WAYNE KUBLALSINGH
DR ERIC WILLIAMS was wrong. He was wrong on a number of fronts. He should have never terminated the train. He should have never imported, lock, stock and barrel, the factory-type, double-shift comprehensive school for our children. He should have never so easily obliged the establishment of ghetto sprawls, by vulnerable West Indian migrants, in the suburbs of Port of Spain; sans proper education, water, housing, lights, service infrastructure. He should have talked to Black Power leaders, not tried to expunge them, shook police commissioner Randolph Burroughs after them, had an American gunboat lie in wait off the Gulf.
He was also wrong to proclaim: 'There can be no Mother India, for those whose ancestors came from India...there can be no Mother Africa, for those of African origin. There can be no Mother England and no dual loyalties...There can be no Mother China, even if one could agree as to which China is the mother; and there can be no Mother Syria and no Mother Lebanon. A nation, like an individual, can have only one mother. The only mother we recognise is Mother TT, and mother cannot discriminate between her children."
Africans should fight tooth and nail to keep their ancestral bonds with Africa. Africa's history, philosophies, music, songs, dances, languages, ceremonies, foods, its panoply of heroes and heterogeneous cultures. And likewise, Indians and India. Chinese and China, Syrians and Lebanese, Syria and Lebanon. And Caucasians/whites Europe. Our ancestral grandmother cultures have offered, do offer and will offer more wisdom, power, edification and knowledge than poor Mother TT by herself. Ancestral grandmother and grandfather civilisations are the foundations of nation-building; not one national culture and history alone.
It is a fallacy to say that our 'going back' to our ancestral cultures makes us less patriotic. Or to say that it will encourage inter-ethnic rivalry. Our duty is to respect each other's ancestral cultures while foraging, feasting, with glee at the well-springs, the banquet of our ancestral cultures.
Most citizens do not identify with the pre-20th century identity of TT. Psychological dissonance. Too tough to handle. Conquest and decimation. The slave trade. Slavery. Indentureship. Colonialism. Massa. And when there is heroism, song, music, philosophy, ceremonies in this relatively short history, we do not properly respect it. The histories of our ancient overseas ancestral cultures are vast. Knowing them is going forward, not back!
Many citizens get confused. Some say, I am not an Indian, I am a Trinidadian. This kind of statement is also fallacious. Each citizen possesses many identities. A woman might be a mother, a teacher, an importer of salt prunes and seaweed from China. Likewise, we each possess different identities. The great calypsonian Maestro was a Trinidadian. This was his national identity. He was a Caribbean man. This was his regional identity. He was also an African. This was his ethnic or race identity. Having one identity, h
