Zionism - A weak Ideology

 Zorina Shah

I really thought the Zionists were stronger than that. 

They marketed themselves abroad for decades, getting goodwill, weapons and cash from western countries, electing lawmakers in foreign governments while passing laws to punish people at home. They stole land to extend their settlements and condemned Jews of record and conscience, who opposed their ideology, as "Self-hating Jews”. 

Anyone who dared to challenge their brutality was labeled anti-semitic. They put their neighbour under the boot and let their settler imports loose among people in the West Bank who could not defend themselves.They erected checkpoints to express their dominance, some 360 and then walled in 2.3 million in a strip of land. They blocked them from fishing in their own sea and shot boys who played football on the beach.You would think that would be enough, right?

I want to slow down here and catch my breath to say that while I support resistance, including armed resistance, I still oppose Hamas sending its militants into the kibbutzes. They had already attacked seven military installations and confronted all-night party goers, many of them high on recreational drugs and alcohol. 

It is true that most of those at the rave party had military training, many still active and some armed. All Israeli citizens are conscripted at age 18, women for 26 months and men for 32. A high percentage remain in the service because life in the Negev and the West Bank is a kind of joke for them, the easy life of punishing and dehumanising Palestinians. 

It is also true that all the kibbutzes are policed and I only learned recently that every home has at least one weapon. Many older folks from families trapped in the Gaza concentration camp had lived in Sderot and where the kibbutzes are located. The land they planted had been confiscated as they were driven out. I can only imagine how their children felt when they saw the walls of the prison being broken down, emerging into the open, onto the land their ancestors lived on, breathing the air of freedom for the first time in their lives.

Although it does not apply to Gaza, we saw Itamar Ben Givr handing out guns to settlers so they could go into West Bank villages and refugee camps and terrorise Palestinians, destroy crops, damage goods in shops, chase worshippers from Al Aqsa. The residents in kibbutzes are not as visible as the West Bank settlers, some of them even cared about the Palestinian struggle, but they too were well supplied with weapons.

The weakness of Zionists was laid bare by October’s events which pulled the masks clear off their faces, showed how complacent and entitled they are in their power and the unconditional support they get from western governments. 

In the first place, they failed an important constituency with their complacency. The kibbutzes are a romantic aspect of Israeli statehood, drawing people from around the world to desert nights under the stars, different moon phases, the sun rising from way over the expanse of Middle Eastern countries and setting on the Mediterranean, to honeymoon tourism. They inspired artists and musicians, writers, young people came as students, did a little work and wrote poems about this wonderland that Palestinian families still grieved for. 

Night life in a Kibbutz in Northern Israel. Visit Kibbutz photo

Secondly, their rescue mission fell apart. Their much touted military panicked, not knowing the extent of the Hamas attack. They went on a rampage from air and ground, across fields, in communities, above military bases, mowing down their own people along with the enemy. The Apache helicopters fired into their own bases and the tanks blew up humble homes in the communities.

Hasbara, their propaganda machinery kicked into gear, spinning the most elaborate stories to gain worldwide support and sympathy, and they did. There were tales of beheaded babies that the US president Joe Biden saw, there were untold numbers of rapes and phone calls to celebrate the killing of Jews. There was footage from body cams taken from the corpses of “terrorists”, but none from their own soldiers. They gave figures, but did not say how many of their own soldiers were killed or who killed them. Then they started lowering the numbers. They continued telling outrageous stories, easily debunked on social media. They released a video showing how they targeted the rave party. Their official pages were forced to delete tweet after tweet. 

Screenshot from video released by IDF on October 15, 2023

Hasbara had flourished in the building of the Zionist project, the state of Israel. It demonised Palestinians, even as soldiers demolished whole villages or seized their homes. The new residents gloated, but the world celebrated the return to the Biblical homeland. As a younger teenager, I felt pain reading about the Holocaust, watching black and white movies, not knowing about the Nakba. That changed a few years later, making this the 51st year I have followed the story of the Palestinian people. The Israel story was not the story of the Holocaust. I will never stop hurting for the Jewish people, but I am now able to distinguish between a persecuted people and another people being persecuted.

With the advent of internet, others began to see the violence of the Israeli state as it unfolded. The arrest of children, killing of man, woman and child, snipers taking out knees of young men, the global coverage of the murder of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh came to people’s living rooms. I myself will never forget the sight of Israeli soldiers attacking Shireen's coffin outside of the church.

Occupation forces attack Shireen Abu Aqleh's coffin

Hasbara has been losing its grip. 

The failing narrative is so bad that even Donald Trump had to comment that “the other side” is winning the public relations war. The other side is not winning the PR war. People are seeing for themselves what the truth is, the truth they had been denied for so long. They have seen for years the advocacy of young Jewish people across the globe who are tired of the crimes committed in their names. In the United States, these young people are at the forefront of the campaign for a ceasefire. Their activism is now listed as anti-semitic.

Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now asking for a ceasefire

In this new escalation, numerous world leaders became vocal tools of Hasbara, but they have all had to backtrack. Many people have tarnished their reputations defending evil and will pay a heavy price for it.

The greatest sign of the Zionist inability to cope has been in its reaction to the events of October 7, 2023. They have lost all reason, dropping bombs wherever they wish, homes, churches, hospitals, schools, claiming that Hamas is in all those places. Maybe they are, although the edited videos do not prove what the Israeli government hoped it would prove. Instead there is only evidence of Israeli violence, uncontrolled violence, an inability to strategise, to consider its own citizens held hostage by Hamas. If there are signs of Hamas presence, it is well known that Hamas was also armed resistance.

IDF bombing of Gaza

For more than 30 weeks, thousands of Israeli citizens had protested against their government on legislation that would take away some of their constitutional rights. The government would have been hoping that the show of force would quell those protests and unite citizens against Palestinians. Instead they have risen up again, taking to the streets to condemn Netanyahu for his inefficiency, for ignoring hostages and the cries of the families.

Zionism has one goal, to drive all the Palestinian people into the Sinai and to settle all the land between the river and the sea. How it accomplishes that is not important to the Israeli state and what the world thinks is of no consequence. That is the weakness of Zionism. Its disregard for people, members of the Jewish communities in other lands, in the face of failing Hasbara messaging. 

Rabbis4Ceasefire prayer meeting outside Congress

Today, weak Zionists are the main cause of anti-semitism, because many people still cannot distinguish between a weak ideology that parades its gross self and that of the traditions, ethics and beliefs of Torah Judaism. The weakest of them all are now in power in Zionist Israel.

The Hosay

Zorina Shah

A Hosay memory in this month of Muharram

My father built the Hosay for years in our rural village of Fullerton, Cedros. It was a community project which took place in an empty lot owned by the Dolsinghs, next to our house. He and young men in the village built a camp out of used galvanise and lumber. 

While my father mobilised the adults for various tasks, my sister, not yet in her teens gathered girls from the village to make hundreds of rosettes from crepe paper, decorated with sequins of many colours. The rosettes would then be used to cover the entire surface of the tadjah, the main frame, pillars and dome. I myself was not so good at the rosette-making so a rap in the knuckles was always on the card. Only the builders were allowed inside the camp.

This picture of the sunset to herald the start of the
 lunar calendar was taken by Jim Rakesh on Tuesday
 evening, July 18, 2023, off the coast of Guyana

Each village on the southernmost part of the Cedros peninsula built its own Hosay- Bonasse, Bois Bourg, Fullerton and Icacos. My brother told me there was a time when the people of Coromandel, a community a little to the east, also built a tadjah. They mounted it on the tray of a truck and transported it to Bonasse Village for the parade. 

As children, we were involved in the Hosay events on afternoons after school and at nights, but invariably the parade of the tadjah fell on a school day. When it first emerged in the night, it was impressive but our village was still without streetlights, so we lost some of the majesty. The first time we saw the Hosay in daylight, in all its splendour, glittering in the midday sun with the decorations we had made was when it passed in front of our school. It left the camp for the parade southward through the hamlet of Lochmaben and a small collection of houses in a place known as Chip Chip. We were allowed into the school yard for the parade, back and forth, more likely because our teachers wanted to observe the spectacle. I don’t remember ever seeing my father in the parade. In reflection, I believe that he handed over the Hosay after the rituals on the 10th night of Muharram, maybe two or three hours after the sunset and never rejoined it until the next sunset.

Second of Muharram

This image of the second day of the new moon
to begin the lunar year, at 2.5%,
was taken by Stonehenge drone in 2022.

Third of Muharram:

The lessons of the Hosay are those which we witness, of community and freedoms and preserving traditions and culture. The greater lesson is that of standing up to the oppressor. Husayn put himself on the frontlines for his people, leading, negotiating for solutions and paying the ultimate price when all else failed. 

My concern has always been that people who overcome these calamities are themselves willing to employ the tactics that they survived and impose that horror on others.

On October 30, 1884, British troops fired on about 6,000 participants in the Hosay procession in Trinidad, killing 19-22 people and injuring hundreds. That event took place less than a hundred metres from where we now live in San Fernando. This collage on the "Hosay Massacre" is put together by my friend Wayne Chen.

Fourth of Muharram:

I remember how I loved Maleeda, but I had never eaten it since I left Fullerton when I was eleven years old. I can now say that a few days ago for the observance of Eid ul Adha 2023, the feast of the sacrifice, a friend of our family brought some for us, though it tasted much different from how my mother made it.

Maleeda is a North Indian delicacy which was served at the Hosay in our village. I would see my mother making maleeda, as I imagine other women in our village did. The base for the maleeda is something like a paratha roti but without salt and with lots of ghee. The texture allowed it to be crushed into small bits. The sugar and spices were then added and it was rolled into small balls. 

No one ate from the maleeda until the Hosay reached the chowk and after the women dressed in white performed the rituals. I stood in the front row just where my sister placed the sweet that my mother had made, so I could put out my hands to be among the first to receive the maleeda.

Occasionally my mother made maleeda specially for us. Once when I won a poetry recitation competition for primary schools in County St. Patrick, I asked for maleeda. Instead, three days later we all sat on the floor around the fire as my mother made jalebi. The jalebi was more popular with my older sister and younger siblings and one we didn’t have too often.

Fifth of Muharram: Oral History, The Chowk.

The chowk in our village of Fullerton was located in a big yard where the families Dulal, Ramdeen, Jaggernauth and Cooper lived and behind the home of our teachers Anthony and Ena George. It was just about 200 feet from the Hosay camp.

The chowk is a square earthen block on which the tadjah is placed. The base of the tadjah is built for the chowk, not the other way around. It is a permanent spot prepared for the observances each year and is visited by the builders of the Hosay on Flag Night, on the night of the small Hosay and again on the tenth of Muharram, to offer prayers for this significant date on the Islamic calendar especially for Shi’i Muslims. I believe that every Hosay in St. James has its own chowk as do the villages in the deepest points of the south western peninsula. 

I have written before of an indentured labourer who in packing his jahaji bundle sacrificed some essential items in order to include his harmonium. There is also a story of an indentured labourer bringing dirt from a chowk in Northern India to include in his own chowk, most likely one in San Fernando, but who very generously shared with those who introduced the Hosay in other villages.

The theatre is a reenactment of the battle on the plains of Karbala, in Iraq and the two Hosays, the big and small represent Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and Husayn's six month old son. The infant was held aloft by his father when Husayn asked the Ummayads for a safe passage through the plains for his companions and became the first casualty. The elder grandson Hasan died in 670, ten years before the Battle of Karbala. These events are well documented.

You know I cannot write without saying something silly, so I do not know if our former Attorney General Faris al-Rawi is descended from the older grandson Hasan as Hussein’s entire family was wiped out at Karbala. That could make the AG a 41st descendant of Hasan or any of the grand daughters of the Prophet. Hasan and Husayn were the only male descendants of that generation.

After the Hosay leaves the chowk in the night at the start of the 10th of Muharram, it is taken on a short journey, then returned to its resting place. The daytime parade covered the entire village, from the hamlet of Lochmaben on one end and to the northern coastline at the other end. 

Many people contributed to its construction, making it a community event. The Hosay is accompanied by flags, tassa drums and stick fights, all symbols of battle, some of the peace offering, others of aggression and then of mourning.

Sixth of Muharram- the tassa

The only tassa I ever heard in our village of Fullerton was the tassa played at the Hosay. The instruments consisted of three of the small drums hung around the neck, a two-sided bass and the cymbals called jhang. The small drums looked like part of a sphere, maybe half, the baked clay pots purchased from the Chase Village area in Central Trinidad. The covers were not the synthetic material we see today, but goat’s skin. I remember my father carefully removing the skin after the goat was killed. The skin was dried to a certain texture, the hair removed and stretched over the open end of the tassa and tied with some sort of string which we were told was also made from animal skin. 

During the Hosay procession a fire was lit at various points on the road to heat the covers to give the higher pitched notes. The small drums are played with two thin flexible sticks and the two-sided bass with a stick in one hand while the other side is played by the hand itself. Some players used both hands.

The passages called ‘hands’ are representative of what is being played out in the streets through the techniques of “cutting” and “folay” and possibly others that I do not remember.  There is the sound of the slow approach of a happy unsuspecting group of travellers, a hint of aggression, slowing again as there is an offer for a peaceful resolution, the initial attack, the response from the traveling side, the clash of battle and the soulful mourning period. 

Our family friend Kelman Bharat (may his soul find eternal rest) was one of the most enthusiastic players as a young man and he later built the Hosay himself. I remember Kelman crying at all the stages of the Hosay, building, processions, and as the Hosay made its last journey to the seashore just before the sunset to end the tenth of Muharram. 

One of my friends told me that her young son was so disturbed by the painful emotions evoked by the tassa at the Hosay in St. James that he covered his ears and begged to be taken away. I have never heard tassa sound as it did when I was growing up and I have attributed it to the quality of the goat skins and an understanding by the players of what the hands represent, the true story of the battle of Kerbala.

My nephew Anil describes the Cedros tassa hand

“There is a certain tassa "hand" played in Cedros that is unique...only persons born here can play it...its like "default Cedros hand"...

A war drum...when outside drummers come to "jossle"...the sign is given and the Cedros guys revert to the Cedros hand" and all is over...lol

Growing up in Primary school...we used to beat the desks...learning the "hands" come Hosay night…"

When I went to high school in Central Trinidad I heard other tassa rhythms, happy ones at weddings and different cultural events.

My biggest engagement with this music, however, was when I worked at All Trinidad Sugar Union and we hosted a “tassarama”. Mr. Panday, the president, had brought back a sound system from a foreign trip. It was a Peavey 12-microphone set. Someone from San Juan came to teach us to use it and I was most present among the two who showed up to learn. The first use was in the tassarama on the grounds adjoining the Rienzi Complex and of course I was the sound person. I thought I did well, but the leader of more than one group accused me of sabotaging their performance.

Seventh of Muharram.

"Do not follow the majority, follow the truth." Ali Ibn Ali Talib, fourth Caliph of Islam.

Imam Ali (the father of Husayn) was the first male to accept Islam as a nine-year old. The prophet called together members of his family, forty of them, to report the Divine Revelation. Only Ali professed to be a follower. The Prophet waited for an older relative to show acceptance but there was none. The family was called together a second time and again only Ali believed the Prophet. When the Prophet called them together a third time and Ali professed to be a follower, the Prophet accepted his profession of faith.

Shi'i Muslims believed that Ali is the first Caliph of Islam. Sunnis accept Abu Bakr as the first Caliph.

Eighth of Muharram.

My reading on Islamic history has focused on the period after the Abbasid Revolution which ushered in the Golden Age of Islam. This Caliphate was guided by the Hadith (teachings/sayings of the Prophet) that "the ink of the scholar is holier than the blood of the martyr". There are numerous records of this saying in different forms.

The Muharram of 2020 may have been the first since 1847 that the Hosay was not observed publicly in at least one village in Trinidad and it allowed me to catch up on some of that other reading.

The Abbasids included non-Arab Muslims in the Ummah (global community of Muslims) and extended through the Levant and parts of North Africa.

As the sun sets to signal the 8th of Muharram, villagers prepared for flag night, flags and moon-shaped cut outs. The flags are intended to be those of peace, battle and surrender.

My niece's son leads the parade
in Bonasse Village. 

Ninth of Muharram

This is the night of the small Hosay a mini version of the big tadjah which represents the infant child of Husayn. The parade is similar to that of the big Hosay and the child is being shown to illustrate an offer of peace.

This picture of the Hosay moon was taken in 2022
 by Mark Baldeo, a friend of my nephew Troy Liddelow.

Tenth of Muharram. 

This picture by my nephew Vijay Manna, of the tadjah being taken out to sea at Bonasse Village, Cedros rekindles wonderful memories from my childhood on the peninsula.

One Shot!

Zorina Shah

The best thing I have ever seen in horse racing. 

I sat with my arms folded. Next to me the guy pored over his trade papers. His cheap reading glasses rested on the tip of his nose, having slipped from the bridge a long time ago.

He raised his head, looked at me and asked, “What you playing Sista?”.

I wasn’t playing and I told him so.

“Do you have something?” He did

“Yes, but it is nine to four. I only have 20 dollars, I am going all out with it. If I lose I will have to walk home”

Nine to four is a vulgar fraction, two and one quarter, meaning that if his horse won, he would receive $3.25 for each dollar, a total of $65.00.

The race was just over nine fences. His horse trailed the other 11 runners, but not badly, its left hind leg hit a fence, and the jockey landed him safely. His ear perked, the little I could see of them on the huge screen. Then he got a wind and picked up steam. He started his move and everyone else looked like they were standing. We were standing too, cheering on Party Boy to the finish line. 

“Go boy, go, make it a party boy…”

His head went into the papers again, same scenario until he lifted it, walked to the cashier and collected his winnings.

“I am sinking my 20 plus 5 and playing with this forty dollars.”

He put the 20 dollar bill in his shirt pocket.

“This one is 7-1. If he wins, I will be good. I will try something in case he places. That way I will get back my 40 dollars.”

We got up again, repeated the actions of the jockey, urging Bright Light to rope in a beauty of a charcoal gelding to get past him by one head, just one head.

This time it paid 20 by 8 dollars for the win and 20 by 2.75 for the place, to collect the grand total $215. Everyone looked our way.

“You leaving now?” I asked.

“Sister, I now getting started.” The guys of African descent were like that. They never asked your name but they addressed you as “Sister”.

Six to four pays just $2.25 on the dollar. He put one hundred in his pocket to join the 25 he had placed there earlier and clutched the $115 tightly. 

“I am going for a hundred wins.”

I would have left, but he had my support and I joined him with 20 wins of my own.

This one was a nap, what one regards as the best bet of the day. Most people had played it, so they were all on their feet asking for the win. It did not disappoint. The jockey barely used his whip. He raised his right hand in the air and celebrated, moving to winners circle to be joined by owner and trainer, the owner’s wife and two daughters. They walked him in as we counted our winnings.

My buddy added another hundred to his bank to make it $225 and kept the rest in his hand, one hundred and forty dollars.

I collected my $50.

He skipped a race and I was glad he was done, until he moved to the teller to play a 4-1 in a flat race running at another track. He showed me the ticket. One hundred wins. Bonny Grey lagged badly, but it was a 10-furlong, a mile and a quarter race so we bided our time as did horse and jockey. Two furlongs out, we rose to our feet and called the race to the finish. My buddy collected his $500 and also $50 for me. The $500 went to his trouser pocket. He was clear by $500 in one place, $225 in his shirt pocket and still had forty dollars in his hand.

He went back to the photocopied form and kept his head down for two races. People looked in his direction, but he did not notice. They showed hand signals to me, asking if there was anything he liked. I did not know.

Then he surfaced with a 11-4 runner. That would pay $3.75 if it won. It did and he came back from the cashier with $150. This was an amazing streak of good fortune. Nothing could stop him today. He kept reading his dog-eared copy of the Racing Post and picking up winners. His movements were simple: read, go to the teller, collect from the cashier and go to the teller again.

The feature race, the 4:20 p.m. on the card at Windsor was about to run and other punters asked for his selection. Briar’s Patch was going to win. The going price was 4-1. They should play before the price dropped as it had already fallen from 7-1. He himself did not bet. He sat there and watched as the race pool became busy. People rushed to the tellers, got angry when they could not call their bets and then the bell rang, signalling that betting was closed and the race was on its way.

Briar’s Patch raced to take the lead under the “Man with the Golden Arm”. He looked cocky and the jockey looked over his shoulder to see the field some seven lengths back. He slowed down a bit and kept the distance all around the far turn. Then they were turning for home. He urged the mount forward and Briar’s Patch responded. Two horses left the group at the back and raced up. One moved to the rail on the inside of Briar’s Patch and it appeared it spooked him. He had been racing solo all this time and the movement on the inside was unexpected. Briar’s Patch missed a step, missed two and then three. The horse came through and caught him on the line. It was a photo finish. Everyone was sure that Briar’s Patch had held on for the win or at least it was a dead heat with the two runners. The judges took almost two minutes to get the photo and determine the winner. It came up on the screen. Green Caper had beaten Briar’s Patch by a whisker.

Angry voices filled the large room. They argued with each other and they pointed fingers at my buddy.

“You set we up. You didn’t play in the race.”

He sat there, put his head on his hands and listened to the recriminations. He was sorry he had given a horse that lost.

The minutes rolled by and he did not move, still feeling the wrath of the angry crowd.

“I think we ‘d better take a walk”, I told him. I wished I knew his name, but Brother was good enough for the time.

We walked to the bar and I ordered a drink for him. He gulped it down, one shot.

That’s what he said. “One Shot.”

He put his hand in his pocket as if to pay and I stopped him. I would pay the bill.

He continued. Then he showed it to me.

Race 14. No 7. Wins: $1,000. Early Price 7-1.

Easy come. Easy go.

Footsteps: Out of Time!

Zorina Shah

There was a time when the Cedros peninsula was really one large coconut plantation, divided into several estates, each with its own set of barracks which eventually transitioned into villages. The estates bore such lofty names linked to its original owners, Ste. Marie, Perseverance, Columbia, St. Andrew, Constance and St. Quintin. 

Barracks at St. Andrew Estate

St. Quintin was of particular interest to me. It remained a row of slightly elevated barrack houses well into the 1980s, its roads were sand tracks, sand as from the coastline, that is. It was a short walk from where we lived on Columbus Beach. We visited Budhia often, but I did not know why. I never found out until I saw this emigration pass, the Register of Indentured workers now a part of the UNESCO Memory of the World. Budhia was from Uttar Pradesh, Siswa Bazaar near what is now the Nepalese border. 

Emigration pass for Budhia

Those were the days long after another indentured worker, Gopaulsingh, had moved from one estate to the other, with upward mobility, until he came to San Fernando with his one daughter Rookmin, and became the grandfather of a well known family, the Gopeesinghs. My story on Gopaulsingh was published in the June 8, 1975 edition of the Sunday Express and was discovered online by his great grandson Christopher Johnstone, a Canadian, in 2020. 

Part of the screenshot from Christopher Johnstone

The following year, Chris came to Trinidad to trace one leg of his great grandfather’s footsteps which originated in Benares and led to Constance, St. Quintin to Icacos, Fullerton, Bonasse, and San Fernando. In checking information ahead of his visit, I learnt that the Gopeesinghs ran a boat service from Cedros to Point Fortin, the roads being what they were at that time.

Full story from NALIS. I clearly did not know how to write.

Many of the stories of Indian indentureship are rooted in sugar and tend to omit other areas of agriculture and economy. It also largely excludes those who are not Hindus and definitely sidelines Indians who belong to the Christian faith. 

Before I entered my teens, I remember a young man from my village of Fullerton agitating for recognition, calling for a day of celebration and later publishing a book with a yellow cover. He went from one event to the other even before Indian Arrival was declared a holiday. If you have heard of Fr. Thomas Harricharan who became a Benedictine monk, you know who I am speaking about. There was a function at my Catholic primary school when he was ordained and he spoke about indentureship in the presence of the Archbishop of Port of Spain, his family and community. I had no clue at the time what he was referring to, the same way I did not understand about Budhia.

My cousin Ronald Tagallie, a Catholic priest in the 70s and 80s made a conscious effort to include elements of Indian culture in the mass. In Couva, the community joined as one to celebrate this part of our history. Ronald told me the story of how a parishioner came to him and said she never felt such belonging as when she experienced the presence of her ancestors inside her church. There has been further work, research and encouragement from Fr. Martin Sirju, another Catholic priest also from my village of Fullerton. His is mainly linked to Hinduism, but an outcome of his ancestry, nonetheless." 

Before I move on, I must mention the role of the Presbyterian Church, it's huge presence among indentured workers and the continuing debate on its influence in learning and evangelisation.

I had encountered numerous indentured labourers but never seen sugar cane until I came to Chaguanas to live at 11 years and even then I was faced with the large expanse of Endeavour (de Verteuil) Estate with coconuts, now converted to Orchard Gardens. On a previous trip to that same house, my great grandmother who was lying on a single bed spoke to me. I was only about six years old and had no interest in either old people or indentureship. 

By the time my friend Carol Lawes took me to Clarendon Estate in Jamaica in 1979, I had already worked in the sugar belt both as a reporter (I wasn’t yet a journalist) and an employee of the All Trinidad Sugar Estates and Factories Workers' Trade Union. Clarendon was home to large estates and the famous Monymusk sugar factory. Michael Manley’s People’s National Party had organised the industry into co-operatives for worker participation and workers basically joined with the state to run the companies in that parish. I stood before the head of one co-op, a tall man of east Indian descent, well dressed, hair greying only above his ears and curled on his forehead like an Indian film star. He had come from the fields to the union to the management. Sugar was not yet taking a beating on the global market and he had such dreams for making the industry work, for keeping sugar alive, though not as king. That title is now reserved for Charles, King of Jamaica.

He told me that his grandparents had come from India. His aji, yes he used that word for his grandmother, would never imagine him managing a sugar co-op. I could not imagine him ever having grease on his hands and soot on his clothing. He had no further education, but he possessed knowledge of planting, reaping, machines, manufacturing, world trade and a deep feeling for the future of his community and country. 

But governments come and governments go and Jamaica’s sugar industry eventually passed into the hands of private investors. I haven’t made the effort to find out why.

In Trinidad, the previous year and even two years later, we were still sitting across the table from Gordon Maingot and Russell Wotherspoon at Sevilla to negotiate a five cents increase on the task, or went up to Errol Mahabir’s office in Salvatori building to threaten him with a strike. Their sole interest was to meet the European quota, not to pay more to the workers making it possible. In Chaguanas, while I was at school,  I had prepared the worksheets for Poptee, not really my aunt but much more than an aunt, when she worked every single day during the crop season. The spreadsheet was just a copy book page with columns I had put in so I could enter the days, the number of tasks, how much she was paid for each unit of work and a total at the bottom for each fortnight. It was on par to what women worked for when they dug out copra for five days at the un-unionised Columbia Estate. 

On a Cubana airlines flight in 1978, I had met two members of the Guyana Agricultural Workers Union and their problems were even worse than ours. Crushed by the country’s problems of race, they still saw hope. Cheddi Jagan and Walter Rodney were alive. That was all they needed to know. About three decades later, I joined with a number of young people at Guyana Times Newspaper to produce an Indian Arrival magazine for the 172nd anniversary of arrival of the the very first indentured workers to the Western Hemisphere. It was an exercise in joy, co-operation, learning and achievement. In that magazine we carried a lovely story about Raj Baba Merhai tracing his family to India. In doing research on the cricketers of East Indian descent who made it to the West Indies team, I completely omitted Leonard Baichan, the opening batsman.

Raj Baba Merhai's story

In that same year, 2010 I walked among Hindustani and Javanese workers in Suriname. There was an increase in sugar production even as former sugar workers in Trinidad struggled in the aftermath of the closure of Caroni Limited. That is before Caroni distributed its land and they were able to balance their finances better, or pressed for cash, many of them handed over their property to real estate scouts for less than its value.

ANR Robinson - Seven days in April, 2014

Zorina Shah

These anecdotes are strung together from my Facebook posts of April, 2014. The stories are copied, which is why I am having difficulty with the layout.

Arthur Napoleon Raymond Robinson, December 16, 1926 - April 09, 2014, former Prime Minister and former President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. 

Robinson with trade union leaders, oil and sugar strikes of the 1970s

Anecdote: The Sou Sou Land team were in Tobago as guests of Robinson, his wife Pat and Member of Parliament Pam Nicholson some time in the early 1980s. Robinson was head of the Tobago House of Assembly at the timeJohn Humphrey, Mr and Mrs. Sankersingh and Asad Mohammed were travelling in Pam Nicholson's car and I rode in the back of the Robinsons' green Land Rover. It was a Saturday and lots of people who had been to their Seventh Day Adventist services were on their way home. One white pick-up we saw was loaded, really loaded on the back and still waiting for more people. Pat commented on the safety of the passengers. Robinson pulled alongside the pick-up and I said to myself: "Oh oh we are in for it”, keeping low in my seat. He spoke to the driver "My brother, if you must carry my children like that, please drive with care". There was loud and sustained applause. As the Land Rover pulled out, Robinson looked at me in the rear view mirror and said, "Okay Zorina, you can lift your head up now". He had seen it all.

Day 2

Today, an ANR Robinson joke. I hope it is not in poor taste. After the 1990 coup attempt, Robinson went to Venezuela to recuperate (he did). He was provided with security by the Venezuelan government. Every morning the security greeted him with "como estas" (with all the accents included of course) and Robinson would reply "un dia". 

One day the security asked: Mr. Prime Minister, do you know what I am saying?

Robinson: Yes you are asking how I am doing.

Security: And why are you saying un dia.

Robinson: Well I am replying as Trinidadians do. I am telling you "ah day”....

Day 3

I was working at All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers Trade Union when the first ever Tobago House of Assembly elections were called for November 24, 1980. Robinson had contested the 1976 general elections as leader of his own party, the Democratic Action Congress, but the party was only able to muster two Tobago seats and he became the Member of Parliament for Tobago East. 

I travelled to Tobago for a weekend to assist in the campaign in the company of a ULF activist from Siparia, Dindial Maharaj and Joseph Lum Kin, a shopkeeper of Chinese descent who was also a councillor in the St. Patrick County Council. 

We visited Robinson at his office in Tobago and he made time to see us, give us his assessment of how the campaign was progressing, called it a win, indicated which areas we could visit to assist and gave us the names of campaign officials in those districts. He was thinking it would 7-5 in favour of the DAC, but they did even better winning eight seats.

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The green Land Rover made its way through the village of Castara, heading for Little Englishman's Bay. Robinson stopped the vehicle on a slope as we turned a corner. I stared in wonder. Both Robinson and Pat looked back at me. "This is what heaven must be like," he said, "I hope our friends at the back also get a glimpse of heaven".

Many years later, making this trip with Anise Maybodi, I asked her to stop on or about the same spot. Robinson had his heaven in Tobago.