No silver lining for this 'rainbow' country

PAOLO KERNAHAN

THE only thing that's truly rainbow about this country is Rainbow corned beef.

It's tempting to indulge in an exaggeratedly jaundiced perspective about race relations in Trinidad and Tobago. Now and then, though, we're given reminders that we aren't the utopian melting pot we think we are or pretend to be.

Critically important issues were displaced from the broader public consciousness by an old favourite – a nice race-flavoured spat served up by Camille Robinson-Regis and Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

The pair, both with double-barrelled names, gave each other both barrels. Always on the lookout for the latest outrage, Trinis were happy to stumble into the crossfire.

Robinson-Regis, not known for erudite charms, yanked the opposition leader's pigtails with puerile schoolyard non-humour. She poked fun at her decidedly "Indian" middle name. Kyah kyah kyah.

While not being overtly racist, by repeating Persad-Bissessar's full name, and eliciting cackles from the audience, the intent was clear.

This, the PNM MP did without any discernible sensitivity to the recent firestorm generated by PNM-leaning political commentator Winford James in a column dedicated bizarrely to ridiculing East Indian names.

It should also be noted that in the aftermath of that publication, condemnation of James' patently offensive screed was conspicuously one-sided.

But back to the Camille and Kamla show.

Rising to the chum in the water, the opposition leader responded in kind. What was interesting about Persad-Bissessar's clapback is that her "slavery name" dig wasn't a knee-jerk reaction.

Persad-Bissessar, by all appearances, weighed her words before delivering them, having carefully crafted them for maximum impact with her intended audience.

It's a shame she didn't apply as much attention to consideration of the blowback that would follow her insensitive, tone-deaf taunt. Naturally, her bellicose jibe played well with the peanut gallery.

As the opposition leader spoke on stage, she stood at a crossroads.

She could have said, "I am proud of my name. We should all be proud of our names. They represent our rich heritage; signposts that say both where we come from and where we have taken this nation together."

The opposition leader took the road well-travelled and that made all the difference.

In their exchange, both women were pandering to loyalists.

In the opposition leader's case, her words satisfied a base that will never be enough to turn the electoral tide for the seemingly opposition-enamoured UNC. Politically speaking, it was a myopic manoeuvre that suggests the opposition simply doesn't learn.

These dueling politicians could have spoken with emotional maturity and raised the bar for public discourse. Instead, they cavorted in rhetoric that would immediately be embraced by their respective audiences for ugly underlying racial connotations.

Anecdotally, it would seem that in TT, society expects a higher standard of probity from any party other than the PNM. Consequently, the din over Persad-Bissessar's response to the original offence drowned it out so comprehensively that many weren't even aware of what Robinson-Regis had said.

All over the world politicians weaponise race to practise the politics of division.

In 1994 in Rwanda, genocide swept that nation as Hutu nationalists pushed for ethnic cleansing of the minority Tutsi population. Widespread smouldering racial animosity was effortlessly exploited by politicians. They were able to get all manner of people, from farmers to clergymen (and women) to hack their fellow man, woman, and child to death.

Beginning in 2016 in Myanmar, Buddhist nationalists (Buddhist, no less) in concert with the government and armed forces, prosecuted a campaign of terror involving torture, mass killings, and mass rapes of Rohingya Muslims – all in the name of ethnic and religious purity. The Rohingya, considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, were categorised as terrorists and sub-human and were dispatched accordingly.

All the atrocities described were realised through racial and religious indoctrination.

In TT, perhaps because we haven't suffered the bloody paroxysms of racial upheavals, this festering sore has never been given the attention it deserves.

Race-baiting works like gangbusters because enough people in the population harbour racial hatred and resentment. Folks use that hatred much in the same way religion is used, to make sense of the random cruelty and injustices of life.

Additionally, many citizens can't grapple with the complex issues of development and governance because their only political reference point is the race narrative fed to them from the platform.

On each occasion our leaders dip into the poisoned well of race politics and in so doing, deepen divisions that trap society in stagnation.

Both Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Camille Robinson-Regis have been around long enough to know this. The fact that they indulged in race-tinged rhetoric anyway suggests they've been around too long.