KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Three Mus­lim or­gan­i­sa­tions have dis­tanced them­selves from claims that the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty in T&T are sup­port­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) in the Au­gust 10 gen­er­al elec­tion.

While the UmmahTT Mus­lim Fed­er­a­tion has en­dorsed the UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to be­come the next prime min­is­ter, the Trinidad Mus­lim League (TML), An­ju­man San­nat ul Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA) and Tack­veey­at­ul Is­lam­ic As­so­ci­a­tion (TIA) say their mem­bers can vote for whichev­er par­ty they want.

On Sun­day, 25 Mus­lim or­gan­i­sa­tions gath­ered at the Is­lam­ic Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in Fe­lic­i­ty to en­cour­age mem­bers, their fam­i­lies and friends to sup­port Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the UNC. 

TML pres­i­dent-gen­er­al Faz Khan told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that his or­gan­i­sa­tion has his­tor­i­cal­ly re­mained in­de­pen­dent of po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions. Khan said do­ing this helps to fos­ter a bet­ter work­ing re­la­tion­ship with the gov­ern­ment, re­gard­less of which par­ty is in pow­er.

“Each mem­ber has to eval­u­ate for his or her­self and see which of the par­ties’ man­i­festo or pro­grammes best meets his or her po­lit­i­cal needs and take an in­di­vid­ual de­ci­sion to vote for the par­ty they de­sire. From the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s per­spec­tive, we will not in­flu­ence them to vote in a par­tic­u­lar man­ner.

“In terms of our his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tive on po­lit­i­cal par­ties, we find it ben­e­fi­cial to be neu­tral be­cause at the end of the day, re­gard­less of which po­lit­i­cal par­ty wins the elec­tions, we see our role to work with any gov­ern­ment for the ben­e­fit of the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty. Re­gard­less of which po­lit­i­cal par­ty is in charge, we have a good work­ing re­la­tion­ship,” Khan said.

Some lead­ers threw their sup­port be­hind the UNC, say­ing that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) did noth­ing for the Is­lam­ic com­mu­ni­ty.

How­ev­er, Khan said that re­gard­less of which par­ty is in gov­ern­ment, the com­mu­ni­ty will al­ways want more.

He said TML en­gaged both cur­rent and for­mer gov­ern­ments in con­struc­tive di­a­logues re­lat­ing to the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty, in­clud­ing le­gal­i­sa­tion that af­fects them.

Khan al­so clar­i­fied that TML was not a mem­ber of the UmmahTT Mus­lim Fed­er­a­tion and did not re­ceive any com­mu­ni­ca­tion about Sun­day’s gath­er­ing.

Sim­i­lar­ly, AS­JA gen­er­al sec­re­tary Rahi­mool Ho­sein said that con­trary to news that his or­gan­i­sa­tion threw its sup­port be­hind the UNC, it has been apo­lit­i­cal since its in­cep­tion. Ho­sein said it would con­tin­ue to re­main like this for the elec­tions. 

He added that AS­JA was not a part of Sun­day’s meet­ing and had no rep­re­sen­ta­tive there. 

“AS­JA is an in­de­pen­dent re­li­gious body and is not af­fil­i­at­ed to any Ummah T&T Mus­lim Fed­er­a­tion. AS­JA mem­bers across the coun­try are free to sup­port any par­ty or or­gan­i­sa­tion of their choice. It will be in­ap­pro­pri­ate for any of­fice hold­er of AS­JA to speak on its be­half on sup­port­ing any po­lit­i­cal par­ty in Trinidad & To­ba­go. I re­peat, we, AS­JA are apo­lit­i­cal,” Ho­sein said.

ASJA General Secretary Rahimool Hosein

Kristian De Silva

Lat­er on, AS­JA pres­i­dent-gen­er­al Ya­coob Ali said that as an au­tonomous body, it main­tains a strict code of ethics where pol­i­tics is con­cerned and abid­ed by the law of the land. Ali said AS­JA works with the gov­ern­ment of the day and holds no spe­cial al­le­giance to any po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

“There­fore, who­ev­er forms the gov­ern­ment of the coun­try is viewed so far as the le­git­i­mate en­ti­ty for its gov­er­nance. The AS­JA con­tin­ues to serve for the bet­ter­ment of all in so­ci­ety in the man­age­ment and growth of the en­tire Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty,” Ali said.

TIA pres­i­dent Im­ran Hoosaney said the group will not sup­port any po­lit­i­cal group,

“We were not in­vit­ed and had no rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the meet­ing,” he said.

Re­spond­ing to the stance tak­en by the or­gan­i­sa­tion, UmmahTT chair­man Imam Rasheed Karim said he is not up­set as his or­gan­i­sa­tion is not telling mem­bers who to sup­port.

“We are not forc­ing any­one to vote, we are just ask­ing to let good sense pre­vail,” Karim said.

When he spoke to Guardian Me­dia, he was cam­paign­ing with Lt Col Al­loy Hunte, the UNC can­di­date for the Tu­na­puna con­stituen­cy.

Karim said he sees noth­ing wrong with lob­by­ing for the UNC to win the elec­tions.

De­spite AS­JA and TML’s stance, he said there were ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers and wor­shipers from the var­i­ous masjids of the or­gan­i­sa­tions present at Sun­day’s meet­ing.

“I am not an­gry with them. They have to toe the line be­cause they have ben­e­fits to come from the gov­ern­ment of the day re­gard­ing schools, but UmmahTT is se­cur­ing the in­ter­est of cit­i­zens and Mus­lims of T&T,” Karim said.

He said the gov­ern­ment treats that Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty un­fair­ly, mak­ing the coun­try be­lieve they are ter­ror­ists while favour­ing the Chris­tians and Hin­dus. He said the on­ly thing the gov­ern­ment does for the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty is to pay its teach­ers and pro­vides sub­ven­tion for its schools. 

“What did they give the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty? Did they give us a hos­pi­tal to take care of Mus­lims women or make a re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­tre avail­able for the needs of the com­mu­ni­ty? They do not even give any­thing to the small masjids, just a me­nial grant of $250,000 and they gave large or­gan­i­sa­tions. In the end, it does not trick­le down to in­de­pen­dent masjids.

“The UNC has seen it fit, dur­ing its tenure, to en­quire about the dif­fer­ent masjids in rur­al ar­eas, as­sist­ed with light­ing and re­tain­ing walls, paving car parks and the grant­i­ng of two parcels of land to build ceme­ter­ies. The UNC me­di­at­ed and brought down peo­ple from the Sau­di em­bassy to help with the dis­pen­sa­tion of Ha­jj visas and al­so has plans for Is­lam­ic bank­ing.”

Karim said if the PNM re­tains pow­er in this elec­tions, it will not af­fect the re­la­tion­ship be­tween those that en­dorsed the UNC as the gov­ern­ment has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and will fa­cil­i­tate the smooth run­ning of the or­gan­i­sa­tion.