An opin­ion of Chris­t­ian Pereira

Ms­gr Chris­t­ian D Pereira

Parish Priest of St Bene­dict’s

The evo­lu­tion of any na­tion re­quires recog­ni­tion of its ori­gins and an ap­pre­ci­a­tion of all that is great and no­ble of the past. This holds true for the na­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. We can­not evolve in a life-giv­ing way if we de­spise our past. We all need to un­der­stand from where we came so that we can pay at­ten­tion to the learn­ings from the past and re­al­ly move for­ward.

It is my de­sire to see Trin­bag­o­ni­ans pay prop­er recog­ni­tion of our PAST and to val­ue and ap­pre­ci­ate from where we have come. (Black Stal­in)

This coun­try ex­ist­ed thou­sands of years be­fore Eu­ro­peans came. The ar­rival of the Eu­ro­peans meant an adop­tion of their ways, and they placed their par­tic­u­lar stamp on our coun­try; the Eu­ro­peans even gave our coun­try a new name with­out any re­gard for the orig­i­nal name giv­en to this land by the FIRST peo­ples.

It is ap­pro­pri­ate to note that for many years the First Peo­ples of our Na­tion have been lob­by­ing for prop­er recog­ni­tion, and as­sis­tance in cre­at­ing an Amerindi­an Vil­lage in the heights of Ari­ma. A vil­lage re-cre­at­ed to re­veal the orig­i­nal way their peo­ple once lived, to re­claim their tra­di­tions and prac­tices which formed a great civ­i­liza­tion, and for the pop­u­la­tion to be able to val­ue what was de­stroyed by those who came be­fore.

The Eu­ro­peans came, they did dam­age to our peo­ple, cul­ture, econ­o­my and our en­vi­ron­ment, but they al­so ini­ti­at­ed and to some ex­tent di­rect­ed the present path of our civ­i­liza­tion. We can­not pre­tend that it nev­er hap­pened, or that it should NOT have hap­pened. Colum­bus (with all his mis­in­for­ma­tion) ar­rived and he and his lega­cy form part of our his­to­ry. It is al­so my de­sire that the Eu­ro­peans who came with “Colum­bus” be giv­en a per­ma­nent recog­ni­tion by a Colo­nial Vil­lage. I am al­so sup­port­ive of re­mov­ing the vis­i­ble promi­nence that some of these Eu­ro­peans have at present, name­ly, stat­ues, name of streets and build­ings and/or places of sight­see­ing.

As we recog­nise their plans, and ap­plaud their con­tri­bu­tions, I al­so be­lieve that the Eu­ro­peans who came with “Colum­bus” should be giv­en some sort of recog­ni­tion, maybe, in the cre­ation of some kind of Eu­ro­pean (Colo­nial) Vil­lage. We can­not de­ny their pres­ence. They did dam­age, to our peo­ple, cul­ture, econ­o­my, and our en­vi­ron­ment. But they al­so di­rect­ed the present path of our civ­i­liza­tion. We can­not pre­tend that it nev­er hap­pened, or that it should NOT have hap­pened. Colum­bus (with all his mis­in­for­ma­tion) ar­rived, and whether we like it or not, he and his lega­cy is part of our his­to­ry. I am sup­port­ive of re­mov­ing the vis­i­ble promi­nence that some of these colo­nial ves­tiges have at present, be they, stat­ues, name of streets and build­ings, or places of sight­see­ing.

Our coun­try owes it to our­selves (and to no­body else) to be in­te­grat­ed with the past, as painful and as ug­ly as it is; but the to­tal de­struc­tion of these re­al­i­ties is to de­stroy part of our soul, to dam­age our psy­che.

In much the same way that the First Peo­ple have been seek­ing to re-cre­ate an Amerindi­an Vil­lage in ho­n­our of our an­ces­tors, so too we should seek to re-cre­ate a “Vil­lage” or a “MU­SE­UM” where we can view the pain, the ter­ror and the pos­i­tive as­pect of our Eu­ro­pean in­flu­ence in an au­then­tic way. It is al­so nec­es­sary to cul­ti­vate var­i­ous au­then­tic re­al­i­ties as the Di­vali Na­gar, the an­nu­al African Vil­lage, the Chi­nese pres­ence, the Por­tuguese, and the Syr­i­an Lebanese con­tri­bu­tions, among oth­ers.

Such recog­ni­tion of our past can com­ple­ment/en­hance the teach­ing of his­to­ry at all lev­els of our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem as well as con­tribute to a form of lo­calised de­vel­op­ment and the thrust to­wards the so far elu­sive di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of our econ­o­my.

There is lit­tle val­ue in re­mov­ing the stat­ue with­out recre­at­ing sym­bols that will con­tribute pos­i­tive­ly to our de­vel­op­ment as a young Re­pub­lic. (un­less we con­tin­ue to re­peat the mis­takes of Colum­bus).