Diary of a mothering worker. January 9, 2020.

Post 378.

Neither elder nor younger Abu Bakr is a card-carrying member of the PNM, but both sought and say they were promised a chance at a seat under the party banner.  Party leader, Keith Rowley, would have had to convince constituency party groups and the whole PNM to include another political entity (the New National Vision) for the first time in history. 

This, from a go-it-alone party that finds coalition offensive and demeaning. This, from a party that only accepts cross-overs if they come from marginal constituencies and effectively combine insult with injury to the Opposition, or are voters. This, from a party that believes its inheritance is post-independence, patriarchal authority. It would certainly not invite in a contender to strengthen itself on PNM resources in order to aggrandize a cabal.

The party is aware that disaffection at its poor handling of the economy abounds, and every vote matters. It is inconceivable that it would risk inclusion of the Jamaat al Muslimeen, an organization which a vast population born before 1990 still associates with violent state take-over, death and destruction, and collective willingness to hold a terrorized nation to ransom.  It is unlikely it would be threatened by the Jamaat’s control over votes in Port of Spain South. 

Even if they feel abandoned by the PNM, are all those “young Africans” (Abu Bakr’s term) going to vote for Mrs. Persad-Bissessar? The UNC is a Trojan horse for Indian men, aspiring for greater status, power and wealth than their fathers, to secure their influence over the political-economy. In the competition among patriarchies, they would be perceived as now ruling over African men with less status, power and wealth. 

Surely, the People’s Partnership State of Emergency and its criminalizing (and eventual releasing without charge) of such young Africans is hardly forgotten. African youth might find ways to rebel as a more politically-educated generation did in 1970. They might not vote, but it will be a grim day in fairy tale land for them to vote UNC.  Whether they will vote for Fuad, now re-throned as political leader of the NNV, we will see.

I’m fascinated by the Abu Bakrs’ audacity in publicly playing garrison politics with the nation. Garrison politics is best understood from Jamaica’s experience of politicians making alliances with dons, or male civilians who ‘control’ gangs, communities and organized violence, in order to secure the votes of urban, poor communities. As Rivke Jaffe writes, dons became power brokers as contracts, housing, jobs and money (and weapons) were distributed through them. Later, as the Jamaican state hit recession, dons “came to replace members of parliament (MPs) as community patrons who distributed largesse” and provided health services, schooling and policing. Empowered to secure urban order, dons became effective and accepted co-rulers (with politicians), in turn demanding “a steady flow of state funds and a measure of protection”. Demanding a seat inside government is the next, logical step. 

While not a don in the Jamaican sense, the Jamaat al Muslimeen is governed by a strongman leader who cares, invites loyalty, builds comraderie, promises ethical/religious certainty, establishes justice, and provides for basic necessities where the state has failed on all counts. Gangs perform the same function of creating a sense of value and belonging to a familial order, particularly for young Afro-Trinidadian men who feel alienated, abandoned and under threat. 

In Anna Ramdass’ Express story from May 31, 2020, Abu Bakr described the Jamaat as “responsible for the decrease in gang warfare, especially in the Enterprise, Chaguanas area”. He continued, “they ain’t kill no women because we make a law in the community”. Having locked off “gun warfare”, Abu Bakr boasted that only he holds the combination to the lock. Regarding Fuad, he promised, “Anywhere he go he will win, I is he father, I does rule the streets”. And, because manhood and sexual command over women is social capital in politics, elder Abu Bakr cast Fuad as “a sweet boy, he’s them girls sugar”. 

Elder Abu Bakr is, however, threatening as much as he is promising. If he can decrease crime, including domestic violence, he can allow its return. If he can bring in votes, he can bring down the government. This is the modus operandi of the don: to offer protection to politicians, but only if formal state institutions and representatives recognize and secure his rank and power.   

Fuad may want to represent grassroots youth, but what we witnessed was his play for power however his father brokers, knowing that he inherits patriarchal right over the Jamaat and the vote bank it can lock down from among genuinely disaffected communities. Rowley agitated such garrison politics by refusing to agree to the Abu Bakrs’ high-stakes game in king-making using “young Africans” as pawns or collateral and using a general election to secure a dynasty.

 

Diary of a mothering worker. August 21, 2018.

Post 298.

The Prime Minister has finally apologized for the PNM’s Family Day debacle. Unfortunately, in this being made a Hindu issue, with apologies to the Hindu community, all and sundry have missed the broader injuries.

Overzealousness from the newly expanded Tabaquite base and collective enjoyment of violent picong by the wider, more established base led to this tangled web.

It’s an interesting example of the complexities of traditionally Indian and UNC constituencies changing party loyalty, and reflects deep disregard and disgust for the UNC amongst those willing to turn against the hierarchy that was once their own.

Indeed, the scene was a premier example of pre-election gutter politics, which is why it was received as uproarious bacchanal among the PNM and high-handed terror among the UNC. If Tabaquite has turned against you, do you have any chance of winning Tunapuna?

Both Stuart Young and the PM could have avoided a wrong and strong approach. Meaning, a wrong happened, but shouldn’t persist with impunity and both acknowledgement and humility, or recognition and apology, were the right first instincts to have in communication with the nation.

Instead, trivializing the skit, as public statements by Womantra, CAFRA and the Hindu Women’s Organisation pointed out, reflected a failure to understand how rape culture, or treating sexual violence as normal fun by women asking for it, continues to powerfully and instinctively work in our society.

This doesn’t mean that individual men, such as the PM, are themselves being labeled rapists – which it seems only letter-writer Kevin Baldeosingh and ex-Central Bank Governor Jwala Rambarran – found it hysterically and stupidly important to say.

Rather, the term rape culture refers to the possibility of a scene where a women’s public disrobing can be made into an acceptable show of political power, and many not see how profoundly predatory that is.

This is standard stuff in tribal politics, so well entrenched that we don’t think of it explicitly. In inter-ethnic, cross-caste and multi-national conflicts, it’s the conquering of ‘their’ women that are the signs of triumph, for women remain objects of ownership and exchange, and controlling them remains a sign of man power and status.

At the same time, the nation is considered to be feminine, under rightful masculine or at least patriarchal authority, so the wider symbolism was not only of conquering UNC bodies, but also the body of the nation one constituency at a time, rescuing it from potentially becoming too Indian of the wrong kind.

In the discomfort of seeing women’s disrobing as political fun, its religious and racial marking was clear, but its not just an Indian or Hindu or UNC insult, and treating it this way divides women along racial, religious and political lines.

These wider implications seem to have missed the PM and the party. There was also the discomfort of seeing party faithful depicted as gorillas, which is unimaginably racist, and shouldn’t happen with impunity either, but that injury has disappeared from the narrative entirely and unfortunately, but conveniently.

The UNC and Kamla Persad-Bissessar seized on this issue as an opportunity to rally their base, and were right to do so. The skit was meant to directly symbolize a public dress down of Persad-Bissessar, as the most visible and vilified Indian woman in the nation, and the stripping of other Indian, Hindu and UNC women from these identities in order for them to become truly PNM through replacement of an obsolete yellow sari by the modernity of a red t-shirt.

Underneath it all must also have been a realization that the UNC is imploding or at least bleeding from within, and the protest was necessary to show morally respectable leadership and resilient political power, covering what should be internal party worry, for if ex-UNC Indians will turn against still-UNC Indians so publicly, and if Beetham will rather flood as PNM, despite their own disgust, than go yellow at the ballot-box, where will votes come from in 2020?

So, as the world turns, the PM is yet again denying he is a rapist, while being clueless about rape culture. He’s playing the ground war in placating Hindus while the UNC is rallying the Hinduvata and broader race-baited ire for whatever mileage it can offer, especially in the face of the SDMS’ grumpy withholding of support.

And, the issues of how women are seen, included and represented in public life, as shaped by the tangled web of sexism, racism and violence, yet again make front page, though nothing in Trinidad and Tobago appears about to change.