Guest column: One fit to bow, one unfit to lead

PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar bows to Indian President Pratibha Patil in Jaipur, India

Reproduced from the SUNDAY GUARDIAN
by Denzil Mohammed

Dr Keith Rowley’s tirade about the Prime Minister’s bowing to Indian President Pratibha Patil was disgraceful, unbecoming and disrespectful—not just to Kamla Persad-Bissessar but to the entire nation. 

If his aim is to lead this multicultural country, then all credibility for such a position has just been lost. 

The Opposition leader and political leader of the People’s National Movement appeared to disparage an entire ethnic group and an entire religious group to score political mileage and rouse his lacklustre support base. 

At a political meeting in an Open Bible church, he is quoted in a newspaper as saying the PM’s bowing to the Indian President was “the ultimate subservient of superiority and inferiority being demonstrated.”

Error number one, and I don’t mean the wrong word choice. It takes not a genius to know bowing in the Hindu context is an act of deference, not a massa vs slave act. 

It has been done since the beginning of time the world over. I imagine at the end of a scintillating musical performance, the political leader might twirl, or perhaps wine, since bowing may mean he’s subservient to the audience. 

In T&T, in Hindu homes and at Hindu prayers, it is done copiously. In India, it is less of a religious act as a cultural act. The PM was in that country, so she chose, as PM, to follow that tradition. 

Rowley said: “I take umbrage at my Prime Minister going to anybody’s country and kissing any office holder’s foot.” Error number two. Until her scandalous biography is published, it has yet to be revealed whether the PM has a foot fetish. Somehow, Rowley felt comfortable enough to change “bowing” to “kissing” feet. He said it more than once.

What would Obama do?

He said: “Nobody sent the Prime Minister abroad to represent her religion or her race. She went abroad to represent all the people of T&T and...she must stand there proud representing the people of T&T. 

“...we are a proud nation. When India votes at the United Nations, if we vote differently, we cancel out India’s vote. One billion people against one million people. We are equal in the eyes of the world. Size and power are no longer your station.” 

Error number three. As I’ve learned time and time again, to my utter surprise, T&T is not the centre of the world. The world knows us less for one million strong and more for Nicki Minaj. Should our international behaviour be based on a self-righteous, nationalistic stance of one’s arrogance and self-importance?

Rowley goes on: “...now we expect, according to her logic, if (US President Barack) Obama ever goes to Kenya he will bend down and kiss the foot of somebody in Kenya because his grandfather came from Kenya.” 

Error number four. No, Obama shouldn’t. He is the single most powerful man, the leader of the free world, the man who just opened his mouth and out popped a Nobel Prize. 

Yet the greatest man on the planet bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia at the G-20 meeting in 2009. He also bowed to the Emperor of Japan at his palace. It is not a matter of asserting one’s authority, of declaring one’s importance, of belittling the other. It is a matter of respect in this global village in which we live. 

Perhaps, in the cramped Open Bible church, such a vista was not visible.

Them vs other

Rowley claimed that a Times of India newspaper story said Persad-Bissessar “went too far to demonstrate her Indian-ness.” I am still searching for that story. 

One imagines that, perhaps, Rowley would give a vigorous handshake to Queen Elizabeth if he were to meet her. Or perhaps his wife would not wear a head scarf on a visit to the Middle East. Hillary Clinton did it. Barbara Walters did it when she interviewed the Syrian president last year. Hell, even a princess did it, the late Princess Diana. But Trinis? One million strong! 

Finally, and most damningly, Rowley said: “I am not concerned about her religious persuasion... We are very tolerant.” 

Error number five. It is a pointed reference of “them vs the other.” It is a suggestion that one is in the middle and the other is on the outskirts “in this country”. 

It is a concession that the ones in the middle, well, endure the others. Rowley apparently played upon a well-entrenched scorn for all things Hindu, with which some people grow up and capitalised on a racist and discriminatory predisposition buttressed by political affiliation that some people have towards Hindus and Indo-Trinidadians.

There are more Indo-Trinidadians than Afro-Trinidadians in this country. There are more Hindus than Anglicans, Pentecostals and Muslims combined. 

In other words, there are almost more people who would bow than there are who won’t. 

And with all the talk about how far we’ve come and how important we are, apparently we still resort to the basest attacks to assert ourselves. In our “rainbow country,” it makes plain that while one was humble enough to bow, the other is clearly unfit to lead.

The above column by Denzil Mohammed was reproduced, unedited, from the SUNDAY GUARDIAN

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