Without proper education and lacking job opportunities, those who felt left behind began to turn to Islam as a way out, and a means of clearing the streets of the drugs that went hand in glove with the new money. This Islamic reboot differed from the prevailing, passive Trinidadian Muslim identity and capitalised on endemic corruption, a growing gang problem fuelled by a burgeoning cocaine trade and a sense of alienation felt by many youths who were unable to access a piece of the oil and gas pie being divvied up by foreign capitalists and their government cronies. In the late Seventies, the island saw a revival of Islam that came off the back of an American black power movement underscored by the teachings of Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan, as well as the Islamic revolution in Iran and the assertion of a more muscular, global Muslim identity.
Abu Bakr announcing the Government has been overthrownīut even before Isis existed as an idea, let alone as an organised terror group, the foundations of Islamic extremism were being laid in Trinidad. Such a perfect storm feeds the worst excesses of identity politics, making young, impressionable and often desperate men vulnerable to the chest-beating Isis propaganda machine. While most are arguably “moderate”, a small minority has no strong attachment to their communities - thanks to a combination of atomised families, absent fathers, rampant drug addiction, gang culture and social marginalisation. Yet in Trinidad, just 6% of the population are Muslim, and, of these, an estimated 90% are of Indian descent. More from this author Why did Tottenham erupt? For the better part of a week, Abu Bakr was effectively the head of state, making him the only person to ever lead an Islamic coup in the Western Hemisphere.
DOPEWARS TREADON TV
I was reminded of the connection between the Caribbean, the caliphate and cocaine last week after hearing of the death of 80-year-old Yasin Abu Bakr, an imposing 6ft 6in former TV producer and ex-cop who, as leader of the Jamaat al Muslimeen movement, in 1990 pulled off an attempted coup in Trinidad. As unlikely as it may seem, Trinidad has become one of the world’s key recruiting grounds for Isis, a status linked to the country’s other big wheeze: drug trafficking. While Assad’s war-torn country has been crippled by a decade of civil conflict, Trinidad, compared with most of its Caribbean neighbours, is still reaping the benefits of its early-Eighties oil and natural gas boom.īut despite the obvious differences between a failed Arab state of 18 million and a dual-island nation of 1.3 million, the two countries have become strange bedfellows. Separated by 6,000-odd miles and myriad cultural differences, Syria’s killing fields and the sun and soca-drenched beaches of Trinidad and Tobago seem, on the face of it, to be worlds apart.
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