Fifty-Nine years and two days ago, the Free world was plunged into mourning as heart-wrenching as of death in one’s family when President John Kennedy was assassinated on Friday 22, 1963 as he made his way in a motorcade in Dallas in Texas. To understand the sadness of his death, Royalties and Heads of State from all over the world not only attended the funeral but many openly broke down as tears flowed freely for him.
Kennedy had become not just President of the US but via his charisma and that of his wife and family, he had become so beloved to millions across the world that he was embraced as a blood family member by perfect strangers in faraway places.
When, therefore, I saw this question on Facebook: “If someone decides to shoot or stab Rowley, killing him in the process, would they be considered a hero or a criminal” and the responses were all in celebration of the killer making him out to be a god, a hero, a saviour, I thought of the world shedding sorrow for JFK even today and how for Rowley there seems to be widespread jubilation if he is a victim, and where the wish, Rest in Peace, looks very likely to be replaced by Burn in Hell for all eternity.
What is lovely never dies but passes into another loveliness neutralises the heartache the world felt for JFK because Kennedy was the embodiment of transcendence, but could the people of Trinidad equate their PM with anything that pleases the senses or mind? To his supporters who celebrate him when he goes down in the gutter and calls the opposition leader all kinds of scandalous names and they jump upon in joy, do they deify him because they share his DNA, that they are one and the same?
While no leader in this country has been taken out by the bullet, there has been assassinations of lesser individuals as, for example, Selwyn Richardson and Dana Seetahal – which shows there has been target practice rehearsals in that direction and in the spirit of the wisdom, what you haven’t met has not necessarily passed you, we should not feel too smug about our seeming exception in the matter – especially that we have become such a trigger-happy people.
L. Siddhartha Orie