Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­lieves that while some of the his­to­ry be­hind Christo­pher Colum­bus has to be re­vis­it­ed, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s promise to re­move his ships from this coun­try’s Coat of Arms needs to be care­ful­ly thought out.

This is be­cause she be­lieves if not han­dled prop­er­ly, it can ig­nite racial ten­sions in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day ad­dress­ing the plan to re­move the Niña, Pin­ta and San­ta Maria from the na­tion­al em­blem and re­place them with the steel­pan, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­knowl­edged that Colum­bus was wrong­ful­ly cel­e­brat­ed for some time.

How­ev­er, she said she is of the be­lief that “sani­tis­ing his­to­ry, truth, and free speech in the mod­ern era of wok­e­ness, virtue sig­nalling, and can­cel cul­ture will on­ly pro­mote ig­no­rance and fos­ter the rep­e­ti­tion of evil acts in the fu­ture that can be pre­ventable.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said eras­ing his­to­ry by re­mov­ing sym­bols will not im­prove or change cit­i­zens’ un­der­stand­ing of his­to­ry, adding that, “the na­tion’s true his­to­ry should be taught in our schools, one that pro­vides the good and bad of all our his­tor­i­cal fig­ures.”

“The truth of our past and present is bit­ter and harsh and should not be ma­nip­u­lat­ed to serve any sin­gu­lar agen­da. In­stead, it should be used to en­light­en suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tions so they will not re­peat the mis­takes and mis­deeds of the past,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said peo­ple are not recog­nis­ing what she be­lieves to be the PM’s in­ten­tion to use painful his­tor­i­cal events for gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign­ing.

She said Dr Row­ley is fol­low­ing the play­book of for­mer politi­cians to use the threat of the “White Man” and “Colo­nial­ism” to de­flect from this coun­try’s in­ter­nal is­sues.

“Many peo­ple are en­grossed in de­bat­ing the changes to the Coat of Arms and the many pos­si­ble prac­ti­cal ef­fects of such change.

This en­tire po­lit­i­cal con­ver­sa­tion, start­ing with the pro­posed changes to the Coat of Arms, is a tin­der­box that can be ig­nit­ed when emo­tions run high and ig­no­rant, un­scrupu­lous per­sons be­gin gaslight­ing the pop­u­la­tion,” she said.

“This is how eth­nic ri­val­ries, so­ci­etal strife, and hate are stirred up in a pri­mar­i­ly peace­ful mul­ti­cul­tur­al so­ci­ety like ours, which can then de­volve in­to vi­o­lence and de­stroy our so­ci­etal peace. We have seen this all over the world be­fore.”

She added, “These emo­tion­al­ly sen­si­tive is­sues should not be mis­used as po­lit­i­cal pro­pa­gan­da for any elec­toral suc­cess, as it makes a mock­ery of the bru­tal suf­fer­ing of our an­ces­tors.”

More­over, the Op­po­si­tion Leader said such is­sues should be dealt with by in­de­pen­dent com­mit­tees of suit­ably qual­i­fied his­to­ri­ans, so­cial sci­ence in­tel­lec­tu­als and le­gal per­son­nel in a neu­tral, ob­jec­tive, and non-po­lit­i­cal man­ner.

Mixed re­ac­tions to plan

At least one his­to­ri­an is not in favour of re­mov­ing Colum­bus’ ships from the Coat of Arms, but if they must go, Dr Jerome Teelucks­ingh be­lieves an­oth­er in­stru­ment should be added along with the steel­pan.

“Yes, we use the steel­pan, but couldn’t we have used the tas­sa al­so? Couldn’t we al­so put the tas­sa on the Coat of Arms? I know we have one na­tion­al in­stru­ment, but is it pos­si­ble in the fu­ture? Some groups will be dis­con­tent­ed and say I am bi­ased, but is it pos­si­ble to have two na­tion­al in­stru­ments? The tas­sa and the steel­pan?” he asked.

The his­to­ry lec­tur­er at­tached to the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine, said it should be con­sid­ered be­cause this is a so­ci­ety that is sup­posed to be in­clu­sive, di­verse and mul­ti-eth­nic.

“So yes, we are proud of the steel­pan but there is al­so an­oth­er in­stru­ment that rep­re­sents the In­do-Trinida­di­an pres­ence and cul­ture,” he said.

Dr Teelucks­ingh ac­knowl­edged that the tas­sa was not in­vent­ed in this coun­try but ar­gued, “it is part of the cul­ture, and we play it at na­tion­al events, through­out the year, so we can’t say we in­vent­ed the tas­sa, but it is some­thing we might want to con­sid­er.”

He be­lieves the de­ci­sion to change the Coat of Arms should al­so be put to the peo­ple via a na­tion­al ref­er­en­dum.

Per­son­al­ly, how­ev­er, he dis­agrees with the re­moval of Colum­bus’ ships.

“I am not okay with it, and the rea­son is the next gen­er­a­tion, and fu­ture gen­er­a­tions will have a dis­tort­ed ver­sion of their past. The stu­dents in the pri­ma­ry schools will not know about the peo­ple who came to Trinidad and start­ed this mo­men­tum that re­sult­ed in slav­ery and in­den­ture­ship. We are not telling any­one to wor­ship these three ships, but their names should be taught in school,” he said.

But the First Peo­ples com­mu­ni­ty is in full sup­port of Dr Row­ley’s promise.

Chief Er­ic Lewis agreed the three ships were his­tor­i­cal­ly in­ac­cu­rate, as Colum­bus en­coun­tered Trinidad with on­ly two of them.

“For us, it means Colum­bus is not the piv­otal point, and that his­to­ry does not be­gin with that Columbian era. Be­fore Colum­bus came the In­dige­nous peo­ple were here, so that is a good start for us as a coun­try, that Colum­bus’ voy­age is not the main epit­o­me of this coun­try’s his­to­ry,” Chief Lewis ex­plained.

He said the First Peo­ples are con­tent with the steel­pan re­plac­ing the ships, as he be­lieves they are al­ready prop­er­ly rep­re­sent­ed by the three hum­ming­birds on the Coat of Arms.

Chief Lewis al­so thinks the costs as­so­ci­at­ed with the change should not be the fo­cus of dis­cus­sion.

“I know peo­ple are com­plain­ing about the cost to change it, I’ve been see­ing peo­ple say there are more im­por­tant things to fo­cus on, but at the same time we re­al­ly need to stand as a re­pub­lic to map our own his­to­ry and our own course,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Si­mon De No­br­ie­ga on the costs as­so­ci­at­ed with the changeover and who re­ceived the con­tract to change the de­sign. How­ev­er, the min­is­ter could not yet pro­vide those de­tails.

The Prime Min­is­ter in­di­cat­ed that it will take over a six-month pe­ri­od to fa­cil­i­tate changes to sta­tionery and oth­er of­fi­cial doc­u­ments.

Mean­while, the Caribbean Free­dom Project (CFP) be­lieves this is a great vic­to­ry not on­ly for it­self but the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee, the Black Pow­er Move­ment and oth­ers who want­ed rad­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion post-in­de­pen­dence.

CFP di­rec­tor Shak­a­ba Kam­bon said, “Peo­ple like Dr Brins­ley Sama­roo, who just passed away, who was work­ing with us close­ly, peo­ple like Ivan Laugh­lin, Makan­dal Daa­ga, my fa­ther Khafra Kam­bon, Clive Nunes, the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, the pan­men, this is a vic­to­ry for all those who want­ed more from in­de­pen­dence.”

Kam­bon said while con­sul­ta­tion is im­por­tant for such changes, the CFP has no is­sue with how the PM went about with this an­nounce­ment.

“In the case of the Coat of Arms, we be­lieve it is the right of any leader across the Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty, when they find some­thing that is so egre­gious, we are talk­ing about a sym­bol that cel­e­brates the in­va­sion and oc­cu­pa­tion of the Caribbean and one of the great­est crimes against hu­man­i­ty the world has ever seen, when a leader of a coun­try en­coun­ters that or comes in­to that in­for­ma­tion that we pro­vid­ed of course, it is their right and du­ty to act im­me­di­ate­ly up­on that in­for­ma­tion,” Kam­bon said.

Asked for a com­ment on Dr Teelucks­ingh’s stance on the mat­ter, Kam­bon said the his­to­ri­an tends to flip-flop on these is­sues.