Fuad’s big, fat ‘no’ to any apologies

UNITED National Congress (UNC) MP Dr Fuad Khan is not apologising for comments he made about masquerader Candice Santana.

Khan, a former health minister, was accused of attempting to fat shame Santana through comments he made in a video that has been widely circulated on social media. Khan even drew criticism from his leader, Kamla Persad-Bissessar with the Opposition and UNC political leader describing his statements as inappropriate. In response, Khan compared this to a situation where a parent needs to get a point across to a child. “This is tough love in its strongest form,” he declared. According to Khan, “It is very difficult when one has to practice tough love.” He said tough love is harsh.

When one practices tough love, Khan asserted, “one has to be harsh, strict and firm.” Referring to his comments about Santana, Khan said, “Maybe the harshness was hard but it brought the point across.”

He said obesity is a problem which causes serious non-communicable diseases. Khan said these include heart failure, kidney failure, hypertension and death at a young age.

“That is not a joking matter,” Khan declared, “so when you talk about fat acceptance and fat shaming, you are only hiding behind a curtain of denial.”

He called the feminist group Womantra, his former Cabinet colleague Verna St Rose Greaves and other people to “stop being hypocrites and look at the reality of things.” Khan said if people use tough love on their children “they will all go the right way.”

He added that in the case of an addiction “one has to use tough love to bring people back to reality.” He appealed to the population, “For God’s sakes, stop trying to mollycoddle things because at the end of the day you are going to destroy the very thing that you love.” For his part, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh yesterday refused to comment on Khan’s statement on plus sized-women.

Speaking to the media at the seventh meeting of National AIDS programme managers and key partners at Hilton Trinidad, St Ann’s, Deyalsingh said victim-shaming on the whole is to be deplored. On March 6, Candice Santana took to social media documenting her experiences with fat-shaming and discrimination as a masquerader in Lost Tribe’s Taj on Carnival Monday and Tuesday. At the end of the post she stressed that she had to remind herself that she was a beautiful person “inside and out,” that she loved how she looked in her costumes, and expressed her appreciation for her positive self-esteem.

However, Khan responded via a Facebook video post calling Santana a “tub” and told her to shut up. Deyalsingh said, “I think what we need to do is to empathise with people, help people and lead them to a place where they can lead healthy lives. But I will not be commenting directly on Dr Khan. Leave that to himself.” Additional reporting by MARLENE AUGUSTINE