Guest commentary: In a way it's good that he fasted!

If there are two things the Kublalsingh Fasting Affair has confirmed they'd be:

• that the 2010 election of Kamla Persad-Bissessar (doubly as undisputed leader of the UNC and as Prime Minister) has shaken the old social and political status quo (old status quo) to core and irreversibly and that 
• the old status quo is still to come to terms with such reality 

The overwhelming and diverse support Kamla Persad-Bissessar received during the 2010 January, May and July polls, individually and incrementally presaged or affirmed the unquenchable hope and desire that Trinbago would be finally discarding its racist, misogynistic past and setting at last on a path where Archbishop Tutu’s Rainbow Vision of us would truly infuse and pervade the National Landscape, then enable our Republic to unleash its inherent creativity which had been long stifled by the old staus quo. 

The Kublalsingh Fasting Affair has not only demonstrated that some are yet to understand that Kamla’s ascendancy was such an Epiphany, but amply shows they don't yet get it that Trinbago is a place populated by peoples of every race, who, regardless of how their ancestors came here, have forged a new and unique identity (where "all ah we is one"), hence, is no longer a land where neither a child of the Indian Diaspora, nor a woman, must or will be denied the opportunity to lead us all.What is the evidence?

At every step of the way, in fact, from the outset, a motley gathering of personalities long or now-confirmed to be anti-Kamla and or anti-Indo has aligned themselves or been deliberately courted by Kublalsingh and his Reroute Group (KAHRG). Despite those glaring red flags, each affiliation and overture was touted as being in furtherance of KAHRG's effort to halt or radically alter the construction of the Point Fortin Highway. 

As we have seen, with each step, each new recruit to KAHRG's cause, whatever endearment by those genuinely concerned with a balanced approach to development of our natural environment Kublalsingh had aforetime acquired, dissipated incrementally, to the point where, today, he’s viewed as a true recalcitrant, akin to a rebel without cause. 

For such reason he has been unable to muster widespread support to his Kamikaze fast, or the notion his actions are comparable to the Mahatma, as he tried to convey, even while mouthing expletives in full public glare.

What next?

As a people, if we are to get anywhere worthwhile, we have to keep/get focused on the things and qualities that bind us rather than divide us, such as our abilities to shed all pretence and to show one love when we lime, party or play together. We therefore have no choice but to realize we live in a land where leadership is no longer reserved or contrived for the males or non-Indo-Trinbagonians. 

To prolong paying homage to such facts would mean a prolonging of coming to terms with who we are and of the Kublalsingh habit of lashing out irrationally and repugnantly when olive branches are extended...in other words, engendering mistrust of a group which, despite its numbers, its tremendous contribution to Mother Trinbago and our constitutionally-enshrined democratic condition, has been historically disenfranchised by nefarious electoral practices of the thoroughly discredited old status quo.

Trinidad and Tobago is one nation! Aspiring together only shall we achieve! Come! Let us embrace, at last!

© Richard Wm. Thomas,
kid5rivers.com | 5 Rivers, Arouca, Trinidad and Tobago.