Political hate campaigns being waged against Syrian-Lebanese community

Busi­ness­man Gary Aboud has claimed that the Syr­i­an-Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go is liv­ing un­der an “omi­nous cloud of sus­pi­cion” amid what he de­scribed as po­lit­i­cal hate cam­paigns tar­get­ing the com­mu­ni­ty.

“If any­one has bro­ken the law, re­gard­less of wealth, sta­tus, race or po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion, they must an­swer to the court. Jus­tice is blind … and yet clear­ly it seems to be ma­nip­u­lat­ed,” Aboud said in a state­ment is­sued as a con­cerned cit­i­zen.

He spoke fol­low­ing yes­ter­day’s court pro­ceed­ings in­volv­ing Star Sab­ga, who re­mains un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der.

A rap-so­ca au­dio clip cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia has been call­ing for Sab­ga’s re­lease. Part of the record­ing states: “Trinidad, Trinidad, raise yuh hand. From Port of Spain to San Fer­nan­do, we singing for jus­tice tonight… 70 years she liv­ing hum­ble, nev­er look­ing for no trou­ble… Every day, let the truth come to light. Peo­ple cry Star is an in­no­cent la­dy. Do what’s fair and right. Free Aun­ty Star.”

Aboud said, “As a proud Trin­bag­on­ian, af­ter ded­i­cat­ing my life to serv­ing my coun­try, I write with a heavy heart.

“The 1970s are back. His­to­ry has taught us that so­ci­eties rarely de­scend in­to di­vi­sion overnight. They do so grad­u­al­ly, through re­peat­ed stereo­typ­ing, col­lec­tive blame and the slow ac­cep­tance of prej­u­dice as nor­mal po­lit­i­cal lan­guage.

“The Syr­i­an-Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty is now liv­ing un­der an omi­nous cloud of sus­pi­cion where po­lit­i­cal hate cam­paigns are be­ing waged against us. The ar­rests of the Hadeeds, with­out a sin­gle charge, should con­cern us all be­cause the rule of law is not the play­thing of crooks or politi­cians. If any­one has bro­ken the law, re­gard­less of wealth, sta­tus, race or po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion, they must an­swer to the court. Jus­tice is blind … and yet clear­ly it seems to be ma­nip­u­lat­ed.”

Aboud added, “Jus­tice ceas­es to ex­ist when en­vy, land grudges or un­found­ed sus­pi­cion are forced up­on an en­tire eth­nic com­mu­ni­ty. For many of us, this past year has re­opened racist wounds that nev­er ful­ly healed.

“I re­mem­ber the Black Pow­er move­ment of the 1970s. Be­ing mocked, in­sult­ed and abused be­cause of my skin colour and my Syr­i­an-Lebanese her­itage was nor­mal. I re­mem­ber be­ing cursed by grown men when I was a child of 10. That trau­ma does not sim­ply dis­ap­pear with time. To­day, once again, we are be­ing open­ly ac­cused, cursed and dis­crim­i­nat­ed against. The echoes of 1970 con­tin­ue to haunt our land and dri­ve our loy­al­ties else­where.”

He con­tin­ued: “When elect­ed fig­ures re­peat­ed­ly in­voke nar­ra­tives that as­so­ciate an en­tire eth­nic mi­nor­i­ty with crim­i­nal­i­ty and drug smug­gling, they may be­lieve they are tar­get­ing a few in­di­vid­u­als. In re­al­i­ty, those words reach every school­yard, work­place, busi­ness and fam­i­ly, re­gard­less of eth­nic­i­ty. Hate breeds hate with­out bor­ders. The in­no­cent car­ry the bur­den of the guilty. Our na­tion is be­ing led in­to evil.”

Aboud said every­one in Trinidad and To­ba­go is de­scend­ed from im­mi­grants.

“None of us has more of a right than any oth­er. Our strength is that we come from dif­fer­ent shores but choose one flag. The over­whelm­ing ma­jor­i­ty of Syr­i­an-Lebanese cit­i­zens are or­di­nary Trinida­di­ans. We em­ploy tens of thou­sands of peo­ple, build busi­ness­es, pay tax­es, sup­port char­i­ties, in­vest in com­mu­ni­ties and con­tribute to the eco­nom­ic life of our na­tion.

“To­day, the dan­ger­ous ‘One Per­cent’ nar­ra­tive has in­creas­ing­ly be­come in­ter­twined with eth­nic­i­ty in the pub­lic imag­i­na­tion, a de­vel­op­ment that has deep­ened mis­trust and racial di­vi­sion. Our Con­sti­tu­tion guar­an­tees equal­i­ty be­fore the law and pro­tec­tion from dis­crim­i­na­tion to all cit­i­zens, re­gard­less of race, re­li­gion, an­ces­try or so­cial stand­ing, and yet our Cab­i­net leads the way in dis­crim­i­nat­ing against, alien­at­ing and at­tack­ing hard-work­ing fam­i­lies.”

Aboud added: “Hate speech has be­come nor­malised on po­lit­i­cal plat­forms, on so­cial me­dia and in pub­lic places, and it fil­ters in­to every­day nurs­ery school con­ver­sa­tions. I be­lieve every child must be able to walk our streets with­out be­ing judged by their sur­name, skin colour or an­ces­try. Any­thing less is sim­ply evil.

“Our di­ver­si­ty has al­ways been our great­est strength. If we lose that, we will slide in­to shame and dis­re­pute, just like the KKK in Al­aba­ma.”