A committee appointed by the Cabinet last month to review the placement of statues, monuments and other historical signage and recognition in T&T will be reporting to Government by year’s end.
In a release yesterday, the Office of the Prime Minister stated that on July 21, 2022, the Cabinet agreed to the appointment of a committee to review and report on the placement of statues, monuments and other historical signage and recognition in Trinidad and Tobago by December 31, 2022.
The committee will be chaired by Emerita Professor Bridget Brereton. Other members are Dr Eastlyn Kate McKenzie, Zaida Rajnauth, Chief Ricardo Bharath-Hernandez and Kobe Sandy.
Brereton, Emerita Professor of History at UWI, St Augustine, has authored several books on the history of the Caribbean.
Tobago icon McKenzie was a longstanding educator and independent senator, also serving on the Equal Opportunity Commission.
Rajnauth had served as permanent secretary in ministries and was also on boards and the Public Service Commission.
Bharath-Hernandez is chief of the Santa Rosa First Peoples.
Sandy is UWI Students’ Guild president.
The OPM stated, “The Cabinet recognises the need for issues associated with the historical placement of statues, monuments and signage to be studied and for consideration to be given to determining what steps and decisions should be taken for Trinidad and Tobago
“Accordingly, it has requested that this committee review same and report back to Cabinet within the stated time frame.”
During Monday’s Emancipation Day celebrations, National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds revealed that an inter-ministerial committee had been set up by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley to examine and move this process along.
He said, “They are looking around at our national spaces and our roads with a view of transforming the names to ones that we would better appreciate and recognise.”
Cross Rhodes Freedom Project director Shabaka Kambon immediately credited the authorities for taking that forward step.
But he also called for Government to “save T&T from embarrassment on Independence Day” by replacing streets, monuments and signs named after slave owner and British governor (1797-1803) Sir Thomas Picton and others like him. He noted Wales in the UK was “recoiling from the open glorification of Picton.”
On Monday, an art exhibition in Wales’ National Museum depicted Picton’s tyrannical rule. The UK Guardian stated that T&T-born Gesiye Souza-Okpofabri and the Laku Neg group - comprising UK-based members of T&T heritage– were commissioned to create new artwork reinterpreting Picton’s legacy. Picton’s portrait was also shifted from the museum’s Grand Faces of Wales gallery to a side room and is surrounded by descriptions of his brutal treatment of people in Trinidad.
Kambon said there are over seven streets and places named after Picton– in Newtown, Laventille, Sangre Grande, San Juan, Diamond Village and Picton Court Apartments, Port-of-Spain. Kambon slammed the number “honouring a man who practised and participated in trafficking and enslavement of our ancestors.” - Gail Alexander