Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor-News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Long be­fore the cur­rent de­bate on the Coat of Arms and the move to re­place colo­nial mon­u­ments across the coun­try, Dr Hol­lis Liv­er­pool, who goes by the so­bri­quet “The Mighty Chalk­dust,” sang in the 1972 Ca­lyp­so Monarch about re­nam­ing some streets in T&T “Roti Road” or “Dou­bles Av­enue.”

It was a hu­mor­ous ca­lyp­so but meant to stir the con­science of a na­tion that was ten years in­to in­de­pen­dence and two years away from be­com­ing a re­pub­lic. Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans al­so want­ed T&T to be iden­ti­fied with what the na­tion was known for as op­posed to its colo­nial past. More than 50 years lat­er, the de­bate to re­place colo­nial mon­u­ments and re­name streets across the coun­try con­tin­ues.

As T&T marks 48 years as a re­pub­lic on Tues­day, the Sun­day Guardian sat down with the nine-time Ca­lyp­so Monarch and his­to­ri­an to analyse the na­tion’s progress through­out that time.

The full in­ter­view runs on CNC3 to­day at 5:15 pm.

Colo­nial­ism and the Con­sti­tu­tion

Dr Liv­er­pool said he sup­ports the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to re­place Christo­pher Colum­bus’ three ships on the Coat of Arms with the steel­pan.

“The Coat of Arms must show you what makes you. It must iden­ti­fy with your be­liefs and your val­ues,” the ca­lyp­son­ian and schol­ar said.

Dr Liv­er­pool, who holds a PhD in His­to­ry and Eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gy from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan, an­swered the crit­ics who said T&T’s colo­nial past can­not be erased and will al­ways be part of who we are.

He said, “You can’t throw away colo­nial his­to­ry. You can’t dump it. You must know about it, but you must al­so see the changes that have made us who we are. In oth­er words, you have to un­der­stand Africa, In­dia, Lebanon, and all these are im­por­tant—all the so-called neg­a­tive things in his­to­ry are im­por­tant, but at the same time, you have to em­pha­sise what makes us Trinida­di­ans and To­bag­o­ni­ans. That is what we must look for in our Coat of Arms.”

He went fur­ther in say­ing the young peo­ple of the na­tion must “iden­ti­fy” with what shapes this coun­try.

He ex­plained, “You want chil­dren to iden­ti­fy with Trinidad and To­ba­go, and lots of our teach­ers don’t do that. So, chil­dren go to school and they un­der­stand French and Span­ish, but the val­ues that make Trinidad and To­ba­go—that iden­ti­fi­ca­tion process—to make them un­der­stand that they are Trinida­di­ans—if they on­ly un­der­stand those things, there will be no crime.”

He would al­so weigh in on the on­go­ing process of con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form.

Dr Liv­er­pool, who has been singing for over 50 years and pro­duced over 300 ca­lyp­soes, warned that cit­i­zens must learn about their Con­sti­tu­tion. He said, “Most peo­ple to­day are talk­ing about the Con­sti­tu­tion, but they are not talk­ing about the rights of peo­ple. Rights of peo­ple are a very im­por­tant part of the Con­sti­tu­tion.”

Dr Liv­er­pool said that the Con­sti­tu­tion of the coun­try was not just what hap­pens in Par­lia­ment.

“Many peo­ple on­ly see Par­lia­ment. They on­ly see the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. They on­ly see Sen­ate. That is on­ly part of the Con­sti­tu­tion. The most im­por­tant part of the Con­sti­tu­tion is the re­la­tion­ship with the peo­ple whether you are In­di­an, African, Chi­nese, or mi­grant.”

He took is­sue with the cur­rent method of pay­ment for prop­er­ty tax and how the el­der­ly are made to line up to pay the tax. He al­so point­ed out the lack of ac­cess across the coun­try for the hand­i­capped, both of which, he be­lieves, tell their own sto­ry of our short­com­ings.

Rad­i­cal change need­ed

Analysing the na­tion at 48 years as a re­pub­lic, the life­long ed­u­ca­tor said ed­u­ca­tion in this coun­try needs to rad­i­cal­ly change. When asked about what will be re­quired for the coun­try “to reach its des­tiny,” he re­spond­ed, “One of the first things we need to move on is ed­u­ca­tion.”

In­stead of blam­ing the Gov­ern­ment, Dr Liv­er­pool said, we need to place more em­pha­sis on ed­u­ca­tion in the coun­try. “We are spend­ing a big bud­get on ed­u­ca­tion, but the ed­u­ca­tion we are spend­ing our bud­get on is to read and write and arith­metic. But ed­u­ca­tion to change the mind, to walk a dif­fer­ent road, and to change your whole at­ti­tude to­ward life—that kind of ed­u­ca­tion is miss­ing. In oth­er words, it is the ed­u­ca­tion of peo­ple we should be spend­ing mon­ey on,” he added.

He said the Gov­ern­ment must put em­pha­sis on val­ues. “Our chil­dren and teach­ers lack val­ues,” he said.

In fact, he added, the crime prob­lem that T&T now faces is a re­sult of a lack of val­ues and the break­down in fam­i­ly life in so­ci­ety.

Dr Liv­er­pool said, “Crim­i­nals don’t start in Form 5. Crim­i­nals don’t start in prison. Peo­ple break­ing the laws of T&T—that’s the scourge of the coun­try now. That didn’t be­gin in prison; it be­gan in pri­ma­ry school. Un­less you have chil­dren trained in prop­er val­ues in pri­ma­ry school, then you’re look­ing for prob­lems.”

T&T de­te­ri­o­rat­ed bad­ly, but there’s still beau­ty

From the or­di­nary cit­i­zens of this na­tion to its politi­cians, Dr Liv­er­pool be­lieves the des­tiny lies with all of us. He is can­did in his analy­sis: “This coun­try has de­te­ri­o­rat­ed bad­ly.” He said it was not just in terms of pol­i­tics or the Gov­ern­ment but all around.

He point­ed to the val­ues we have as a na­tion, which he said are “so bad.” “If you could put a gun to a min­is­ter’s head, that tells you the coun­try has de­te­ri­o­rat­ed bad­ly. If you could curse the prime min­is­ter, the coun­try has de­te­ri­o­rat­ed,” he said.

Dr Liv­er­pool said the cur­rent crime sta­tis­tics on­ly show how far the coun­try has fall­en. He had some sting­ing words for every­day Trinida­di­ans: “We haven’t reached the pin­na­cle where we could have reached be­cause of the at­ti­tudes of many peo­ple, the lack of ed­u­ca­tion by many peo­ple, many peo­ple haven’t done uni­ver­si­ty ed­u­ca­tion, they haven’t trav­elled; be­cause when you trav­el you see the world.”

He said you can­not blame gov­ern­ments or re­pub­li­can­ism for peo­ple’s at­ti­tudes.

“Some learn fast and some don’t learn at all,” he added.

De­spite his scorch­ing analy­sis of the coun­try, which marked its 62nd an­niver­sary of in­de­pen­dence last month, Dr Liv­er­pool is adamant T&T re­mains a beau­ti­ful place.

“When I look at the re­pub­lic, from then to now, we haven’t changed much. Some good things re­main the same,” he added.

He re­called the beau­ty of the coun­try while trav­el­ling in a maxi taxi re­cent­ly. Look­ing out the win­dow, he saw ven­dors sell­ing on the pave­ments as the Caribbean sun cov­ered the coun­try. Dr Liv­er­pool in­sist­ed that the beau­ty is there for every­one to see once they lift their heads from look­ing down on the na­tion and look up.