Rowley, Kamla must apologise...to each other
By Seeta Persad Wednesday, June 1 2016
WELL-KNOWN attorney Israel Khan SC has called on Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar to apologise to each other publicly, in the Parliament, for scathing attacks both made on each other, “in the national interest.†Addressing guests at Indian Arrival Day celebrations at the Divali Nagar in Chaguanas on Monday, Khan cited the then People’s Partnership (PP) government’s attack on Dr Rowley in Parliament over rape allegations.
At the time, Persad-Bissessar was prime minister and leader of the PP. Khan then highlighted Dr Rowley’s attack on Persad- Bissessar, when he (Rowley) said, “She knows I love women, she thinks I love any woman. I have taste.
She could jump high, she could jump low.
She could drink this, she could drink that.
She could bark at meh dog, I go ignore she cyat.†Noting that the People’s National Movement’s (PNM) Women’s League defended Dr Rowley, saying there was nothing malicious, sexual, sexist or chauvinistic about the statement, Khan opined: “In this day and age, do you think an Indian man as leader of the Opposition could say these vulgar things about an African female Prime Minister?
There would have been fire and brimstone!†He added that both Dr Rowley and the Opposition Leader, in their respective Indian Arrival Day messages, called on citizens to work together to build the nation and apologies from both to each other, would show they are walking the walk and not just talking the talk. Quoting from a book named ‘Coolie Woman’, Khan recalled how tensions simmered between Africans and Indians during the indentureship era and beyond.
He said that “coolie†became an ethnic slur, a reminder to Indians of their menial origins.
“Coolie was so loaded a word that, in 1956, Trinidad’s future Prime Minister Dr Eric Williams, the Father of the Nation, urged his countrymen to banish it along with the ‘N’ word, from their vocabularies,†Khan said.
He noted that Dennison Moore wrote a text on the study of racial ideology that underpins race prejudice against East Indians in Trinidad.
Continuing to praise the resilience of the East Indian descendants, Khan said whether it be Indian Arrival Day or Indian Survival Day, “we must commemorate and celebrate the struggle, the trials and tribulations our ancestors endured for us to reach where we are today.†He called on the leadership of persons of African descent to know there is no need to be afraid of the word, ‘Indian’.
In closing, Khan urged unity between the races so as to free the nation from a racist mindset which keeps some people, even up to present time, locked in mental bondage and slavery.
www.newsday.co.tt/politics/0,228565.html
