One of the sur­prise an­nounce­ments dur­ing Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions over the week­end came when Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds re­vealed that Gov­ern­ment had con­vened a com­mit­tee to look at re­nam­ing na­tion­al spaces af­ter lo­cal he­roes with the in­ten­tion of do­ing away with the ones of no­to­ri­ous his­to­ry from our colo­nial past cur­rent­ly in ex­is­tence.

Min­is­ter Hinds ad­vanced that this was to al­low cit­i­zens to bet­ter ap­pre­ci­ate and recog­nise those pub­lic spaces, but was, nat­u­ral­ly, be­ing diplo­mat­ic giv­en the oc­ca­sion and sen­si­tiv­i­ty of the is­sue.

In­deed, the de­bate over re­mov­ing some neg­a­tive as­pects of our colo­nial his­to­ry has long raged. Groups like the Cross Rhodes Free­dom Project and Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee have ag­i­tat­ed for the elim­i­na­tion of any mon­u­ments/stat­ues and signs/sym­bols that glo­ri­fy or cel­e­brate racism and white su­prema­cy in T&T.

With Trinidad and To­ba­go set to cel­e­brate 60 years of in­de­pen­dence in a few weeks’ time, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s de­ci­sion to con­vene a com­mit­tee to ad­dress this mat­ter is re­fresh­ing. How­ev­er, we hope this ac­tiv­i­ty is not done in a piece­meal fash­ion, since it is quite pos­si­ble the com­mit­tee seeks mere­ly to ho­n­our lo­cals at sites na­tion­wide, while not re­mov­ing the colo­nial ones from ex­ist­ing sites - thus pro­long­ing the emo­tion­al trau­ma as­so­ci­at­ed with it for some sec­tors of so­ci­ety.

We can speak to the now over two-year-old pe­ti­tion by the Cross Rhodes Free­dom Project and Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee for the re­moval of Christo­pher Colum­bus’ stat­ue from Tamarind Square in Port-of-Spain. His­to­ri­ans have long ar­gued that Colum­bus brought tyran­ny, in­clud­ing geno­cide, rape and slav­ery, to the Amerindi­ans dur­ing his con­quest of the is­land.

The Welsh on­ly re­cent­ly re­moved a por­trait of Thomas Pic­ton, a for­mer mil­i­tary leader and gov­er­nor of T&T in the 18th cen­tu­ry, from the main dis­play at the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um in Cardiff due to pub­lic back­lash over his past sor­did ex­ploits. Pic­ton was no­to­ri­ous for un­leash­ing a vi­cious cy­cle of ter­ror on slaves here and or­der­ing the ex­e­cu­tions of at least 35 peo­ple. His name, how­ev­er, adorns sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties, streets and a mon­u­ment across the coun­try.

The rev­e­la­tion, there­fore, that a pro­pos­al to re­name Ox­ford Street in Port-of-Spain af­ter Tri­ni-born US civ­il rights and Black Pow­er move­ment ac­tivist Kwame Ture is al­ready on the ta­ble is a good start to the new dri­ve.

The fam­i­ly of Garfield “Ras Shorty I” Black­man, the cre­ator of so­ca, chut­ney so­ca and jamoo mu­sic, wait­ed for over two decades be­fore see­ing a street re­named in his ho­n­our in San Fer­nan­do last week. Many ar­gue that we wait too long to ho­n­our our lo­cal he­roes by way of na­tion­al mon­u­ments and oth­er ac­co­lades which can sur­vive the test of time.

Hav­ing said that, we have the ex­ploits of cy­clist Nicholas Paul at the on­go­ing Com­mon­wealth Games to con­sid­er ahead of In­de­pen­dence Day. His triple-medal achieve­ment (gold, sil­ver and bronze) al­ready has some peo­ple sug­gest­ing he could be a flag bear­er for cy­cling across the en­tire Caribbean.

At 23, many may con­sid­er him too young for such ac­co­lades. We say, how­ev­er, that now is a fit­ting time as well.

A start can be the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre in Cou­va in Paul's name.