Obama hypocrites

But as Obama continued to speak, I became less and less able to understand why various local commentators had been muching him up as though he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I don’t agree with that line of thought, because I think Obama may well turn out to be the greatest thing since hops bread. (Not better, eh, just since.) What had me confuffled, though, was that nearly all the Trinbagonians hailing Obama are opposed toute bagai to the values espoused by the new US president.

Take “tolerance and curiosity”, which he listed as two of the values required for meeting the world’s challenges. Now tolerance, as I understand it, is accepting the lifestyles of other people, once they do no harm. Yet 66 percent of people in Trinidad and Tobago say they would object to a homosexual living near them. Maybe they’re afraid they’ll get curious about same-sex attraction and start thinking “Yes, we can”.

But curiosity, as a value, has to do with understanding reality, especially when it comes to financial crises, biological evolution, and women who wear push-up bras. Would a truly curious media, which featured Obama so prominently this week, swallow claims that women from Trinidad and Tobago are being trafficked for sex and organs, when the pastor saying this doesn’t back up his extraordinary assertion with a kidnap victim, a sex tape, or even a used kidney? After all, Obama made sure to note that crises are “subject to data and statistics”. When faced with problems, however, Trinis instead turn to obeah, prayer, and Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira.

Which brings me to capitalist values. In speaking of the market, Obama stated categorically that “it’s power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched.” Yet somehow, Cuba-loving trade unionists and tree-hugging feminists who use “capitalism” as a cuss-word see no contradiction in lauding Obama. Maybe they think he would approve of their ignorance of economics, science, and shaving razors: which, if so, really is an audacity of hope.

I was even more flabbergasted by a statement by the spokesman for a local Afrocentric organisation, who said that Obama had brought a “dramatic change” and provided people with “something to believe in”. Yet, every Emancipation Day, this same organisation uses taxpayers’ change to import keynote speakers who claim that the Greeks stole all their philosophy from Egypt, that Africans had airplanes, and that African cultures elevate women. Since this organisation continues to bring these deluded pseudo-intellectuals to TT year after year, they clearly don’t believe in change you can believe in.

Then I really sat up straight when Obama said, “Those of us who manage the public dollars will be held to account: to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day.”

If Obama lived in TT those words would be virtually treasonous, since our Government insists on spending foolishly, adheres to the same bad habits of the first oil boom, and requires a Commission of Enquiry for the people’s business to see the light of day. Obama even went on to warn that “Those who cling to power through corruption and deceit, and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history.” But I am sure that, when in a few months he meets Prime Minister Patrick Manning and the PNM Cabinet at their $600 million-and-counting Summit of the Americas, Obama will be too diplomatic to watch his hosts cut-eye.

All those things, however, only caught my attention. They weren’t what made me realise that the Trini posers’ love for Obama is only skin-deep (and just the first layer of skin at that). Because the part of Obama’s speech that I most liked, naturally, was when he declared that America was “a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers.” I suppose it’s the first time that my tribe has been included in such a speech, even though we are the fourth-largest group in the world. Here, by contrast, one national newspaper misquoted this same sentence in its editorial by omitting Jews and non-believers, perhaps because God-fearing Trinis would never embrace people who killed Christ or, worse, people who don’t believe Christ ever existed to be killed.

Which is why, if TT did produce an Obama, he wouldn’t even be elected to clean drains.

Email: kbaldeosingh@hotmail.com