Once again, Hinds finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, while accusing others of being so. The PNM were founded on racial division. As every political observer in 1956 agreed, it was the PNM who brought race into Trinidad politics. Up today, it only the PNM that continue to preach and practice it.
On his Facebook Page, Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Ethelbert Hinds attacked me for a “Letter to the Editor” I penned which was printed in the Newsday of 19th Inst and the Guardian of 20th Inst.
Once again, Hinds finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, while accusing others of being so.
Hinds is trying to deny the truth about his party’s racism, from the Leader on down.
Perhaps Hinds, who just a couple of years ago was the PNM’s Youth Officer was having a few “senior moments” when he wrote this post. In truth, he and his party are so soaked in racism, he is like a fish that can’t see or even understand the concept of water. They live and breathe it.
The PNM were founded on racial division. As every political observer in 1956 agreed, it was the PNM who brought race into Trinidad politics. Up today, it only the PNM that continue to preach and practice it.
They remain the only party that focuses on race to win votes, and they have been doing so in every election since 1956.
It began with calling Indo-Trinidadians a “hostile and recalcitrant minority” when they lost the 1958 Federal Elections (a phrase repeated by Rowley and PNM members up to this year), to expressing hostility against white Trinidadians with the phrase “Massa Day Done”, to falsely accusing others of racism in order to stir up their base, by continually telling Indo-Trinidadians to “go back to India if you don’t like the PNM,” attacking Hinduism and Hindus as being idol worshippers and evil, even attacking Diwali. The PNM constantly use code words such as “South of the Caroni bridge”, or people from the murky “lagoon”, or “selling bhaji and pumpkin”, or being “douens and lagahoos” living in the bush and not deserving of a school, to disparage and marginalise Indo-Trinidadians.
From 1956 to 1986, the PNM were “unable” to find a Hindu to sit it its Cabinet. This was so blatantly emphasized when in 1986, when the NAR came into power and Parliament did not have a Bhagvad Gita for the Hindu MPs to take their oaths of allegiance.
Just a couple years ago, in the House of Representatives, PNMs Chairman and Minister of Finance Colm Imbert together with then Labour Minister Jennifer Baptiste-Primus were both making fun of people who live in the “lagoon” (a reference to UNC controlled constituencies) and who grow pumpkin and bhaji.
How can the country ever forget when this insensitive Rowley-led PNM Government put on a skit at the PNM family day which depicted pulling off a sari from a woman by PNM gorillas. When the uproar began, Rowley said it was “foolishness” while then Communications Minister Stuart Young was “only a bit of fun!”
Camille Robinson-Regis and Laurel Lezama Lee-Sing also openly mocked the Opposition Leader’s Indian middle name. Anybody with cultural sensitivity and emotional intelligence knew exactly the intention of that “bit of fun”. Non-Christians have been regularly mocked for their ancestral names, their foods, their religion and their customs. The PNM, which was born in colonialism, continue that colonial legacy.
Indeed, Fitzgerald Hinds is clearly lying by pretending not to know the racist stereotype of the rum-drinking Indian, which was also used against Basdeo Panday as well. Keith Rowley is seen drinking alcohol, in an inebriated state at parties and at Carnival, very often, yet no one makes disparaging remarks about that.
We will not accept this racist abuse from the PNM any longer.
Instead of wasting his time defending his Leader’s racist dog whistles, Fitzgerald Ethelbert Hinds must be reminded that it is not his duty to attack me or anyone else for that matter BUT rather to keep the country’s murder rate (at this time) from reaching 550!
By Capil Bissoon
