad. The bobolee, which is an ef­fi­gy of Ju­das Is­car­i­ot who be­trayed Je­sus Christ, com­pris­es old clothes stuffed with a va­ri­ety of ma­te­ri­als in­clud­ing grass, pieces of cloth and/or plas­tic.

“Since the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry, the bobolee was pop­u­lar in both ur­ban and rur­al ar­eas. How­ev­er, in the past two decades, the bobolees are more vis­i­ble in vil­lage com­mu­ni­ties,” he said.

He not­ed that the bobolee sym­bol­is­es un­pop­u­lar peo­ple and lead­ers.

“Bobolees of­ten rep­re­sent politi­cians who form the gov­ern­ment. The bobolee can al­so rep­re­sent some­thing that is un­pop­u­lar with the mass­es such as the prop­er­ty tax, in­fla­tion and crime,” Teelucks­ingh said.

He not­ed that the art of ‘beat­ing the bobolee’ is one of fun and amuse­ment and is per­formed by both chil­dren and adults. 

“The ‘beat­ing’ rep­re­sents the ha­tred for that per­son or thing but al­so is a form of jus­tice and cathar­sis for the work­ing class and grass­roots pop­u­la­tion,” Teelucks­ingh added. 

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