Sascha Wil­son

More than three decades af­ter the late Dr Er­ic Eu­stace Williams said, "fu­ture of the na­tion is in the chil­dren's school bag," San Fer­nan­do may­or Navi Mu­radali is call­ing for Williams' lega­cy to be made part of the school cur­ricu­lum.Mu­radali was speak­ing at the un­veil­ing of a plaque in trib­ute of Williams at Har­ris Prom­e­nade on Fri­day.Shar­ing the sen­ti­ments was chair­man of the Er­ic Williams Memo­r­i­al Com­mit­tee, Regi­nald Vi­dale, who said that Williams was not be­ing giv­en the ho­n­our and recog­ni­tion he de­served.

Mu­radali said: "I am very dis­ap­point­ed that in our cur­ricu­lum in schools, we learn so many things about Christo­pher Colum­bus and all these oth­er per­sons who are his­tor­i­cal in na­ture."But many of our young peo­ple leave our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem and not much is known about Er­ic Williams, so I share your (Vi­dale) sen­ti­ments and I think I would take the op­por­tu­ni­ty to call on our Gov­ern­ment to cor­rect that."He added, "I would call on our Gov­ern­ment to en­sure that Dr Er­ic Williams has a place in our his­to­ry books in our cur­ricu­lum. And there­fore, this is a step in the right di­rec­tion."Not­ing the thou­sands of school­child­ren who tra­verse the prom­e­nade on a dai­ly ba­sis, Mu­radali said the mon­u­ment "will serve as a his­to­ry les­son to all of our school­child­ren, to quote from Dr Er­ic Williams, 'the fu­ture of our na­tion is in our chil­dren's school bags.'"

Mu­radali said most peo­ple are un­aware that when Apol­lo 11 land­ed on the moon in 1969, one of the 70-odd mes­sages etched on the lu­nar sur­face was from Williams.It read, "It is our earnest hope for mankind that while he gain the moon we shall not lose the world."Dur­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion, Vi­dale was crit­i­cal of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) and then Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Sing for not re­spond­ing to his re­quests for mon­u­ments of Williams to be erect­ed.About three weeks ago at the un­veil­ing of Venezue­lan lib­er­a­tor Si­mon Bo­li­var's bust on the Har­ris Prom­e­nade, Vi­dale made a sim­i­lar ap­peal to Mu­radali.

Vi­dale re­called that on April 18 last year, he wrote to the THA ask­ing for a space to have a memo­r­i­al for Williams and iden­ti­fied the Botan­i­cal Gar­dens as a suit­able lo­ca­tion."I have to date re­ceived no re­ply and I'm sill wait­ing," Vi­dale said."It is my feel­ing that the lega­cy and mem­o­ry of Dr Williams does not seem to form part of the land­scape of To­ba­go. My con­cern is that the chil­dren of To­ba­go are go­ing to grow up know­ing noth­ing about the fa­ther of the na­tion, and those who should know bet­ter must hang their heads in ut­ter shame." He said on Jan­u­ary 10, 2011, he made a sim­i­lar ap­peal to Lee Sing, but to date he has re­ceived no re­sponse.

He said his con­cern was that chil­dren will know noth­ing of Williams and his con­tri­bu­tion.Say­ing that it was a red let­ter day in San Fer­nan­do, Vi­dale said, "Dr Williams is fi­nal­ly be­ing giv­en the recog­ni­tion that I have been ask­ing for the past 31 years to be giv­en to him, and he has now found a place along­side con­trib­u­tors of free­dom and democ­ra­cy, Mar­cus Gar­vey from Ja­maica, Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi from In­dia and quite re­cent­ly Si­mon Bo­li­var from Venezuela." He said he will be ap­proach­ing the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty of San Fer­nan­do to fund the project. The may­or was al­so pre­sent­ed with the Fa­ther of the Na­tion Medal of Ho­n­our (Gold).