05 February 1999, 933 words
If you want to be an ethnic champion, you don't need to have any particular qualifications. But there are certain qualities which, judging from those who push an ethnic head in Trinidad and Tobago, it is quite important to completely lack.
For instance, you should lack personal attractiveness. It is not useful for an ethnic champion to be good-looking. You can have a sort of insipid face, but not the sort of looks which might cause the opposite sex to become weak at the knees or strong in the groin (depending on whether the opposite sex is female or male.)
You see, good-looking people are often very confident, if only about their looks. But sexual confidence of any sort will not put you on the path of ethnic championship. That is why Arthur "Slapper" Sanderson has jumped on the ethnic bandwagon. To walk that narrow-minded trail, the absolute first requirement is congenital insecurity. A lack of physical appeal is the best basis for this (although Anthony Quinn, who still fathers children at 82, is living proof that ugliness does not necessarily result in insecurity of the congenital kind.)
Indeed, there are many persons of quite plain or ordinary looks who have never become ethnic champions. But one generally finds that these persons have other sexually attractive qualities, like charming personalities or high intelligence or even just integrity of character. The true ethnic champion lacks all of these. He or she knows that niceness is the worst weakness of anyone who wants to promote the ethnic cause. That is why some weeks ago, in front of thousands of television viewers, Dr. Selwyn Cudjoe boofed the young man who accompanied him in occupying Ken Emrith's office. Cudjoe was holding out his wrists, daring the police officer to arrest him and his colleagues. "Where your hands?" he asked the young man who, grinning, held them out. "What you laughing at?" snapped Cudjoe. "I told you before this not a joke, this is serious business!"
Cudjoe, you see, is an ethnic champion. The young man, being a Trini, isn't. In fact, that is the next lack you need in order to be an ethnic champion in this country: you mustn't have any real sense of yourself as a Trini. Given that lack, you must naturally promote the idea that we need to adopt the customs of our ancestors in other countries thousands of years ago. For example, Hindu ethnic champions like Maha Sabha writers Devant Parsuram Maharaj and Rajnie Ramlakhan always try to pretend that the Hindu way of life is perfect. This requires habitual lying, but nobody ever became an ethnic champion by being objective. You must promote the idea that Hindus are so tolerant and non-violent that, unlike every other ethnic group the world has ever know, they will treat all outsiders fairly and kindly.
Thus, when Hindu fanatics started attacking and killing Christians in India, the Maha Sabha immediately dashed off a fax to the Vishwa Hindu Parishas (VHP) to get the "true" story. The "truth", according to VHP head Ashok Singhal, was that Christian militants were forcing conversion through terrorism upon Hindus. Naturally, you won't hear from the Maha Sabha that Singhal also described Mother Teresa as a Christian zealot who took part in this terrorism and that 1998 Economics Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen should stop promoting mass literacy because this would cause Hindus to leave their faith. And, of course, you must also apply similar distortions to the history of East Indian descendants in your own country: "In the Indian countryside of my childhood in Trinidad there were many murders and acts of violence, and these acts of violence gave the Trinidad Indians a fearful reputation," writes V.S. Naipaul; but you must pretend that Hindus have always been this docile, civilized people.
This is not to say that academic competence is not necessary for the ethnic champion. Indeed, in the modern world, it is virtually de rigueur. But you have to lack intellectual honesty. (This doesn't prevent you getting a degree - Kumar Mahabir sent out press releases when he got his doctorate.) The truly intelligent person always considers all available facts before drawing conclusions, judgements or opinions. The ethnic champion, on the other hand, accepts only those facts which support their biases. Thus, these champions are always eristic: Ramlakhan says Africans were the last group of hominids to become "fully human"; Maharaj and Kamal Persad quote people as saying things they never said and then criticize them for saying those things which they never said; and Cudjoe writes that "most Trinidadians of African descent identify with Africa", because without that idea he has absolutely no political platform.
I have so far cited qualities which almost every ethnic champion must lack in order to be an ethnic champion. Yet I must admit that none of these lacks is crucial. In fact, having observed all such champions closely, I am forced to conclude that there is actually only one quality that every ethnic champion absolutely must not have: and that is a sense of humour. The newspaper columns of Cudjoe, Maharaj, Persad, Ramlakhan et al are all singularly lacking in humour. Not even irony or sarcasm gets a peep in with these deadly serious people. You will, however, find pomposity - humour's opposite - in full measure. Why is this lack so crucial? Well, as Somerset Maugham once pointed out, "Humour teaches tolerance"; and this, of course, is one lesson that the ethnic champion must ensure no one ever learns.
Copyright ©1999 Kevin Baldeosingh