Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Full eman­ci­pa­tion of African slaves on Au­gust 1, 1838, may have oc­curred 340 years af­ter the his­toric ar­rival of Ital­ian ex­plor­er, Christo­pher Colum­bus in 1498.But last week­end, res­i­dents of Moru­ga cre­at­ed a his­to­ry of their own as they brought to­geth­er Eman­ci­pa­tion and Dis­cov­ery fes­tiv­i­ties for the first time.The mem­o­rable event, dubbed Ma­jes­tic Moru­ga, end­ed with a scin­til­lat­ing per­for­mance by so­ca king Machel Mon­tano, who was spon­sored by Works Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er.Since the abo­li­tion of Dis­cov­ery Day in 1985 by for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams, Moru­ga res­i­dents had held fast to their tra­di­tion of reen­act­ing the ar­rival of Colum­bus, who named the coun­try La Trin­i­ty, af­ter spot­ting the Trin­i­ty Hills at La Pun­ta de La Playa, Moru­ga.MP for the area Clifton De Couteau said each year, res­i­dents, led by the Moru­ga 500 Com­mit­tee, marked the an­niver­sary of the ar­rival of the Spaniards by hold­ing a beach show. He said this year, the ma­jes­tic qual­i­ties of the Moru­ga peo­ple were show­cased through a cul­tur­al queen show, a cook­out, a ca­lyp­so monarch com­pe­ti­tion, a farm­ers mar­ket, a street pa­rade, a Re­ga­ta boat race and a surf fish­ing com­pe­ti­tion.

The week of ac­tiv­i­ties was al­most hi­jacked by an­gry pro­tes­tors who were up­set over the killing of Abi­gail John­son, 20, Ker­ron Ec­cles, 26, and Alana Dun­can, 22. But at the last mo­ment, af­ter Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Dwayne Gibbs in­ter­vened, the pro­tes­tors backed off.The reen­act­ment of Colum­bus' ar­rival, which start­ed around 4 pm on Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, took many by sur­prise. While loud mu­sic blared from the speak­er box­es po­si­tioned on the shore, the three his­toric ships-The Pin­ta, Ni­na and San­ta Maria, sped to the shore.The sailors said the tide was ris­ing quick­ly and they had to make a swift en­try. The ships were dec­o­rat­ed with co­conut leaves, flags and wood­en sword-wield­ing drunk sailors. Nigel Scott of Diego Mar­tin, who played the part of Colum­bus, dis­em­barked from the San­ta Maria speak­ing Span­ish.He was im­me­di­ate­ly sur­round­ed by dozens of Tain­os and Kali­na­goes, who wore cro­cus bags and face paint. In an in­ter­view, Scott said T&T had come a long way since the ar­rival of the Spaniards. He said the is­sues of crime that is plagu­ing T&T, was in no way mea­sur­able to the mass killings and geno­cide of the in­dige­nous peo­ple in the fif­teenth cen­tu­ry. Scott said Gov­ern­ment was tack­ling crime in an or­der­ly and ef­fec­tive man­ner by in­tro­duc­ing pre­ven­ta­tive and com­bat­ive strate­gies.Mean­while, Warn­er al­so show­ered prais­es on the Moru­ga peo­ple for keep­ing alive their her­itage and tra­di­tions.