Ali­cia Llanos

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Postal Cor­po­ra­tion (TTPost) has is­sued a col­lec­tion of postage stamps to com­mem­o­rate the 100th an­niver­sary of the Syr­i­an/Lebanese pres­ence in T&T. The stamps were un­veiled yes­ter­day at the Ca­lyp­so Room, Crowne Plaza, Port-of-Spain, in the pres­ence of promi­nent mem­bers of the Syr­i­an/Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty, in­clud­ing pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer of the Syr­i­an and Lebanese Women's As­so­ci­a­tion San­dra Sal­loom, for­mer hon­orary con­sul for Syr­ia, Al­bert Hadeed and chair­man emer­i­tus of the ANSA McAL Group, Dr An­tho­ny Sab­ga.

Speak­ing at the un­veil­ing, TTPost man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Shel­don Cyrus ac­knowl­edged the sig­nif­i­cance of the role played by the Syr­i­an/Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty in the so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of T&T. He said the idea was first pro­posed by Hadeed in 2009. Cyrus said TTPost was pleased to work with the Syr­i­an/Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty to de­vel­op a col­lec­tion of stamps that de­pict the his­tor­i­cal evo­lu­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty. Sab­ga thanked TTPost for the recog­ni­tion and ho­n­our­ing the his­to­ry of the Syr­i­an/Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty. He said the ma­jor­i­ty of the Syr­i­an/Lebanese fam­i­lies ar­rived in Trinidad af­ter fac­ing re­li­gious per­se­cu­tion in their home­land. Re­fer­ring to their ar­rival in Trinidad, Sab­ga said, "We end­ed up where God want­ed us."

He said when the small group of fam­i­lies land­ed in Trinidad, they ar­rived with no mon­ey and no skills, but had the pas­sion to make a bet­ter life for them­selves and their chil­dren. "Many, like my fa­ther, came with no mon­ey, no skills, but were mo­ti­vat­ed by the de­sire to make a bet­ter life for their fam­i­ly," he said. Sab­ga said his fam­i­ly, like many oth­er ear­ly Syr­i­an/Lebanese fam­i­lies, made a liv­ing by sell­ing goods door-to-door around the coun­try. He said his aunt, for ex­am­ple, made a liv­ing by sell­ing re­li­gious pic­tures door-to-door. Sab­ga said by 1918, the Sab­ga store in Port-of-Spain was es­tab­lished and through hard work and sav­ing, the fam­i­ly busi­ness con­tin­ued to grow.

He said the spir­it of en­tre­pre­neur­ship was passed down to the gen­er­a­tions, which had great­ly con­tributed to the suc­cess­es of the Syr­i­an/Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty. Sab­ga said Trinidad was viewed as the promise land, to give a bet­ter life to one's chil­dren, grand­chil­dren and great-grand­chil­dren. "We saw op­por­tu­ni­ties here and still do," he said. "To­day, we have be­come ful­ly in­te­grat­ed in to so­ci­ety... We can­not be any­where else be­cause we be­long in Trinidad." Speak­ing on be­half of Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Em­manuel George, com­mu­ni­ca­tions of­fi­cer Si­mone Farmer com­mend­ed TTPost for its de­ci­sion to recog­nise the "his­tor­i­cal and en­dur­ing con­tri­bu­tion of the Syr­i­an/Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty to the de­vel­op­ment of mul­ti-cul­tur­al na­tion."

Farmer said: "This com­mem­o­ra­tive stamp is­sue, de­pict­ing im­ages of Rah­ma Sab­ga, an ear­ly im­mi­grant; an icon­ic trav­el­ling ped­dler, the Grand Bazaar shop­ping mall with its Mid­dle East­ern-in­spired de­sign; and the ul­tra mod­ern Is­sa Nicholas Tow­er, en­cap­su­lates the re­silient spir­it of the mi­grant peo­ple who jour­neyed halfway around the world to build a com­mu­ni­ty that is renowned for its ex­ot­ic tra­di­tions and thriv­ing en­tre­pre­neur­ship."