In this land of many peoples and people of many ancestries, how do people see their ethnic heritage? How do they practise it, ignore it, or celebrate it? On the occasion of our 54th anniversary of independence from Britain this year, Guardian feature writer Shereen Ali spoke to T&T citizens of different backgrounds to ask how they see issues such as ethnicity, race and in some cases, their own uniquely diverse heritages. This week we hear from Hadzrat Rahab.
Hadzrat Rahab is a security expert, a businessman, a Dougla (mixed Pakistani and African roots) and is the son of the calypsonian The Roaring Lion. He also has mixed Arabian, Spanish and Amerindian ancestries.
When you have to fill in a form asking you your race, what do you put?
It depends on what is available —previously there was “other.” Now, there may be a “mixed” category.
How do you see your ethnic roots & heritage? Is it important to how you define yourself, or is it irrelevant, an accident of birth?
I am a proud dougla, without a doubt.
Dougla and pit bull have one thing in common: You see them all over the place, but nobody wants to claim them.
Nobody tells you you are a dougla growing up. It is just that at the age four or five in the schoolyard, the other children you are playing with will point out the difference in your hair texture, and that kind of thing, and from that you get a sense of awareness.
I don’t consider my ancestry to be an accident of birth. I think it is a blessing to be of mixed heritage in Trinidad where every four years and nine months there may be perceived tensions between the races in T&T, by virtue of either deliberate or accidental subscribing to political agendas.
Mixed descent is a blessing. When you get into what kind of races make up the dougla, in my own case it is Punjabi Pakistani on the one hand, and Amerindian and Trinidadian on the other.
Douglas have the blessing of not being referred to as a prefix-Trinidadian. We are not “Afro-” or “Indo-” anything; we are just Trinidadians.
Do you celebrate your ethnic heritage, ignore it as irrelevant, or have mixed feelings about it?
I celebrate it in the sense that years ago, in the late 1990s, I started what I casually referred to as the “Dougla Movement.” We printed T-shirts and distributed to people of like mind, which turned out to be a lot. At the front of the T-shirt, we had “Racebusters” (taking a leaf from “Ghostbusters”), and at the back of the jersey we had two slogans. One was: “Dougla is the answer” and Errol Fabien came up with a second one which was: “Be wise—Douglarise.” We made more than 2,000 of them and they went fast, they just disappeared.
The douglas find themselves in a unique position. A prefix-Trinidadian, eg an Afro- or Indo-Trinidadian, may make a comment that may be questionable to the other group, because of racial sensitivity. But the dougla doesn’t have that problem. Because of my mixed race ancestry, I have no difficulty in making a critical analysis of something East Indian or equally, something Afro-TT, unlike the hard-core Afro-Trini or hardcore Indo-Trini.
So one of the benefits of being dougla is to be able to participate in sensitive conversations without anybody ascribing any agenda to you.
Do you think race is important in T&T? Do you think different ethnicities have different values?
At the end of the day, we all have a national pride, and you see it in the sporting events, the football, the Carnival.
Then you have specific interest groups who in order to secure their own future and longevity, would hype up the divisions. So, for example, for five days in the year, we will be Afro-conscious because Emancipation is coming up.
I don’t think East Indians have that problem because of their strong religious background. You could even say in T&T we don’t have Indians, but we have Hindus, Muslims, Presbyterians and other Christians. Indians may look alike but have different values. You understand?
So you can’t just look at an Indian, and cast any kind of dye on that person, because you first have to understand—are you a Hindu, Muslim, Presbyterian or other Christian? It is difficult to take one brush and paint everybody.
Some staunch T&T Hindus might still say that if their daughter were to marry outside of the Indian Hindu tradition, they would disown her. Now, my sister-in-law in Norway is a Hindu, born in Kenya, and she can’t understand that. But she also cannot understand the flags in the yards of T&T Hindus, which is a given here.
It is said, sometimes, that in T&T, the Hindus tend to discriminate against non-Hindus. I don’t have a difficulty understanding that, because they segregate amongst themselves by virtue of the caste system. So I think non-Hindus in T&T are out of place to have an issue with whatever treatment they perceive to have received from Hindus here, because Hindus discriminate amongst themselves. The M-A-H-A-R-A-J is different from the M-A-R-A-J; the P-A-R-S-A-U-D is different from the P-E-R-S-A-D, and so on. But who am I to judge them? If that is their way, that is their way; I don’t have a difficulty with that.
I don’t have a problem with Hinduism, per se, or Catholicism, which arose 325 years after Christ died, with mostly pagan roots. The same Catholic Church, which tells people they mustn’t worship idols, is replete with idols.
You understand what I am saying? So it is not for me to question the construct of anyone’s belief. If you have your belief, then I am happy for you because you can't go through life without a belief.
So whether it is Hindus, Muslims, Presbyterians, other Christians, Rastafari, whatever, all of them have a sense of belonging, because we all have a desire to align our soul with easy passage after this life. So you can't question what somebody's root is.
Now for Rastafarians and Muslims — they do not eat pork; but Catholics might love their roast pork. The Hindus might love the pork but not the beef. So if it is that you want to impress two Indo-Trinidadians when you inviting them for dinner, you have to find out what religion they are, to be able to know what menu to put on the table. Because you might give the Hindu beef! And you might give the Muslim pork!
The overarching image is that we are all Trinidadians, but that unity only comes together for sports, or events like that. That's when you see it the most, when there might be a nationalistic awareness that comes with it.
But outside of that, you're going to have the interest groups. It could be a social or a religious group, like ASJA or the Rastafarians. The Emancipation Committee reflects awareness of African culture. The Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha is tied to understanding Hindu people.
So race is just one aspect of a shifting complexity of identities.
How long have you/your family had roots here (best estimate)?
Generations. In the case of my Amerindian grandmother, centuries.
I came to T&T at the age of three. My great-grandmother was from Pubjab, Pakistan. My grandmother was born here, in Trinidad, so she was a first-generation Trinidadian. My mother was born here.
On my father's side, my Amerindian grandmother was born in 1884 in Aroquita in Caura. Her name was Bascilicion de Leon. Then four brothers came from Spain via Venezuela, and she married one of them. That union produced Rafael Arias Cairi Llama de Leon — The Roaring Lion, who was my father. He named me Hadzrat Rahab ibn Llama de Leon.
So you notice he took an Arabic word (ibn) which means “son of” — so I am “son of Llama.” So my name is actually Hadzrat Rahab.
In Trinidad, we often confuse or oversimplify people's actual heritage. For instance, we call many people “Syrian,” and are totally oblivious to who actually came from Syria or from Lebanon, whose ancestors are fighting against one another. It is really family fighting against one another.
In much the same way, you may call many people “Indian,” without realising that Pakistan and India have nuclear warheads pointing at one another.
So how au courant are we with what we are really talking about?
What do you like and dislike about T&T culture?
I like the underlying love between the people. And I think that comes from our party mentality. There's an underlying togetherness amongst Trinidadians, which you may see more when you travel, and you interface with the diaspora.
Here in Trinidad, when the house on fire, or when de car run off de road, nobody don't stop to find out if is a PNM or a UNC car, or if is an African or an Indian driver. Look the two guys who dive in the river and saved someone in Caroni some months ago, no-one needed to know what party card the man had. I think that is what I like most about Trinidadians.
But no-one is infallible. As I sometimes say, nothing is wrong with Trinidad — it is Trinidadians who are the problem. But that is when I look at areas such as national security, where we always argue with the minister and the commissioner and this and that and the other, but the real problem is us.
You know, climate, and place, influences culture. For instance, when you walk down the streets in England, no-one is watching you in your eye, because they are walking fast up the road, because it is cold. Whereas in tropical countries, we walk more relaxed, it is warm, and we tend to know and greet everybody. But in cold countries, they may not even know their neighbours. They don't have our mix-and-mingle attitude.
If you have a pitbull in North America, he lives inside with you; the mailman, the milkman, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, they are all at risk when they come through that door. Now if you take that same pitbull and put him in Trinidad: he lives in the yard, he knows the rubbish truck, he knows the children going to school, he might know the neighbour, he knows the lady who walks up the hill. So the same pitbull has a different socialisation because of climate.
The same thing with us. And these little things seep into your persona to create the whole.