Prakash Per­sad sug­gests that there is need for a mul­ti­cul­tur­al pol­i­cy. Un­til the PP deemed T&T a mul­ti­cul­tur­al so­ci­ety we were mor­ph­ing in­to a tran­scul­tur­al so­ci­ety, ie, a so­ci­ety that was evolv­ing its own unique cul­ture out of a mix of many "grand­moth­er" cul­tures. T&T was slow­ly work­ing to­wards the de­vel­op­ment of its own unique blend of cul­tures and a bet­ter ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the con­cept of Moth­er Trinidad and To­ba­go. The now dis­card­ed con­cept of mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism in parts of Eu­rope be­came pop­u­lar with gov­ern­ments that did not know how to treat with for­eign­ers, many of whom were po­lit­i­cal and re­li­gious refugees, who mi­grat­ed to their coun­tries (Aus­tralia has tak­en a rigid stand with re­spect to mi­grants and their im­por­ta­tion of their cul­tures).

In T&T, the PP nev­er ex­plained what it meant by mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism (the term sound­ed po­lit­i­cal­ly nice). It was nev­er de­bat­ed. On the sur­face, it has thrown a span­ner in the men­tal wheels of tran­scul­tur­al­ism. As a re­sult, T&T has a Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and a Cari­com Am­bas­sador for Cul­ture. Has any­one ever heard the min­is­ter speak about the chal­lenges of re­li­gion in our evolv­ing cul­ture? There was no need to be­cause tran­scul­tur­al­ism has/had its roots firm­ly plant­ed in the psy­che of Trinida­di­ans/To­bag­o­ni­ans. What is the lat­ter's role and whose cul­ture-In­di­an, African, Chi­nese etc-does he rep­re­sent in the Caribbean? Who does he rep­re­sent? Prof Sel­wyn Cud­joe ad­dressed this is­sue. Not many gave him the time of day. Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism ap­pears to be a way of di­vid­ing the na­tion and tak­ing us fur­ther away from the idea of Moth­er T&T and bring­ing us clos­er to "Grand­moth­er In­dia" and "Grand­moth­er Africa."

John Hen­ry

Pe­tit Val­ley