Dinesh Rambally, MP for Chaguanas West, is one of the most impressive politicians in T&T public life. The first time I saw him speak was at a meet-the-candidate event organised by the Chaguanas Chamber of Commerce and Industry just before the 2020 general election.
My instant impression then was that he was going to win Chaguanas West easily, make a big noise in the house, and that T&T will know him soon.
“He did struggle a little bit with the question I put to him from the floor—why is his leader, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, all over the place with her campaign messaging,” I wrote in a Facebook post shortly after, “but otherwise, he was sharp and impressive.”
“He and Anita Haynes are the future of their party,” was my assessment.
Rambally and Haynes are currently alienated from their leader, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, after a public falling out with her over the proposed timing of internal elections and candidate screening, and contested those elections on an alternative slate.
They were roundly defeated. They should probably advise up-and-coming colleagues to avoid the kiss of death from this analyst. I like and get along well with Rambally.
He had me on his show on TV Jaagriti last December to talk about the Guyana/Venezuela border controversy.
However, his take on the centrality of steelpan in T&T culture is one that I disagree with. I’m picking up where I left off last time here on the arguments for and against replacing Columbus’ ships with the steelpan on T&T’s Coat of Arms.
Rambally isn’t the only one who made the argument that I’m about to take issue with, but he was one of the more prominent voices making it.
At the height of the debate about what he described as “the Prime Minister’s out-of-nowhere announcement,” he argued in a commentary piece on August 24 that the tassa drum—which originated in India—deserved an equally prominent place on any redesigned Coat of Arms. “The trident did not originate in Barbados, but it’s on the flag. The British coat of arms has a lion and a unicorn. Lions originated in Africa.
“Thus, the arguments about Trinidad being the point of origin of the steelpan, while tassa (which has been suggested as a co-symbol) originated elsewhere are, to use a legal term, disingenuous.”
I recognise that the argument is more national/cultural than ethnic. Rambally has spoken out against crime in predominantly Afro-Trinidadian areas, and it is clear from close attention to his political activity that his heart is in the right place on inclusiveness. However, music, culture, and nationhood are complex webs.
US Country and Western is also, but not exclusively, black music. Charley Pride and others came long before Beyoncé. Black people have lived in Beyoncé’s Texas and elsewhere in the south before country music. Country and western is who they are.
They are marinated in it by history and culture. Many C&W, pop, and crossover artistes drew heavily on black influences. Elvis and Joe Cocker clearly did. Eminem was regarded by many who know the genre as the best rap artiste of the day.
This is the flaw in Rambally’s otherwise well-researched piece. It seeks separation, where there are complexities of integration. The prime minister himself, in defending the proposal, referenced Jit Samaroo. Steelpan is not an x-Trinidad thing. It is a T&T thing.
Its glorious export to the world and unique contribution to global musicality. To hear the tinkled notes of a steelpan in Milan is to burst with pride on behalf of all of T&T, not just the pan players of east Port-of-Spain.
The danger, for politicians in particular, is that they cannot promote inclusivity by promoting exclusion. And exclusion is what they are advocating if they remove all non-African T&T from the ownership of pan.
The lion is non-native to the British Isles and signifies a characteristic rather than an actuality. The lion, like Columbus’ ships, draws on colonialist, non-native symbolism. It is not comparable to the tassa or its place in T&T cultural life.
Ownership of pan shouldn’t take anything away from the deep cultural importance of the tassa.
