DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has tak­en is­sue with peo­ple who have spo­ken out against pay­ing repa­ra­tions to de­scen­dants of African slaves.

Row­ley chas­tised these in­di­vid­u­als dur­ing his ad­dress to mem­bers of the pub­lic who gath­ered for the launch of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Day pro­ces­sion at In­de­pen­dence Square, Port-of-Spain, on Tues­day.

In his speech, Row­ley said one his­to­ri­an de­scribed the de­scen­dants of the en­slaved as vic­tims of the African “cul­tur­al holo­caust”.

He said an­oth­er his­to­ri­an sug­gest­ed that there should be “a Mid­dle Pas­sage Plan” for Africans, with Eu­rope giv­ing repa­ra­tions to ar­eas of the di­as­po­ra, like the re-con­struc­tion de­signs of its “Mar­shall Plan”, af­ter World War II.

He said, “You will, no doubt, be fa­mil­iar with the con­tin­u­ing ef­forts and ap­peals in this area to the for­mer Eu­ro­pean colonis­ers.

“Some, the di­rect ben­e­fi­cia­ries of this holo­caust, pre­fer to write new re­vi­sion­ist his­to­ry to pre­tend that it didn’t hap­pen, some pat us on the shoul­der to say “let’s just move on, it couldn’t be all that bad” and most re­cent­ly, bold­faced mo­rons are now even sug­gest­ing that we should be grate­ful for the “ben­e­fits that were be­stowed” up­on us by slav­ery through lan­guage and ac­cul­tur­a­tion”.

The Prime Min­is­ter said, how­ev­er, that de­spite Eu­rope’s “cal­cu­lat­ed at­tempts at de-hu­man­is­ing us,” there was al­ways re­sis­tance.

He said as CLR James, one of T&T ’s fore­most lit­er­ary fig­ures con­clud­ed, African slaves fought back, pow­er­ful­ly, with the con­tents of their minds—the mem­o­ries, the log­ic and re­silience of their peo­ple.

“I speak proud­ly to­day that what James iden­ti­fied some eighty years ago, con­tin­ues to be re­alised in the con­tri­bu­tions of cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go to the world stage.”

“For ex­am­ple, we have cre­at­ed and giv­en the world our steel­pan, our Ca­lyp­so, our so­ca mu­sic, which have gone on to in­flu­ence oth­er mu­si­cal forms, even in Africa. We have done so, cre­at­ing the world’s first gas-based econ­o­my, de­vel­oped in­no­va­tions in the oil in­dus­try, es­tab­lished the world-class Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate. We can cite our achieve­ments in sport, lit­er­a­ture, ed­u­ca­tion, and many oth­er fields, with our schol­ars oc­cu­py­ing ma­jor po­si­tions around the world. We are al­so proud that, af­ter serv­ing on the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil at an ear­li­er time, this Sep­tem­ber our coun­try will as­sume the Pres­i­den­cy of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly,” Dr Row­ley said.

As the Prime Min­is­ter laud­ed the pres­ence of As­an­ta­hene Otum­fuo Nana Os­ei Tu­tu II, King of the As­ante/Ashan­ti peo­ple, he called on na­tion­als to re-ex­am­ine the way Africa was pre­sent­ed to the rest of the world by Eu­rope. He said it was not a “dark” or “prim­i­tive” con­ti­nent, but one with a rich lega­cy that we share.

“It is sig­nif­i­cant to our cit­i­zens of African de­scent, and, par­tic­u­lar­ly, to our younger gen­er­a­tion, many of whom are wit­ness­ing and dis­cov­er­ing, for the first time, the pres­ence, stature and majesty of African roy­al­ty in our midst,” he said.

“Hope­ful­ly, from to­day, the word “their” which im­plies some­thing for­eign, oth­er, or of dis­tant own­er­ship, will be changed and we will be­gin to share, and em­brace every as­pect of both our lives as “Ours”—mean­ing that on both sides of the At­lantic, African peo­ple will see the “one-ness” that we car­ry with­in us. Then, we will be sep­a­rat­ed on­ly by the nar­row­ing wa­ters of the At­lantic.”

He went on to praise the King’s per­son­al back­ground, as he ac­knowl­edged his train­ing in the Unit­ed King­dom and Cana­da as well as his “Pil­lar of Peace” Award for the set­tle­ment of dif­fer­ences be­tween two roy­al fam­i­lies, and the Chan­cel­lor­ship of the Kwame Nkrumah Uni­ver­si­ty of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy.

Fur­ther­more, Row­ley wel­comed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to col­lab­o­rate in en­er­gy and ed­u­ca­tion with the Ghan­ian peo­ple. This, as he not­ed that Trinida­di­ans CLR James and pan-African ac­tivist George Pad­more—who helped to guide Ghana’s in­de­pen­dence—are still cel­e­brat­ed there. He ac­knowl­edged the ex­is­tence and fea­tur­ing of the George Pad­more Li­brary in Ac­cra which is tes­ta­ment to the long and trust­ed bonds be­tween both na­tions.

“I will ad­mit that I am per­son­al­ly in­ter­est­ed in this as­pect, with the hope that—along with the com­mer­cial prospects, in the hy­dro­car­bon busi­ness, that have been dis­cussed ear­li­er—there could be some mea­sure of con­tin­u­ous col­lab­o­ra­tion and ex­change be­tween your Uni­ver­si­ty, and our Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go—as both of our re­gions con­tin­ue to fo­cus on the ad­vanc­ing tech­nolo­gies and oth­er dis­ci­plines, in this, the 21st cen­tu­ry,” he said.