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Monday, July 28, 2025

Creating Ourselves Anew

by

20140831

Some­times in or­der to pre­serve what we have, we have to go back and back and back. This is what I've learned from Naipaul.

"I can give you that his­tor­i­cal bird's eye view. But I can­not re­al­ly ex­plain the mys­tery of ... in­her­i­tance. Most of us know the par­ents or grand­par­ents we come from. But we go back and back, for­ev­er; we go back all of us to the very be­gin­ning; in our blood and bone and brain we car­ry the mem­o­ries of thou­sands of be­ings ... We can­not un­der­stand all the traits we have in­her­it­ed. Some­times we can be strangers to our­selves."–VS Naipaul

What does this mean to us this In­de­pen­dence? Are we strangers to our­selves? What does your coun­try mean to you? What can it, to a new world peo­ple like our­selves?One re­view­er of Naipaul of­fered this up:

"With this pas­sage Mr Naipaul an­nounces what he's about: an arche­ol­o­gy of the colo­nial im­pulse, the thing that spun Colum­bus, Raleigh and count­less oth­ers out of their easy chairs in­to the great dark un­known, on mis­sions of dis­cov­ery to the New World. Part­ly it was the myth of El Do­ra­do, the city of gold that Raleigh and Colum­bus nev­er found and the quest for which was part­ly re­spon­si­ble for ru­in­ing both of them. Part­ly it was a cer­tain 'mad­ness and self-de­cep­tion' that per­mit­ted these men to cause and en­dure hor­ren­dous suf­fer­ing, even when it was ap­par­ent that they'd mis­chart­ed the course. But be­neath these forces, Mr Naipaul writes, lay the sim­ple urge of these men to cre­ate them­selves anew."

The re­view­er was bang on.What do you feel as a cit­i­zen of these is­lands, this In­de­pen­dence?I'm not talk­ing about your view about Kei­th or Kam­la, the Con­sti­tu­tion or crime. All of this mat­ters, yes, but on­ly in the con­text of your iden­ti­ty, your feel­ing about this land of ours.I have con­sis­tent­ly be­moaned our lack of ide­ol­o­gy, or is­sues-based pol­i­tics, our creaky in­sti­tu­tions and spec­tac­u­lar fail­ure, de­spite our wealth, to move to­wards "first world" ideals of health, ed­u­ca­tion or em­ploy­ment.

But I al­so know the oth­er side. Our peo­ple who stood up for democ­ra­cy in 1990. Our peo­ple who are wound­ed, felled, mur­dered and messed up by gangs, de­pen­den­cy, drugs, ne­glect, and law­less­ness still vote peace­ably in race-fired elec­tions. Our peo­ple who have a mas­sive four-day fes­ti­val cel­e­brat­ing the in­ter­twin­ing of races and rem­nants of old con­ti­nents.We have to go in­to our sub­con­scious and think of what we feel rather than what we see.

On an­niver­saries such as these I feel a queer mix­ture of pride, loss and grat­i­tude to these is­lands which have been home to me since I was a child. The blast of hu­mid ocean breeze when the air­craft doors opened and I clat­tered down the steps in­to the in­di­go bronze dusk with my moth­er, broth­er and sis­ter was a heart-rac­ing sense of won­der, pos­si­bil­i­ty.

I hadn't heard then of Sam Selvon, or VS Naipaul or Derek Wal­cott, or CLR James. I had on­ly ever known In­dia, but lat­er I saw, through their books, what I felt.

My fa­ther's fa­mil­iar face greet­ed us. His smile whiter with To­ba­go sea sun blast, strange with­out his In­di­an Army uni­form, eyes gleam­ing with a sense of ad­ven­ture.

A for­mer In­di­an army of­fi­cer who em­i­grat­ed here to work as chief en­gi­neer on the To­ba­go high­way in the late 70s, he re­calls his en­dur­ing feel­ing for these is­lands. " I came with a small at­tach�, hold­ing my pass­port, work per­mit, some pre­cious US dol­lars, a let­ter of ap­point­ment to the Min­istry of Works in To­ba­go. With that in my hand as I was de­scend­ing the steps of the air­craft, I felt a strong is­land breeze, my brief­case opened–scat­ter­ing every­thing. It was night time. There was a per­son ahead of me. He said to every­one: 'Wait. This is my broth­er.' He was an Afro-Trinida­di­an. He ran down the stairs, re­trieved every­thing for me and dis­ap­peared."

Sarah Beck­ett, a Eu­ro­pean, came here al­so in the 70s. She was soon on her own with three small chil­dren. She says of this place: "I was lucky. I met world-class painters en­cour­ag­ing me on this small is­land al­most from the very start."Trinidad formed me. It's the con­tra­dic­to­ry na­ture of the coun­try. The phys­i­cal beau­ty, the light, the bird­song, the dumps that will not be land­fills. It won't go away. It's fun, volatile, yet bru­tal, aw­ful, yet love­ly, and forces you to pay your dues.

"Here on a meta­phys­i­cal lev­el you live close to the ran­dom­ness of ex­is­tence. Things don't work. There is no plan. Every­one says 'God will­ing' and re­lax­es. This is en­grained in the na­tion­al tem­pera­ment. There are no plans like Eu­ro­pean coun­tries. Peo­ple don't work when it's rain­ing; the plumb­ing or elec­tric­i­ty goes.

"Things don't work and that is en­rag­ing, but it all teach­es you to live in the present. It teach­es you a sense of pos­si­bil­i­ty, so very of­ten we say: 'Let's try a ting,' let's see if you can make this or that work. This ran­dom, fly­ing-close-to-the-sun way of liv­ing se­duces peo­ple. Like some spell. It al­lows peo­ple to breathe and de­fine and re­de­fine our­selves."

To­day I want to pay trib­ute to my adopt­ed land. It's frus­trat­ing at times, but al­ways beloved. It's cast a spell on me. Hap­py In­de­pen­dence Day, T&T.


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