Year after year citizens of Trinidad and Tobago take justifiable pride in marking three profoundly significant milestones: African Emancipation, Indian Arrival and Independence.
African Emancipation, officially celebrated first in Trinidad and Tobago in 1985, is the proud, bitterly-won ancestral legacy bequeathed to descendants of the African continent. Indian Arrival, also originating in Trinidad and Tobago in 1994, is an unadulterated reminder of the colonially imposed system of indentured servitude: replacement of slave labour. Both initiatives are likewise replicated worldwide.
The seeds of T&T’s independence were embedded within the bosom of the 1937 Butler riots, out of which emerged demands for what was then innocently promulgated as Home Rule.
Interestingly, the first of the world’s 195 countries to have been recorded as independent date from 660BC to the tenth century. Among them, Japan, China, San Marino, France, Austria and Denmark, in that order. More interestingly, three of these—Austria, Denmark and Japan—rank among the safest.
Much to the delight of our population are the pomp, ceremonies and festivities which, transient as they are, regrettably leave behind the unanswered question: how, in the long run, are the annual memoires of these historical milestones being optimised in influencing T&T’s choice of destiny: to arrive at consensus on a National Purpose?
In contemplating thereon, we may wish to ponder upon the concern documented by the nation’s first prime minister, Dr Eric Williams:
“On August 31, 1962, a country will be free, a miniature state will be established, but a society and a nation will not have been formed.” (History of the People of Trinidad and Tobago.)
That after 62 long years we have yet to articulate the “model nation” we desire to become is troubling. More concerning is the reality that the journey forward since emancipation has not been without intermittent periods of civil dissent, discord and rebellion. The most remembered, the 1990 attempted coup, has been made to become an event momentous enough for some to celebrate, others to commemorate.
Long before was the generally unknown: the first major violent incursion upon our democratic rights and freedoms which occurred in San Fernando on November 27, 1886: the gruesome massacre of the Indian immigrants by the combined forces of the colonisers (army and police) obstructing their inalienable right to engage in their own religious observances, peacefully.
Whereas, in the latter instance it was the colonial forces at play, in 1990 it was a handful of our own: attempting a violent overthrow of our democratically elected government.
The year 1937 saw thousands of Afro-Trinidadian oilfield workers and Indo-Trinidadian sugar cane harvesters fearlessly enjoined in fighting for social justice, shaking the walls of the colonial citadels; vibrations reverberating throughout the British Caribbean.
The year 1946 witnessed downtown Port of Spain gripped in similar-type unrest: port workers agitating for improved working conditions—aggressively intercepted with tear gas and gunfire resulting in in-controllable rioting, the colonial authorities again counter-attacking: demonstrators severely beaten, some arrested.
Come 1970, enters Geddes Leo Granger (Makandal Daaga) backed by a spirited movement caught up in the global Black Power insurgences, thousands marching defiantly through the valleys, towns and villages pressing demands for equal opportunity for T&T’s black and Indian diaspora: for control of the commanding heights of the economy.
In all these protestations, there was one common element: a society in search of itself, of becoming: a purpose for being, notwithstanding vacillations over what, when and how: the predicament that has been plaguing the nation for generations: espousing a national purpose, if only to give meaning, significance and life to the spirit and intent of emancipation and independence, to lay the cornerstones upon which Nationhood can be firmly grounded.
Today that search is being betrayed: no leadership, direction or forward thinking: no spiritual underpinning. Nationhood: fact or fiction?
And so, despite its indisputable physical progress, economic growth and development, T&T continues only to survive: void of national purpose, gaining the whole world and suffering the loss of its soul: failing to transition our rich cultural heritage into an unambiguous, inspirational and unwavering national purpose: to adopt that greater perspective, move beyond self, venture out of our comfort zones: plug in to that cause monumentally greater than ourselves, infuse one-another with that spirit of nationhood, become seamlessly connected to the network of adamant loyalists: demolish the strongholds of racism, industrial relations disharmony, abominable work ethic, degenerating total factor productivity, evasive economic imbalance, corruption, violence and criminality: function in an environment of caring and togetherness: free from prolonging a self-destructive T&T, instead, a network of dynamic nation-builders, fostering, developing and growing unconditional patriotism and civic-mindedness.
In the final analysis, optimising the best of Trinidad and Tobago’s two worlds: the present: already painstakingly achieved notwithstanding, and the future: what we are undoubtedly capable of becoming.
I beg to move.
Happy African Emancipation Day.
• Author Roy Mitchell is a former special adviser and co-ordinator, National Tripartite Advisory Council (NTAC).