While many Chris­tians re­flect­ed on Je­sus’ cru­ci­fix­ion yes­ter­day, sev­er­al peo­ple ho­n­oured the an­nu­al Good Fri­day tra­di­tion of beat­ing bobolees, with Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, for­mer Ch­agua­nas East MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly and Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump among those com­ing in for some “licks.”

The bobolee, a tra­di­tion­al Good Fri­day ef­fi­gy in T&T, rep­re­sents Ju­das Is­car­i­ot, the dis­ci­ple who be­trayed Je­sus by hand­ing Him over to the re­li­gious au­thor­i­ties in ex­change for 30 pieces of sil­ver. Ac­cord­ing to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Ju­das arranged to be­tray Je­sus by iden­ti­fy­ing Him with a kiss in the Gar­den of Geth­se­mane, al­low­ing the Ro­man sol­diers and chief priests to ar­rest Him.

In an act re­venge an­nu­al­ly on Good Fri­day, peo­ple cre­ate bobolees from old clothes stuffed with ma­te­ri­als like straw or news­pa­per. They then place the ef­fi­gies in pub­lic spaces, and passers­by sym­bol­i­cal­ly beat them as an act of ret­ri­bu­tion for Ju­das’ be­tray­al. Over time, the tra­di­tion has evolved, with bobolees some­times rep­re­sent­ing politi­cians or pub­lic fig­ures, al­low­ing com­mu­ni­ties to vent frus­tra­tions sym­bol­i­cal­ly.