I received a phone call last week: my son, my last boy, was dead. He had been shot through with bullets from an automatic pistol in a tiny suburb of Port of Spain, where he lived with his mother, Wardah, her husband, Hassan, and three other children of the family.
Four men had entered the house at 5am, firing madly and wildly, taking the life of Amiri, the man-child. For hours, I lay motionless, travelling through space and time, immersed in dread and silent thought. Who, how and why?
I had better go through official channels to have this fact confirmed, I decided. I called the information desk at the Trinidad and Tobago High Commission. A kindly woman diplomat answered. She had heard news of the shooting. "Oh my God, is that your son?" We both burst into tears. She would investigate and then call me back. She did. It was not my son; it was his mother's husband, Hassan.
I last wrote about Hassan, my son's stepfather, in this column when he declared, in a press statement post-11 September, that all young Trinidadian Muslims should make their way to Afghanistan to fight for the Islamic cause. The facts are these: Hassan woke up for first prayer on a bright Caribbean morning. The assassin struck. Five bullets tore through his lithe frame. Amiri dragged him into the sitting-room, out of the line of fire. The assassin disappeared.
Amiri is 17 years old and he loved Hassan, who had been a wonderful stepfather, kind, generous but firm. Hassan was one of the leading figures in the Islamic insurrection that took over the government of Trinidad and Tobago in 1990. The insurgents entered parliament and held the entire government hostage. After days of negotiations, the insurgents surrendered.
As time went by, Hassan, Libyan-trained, was made the wazir of security at the fundamentalist mosque. Eventually, he broke with the main Islamic organisation and set up on his own. He became a columnist for a weekly journal and presented his own Islamic radio programme. In both, he criticised other Islamic groups. I read his column with interest and, when I met him earlier this year, I asked whether he had any security to protect him? "Nah," he said. "I don't need that."
I worry now, is my son in danger?
howe1@lineone.net
