Keylee George-Samp­son

It is the opin­ion of Ms Ira Math­ur that we have lost our way be­cause we have lost our cul­ture. I do not see T&T as a se­ries of frag­ments, but as a rich ta­pes­try: fair­ly re­cent­ly unit­ed, un­fath­omably var­ied, but to­geth­er nonethe­less. I do not see a na­tion of fa­tal­ists, vic­tims, and shift­less in­di­vid­u­als. I see a na­tion re­plete with vi­brant cul­ture un­der siege. This is ap­pre­ci­at­ed by Ms Math­ur, but I be­lieve the con­tours of the is­sue are dif­fer­ent. We did not lose our cul­ture; it is be­ing sub­sumed by a cul­ture of cap­i­tal­ism. Trin­ba­go is not an ir­rev­o­ca­ble case nor is it the world’s high­est car­bon emit­ter. In the Caribbean alone, A Google maps search will re­veal Puer­to Ri­co has more KFC out­lets, and Trin­ba­go still does not have the high­est mur­der rate in the re­gion. T&T spends the most on crime com­pared to peers. I do not min­imise our is­sues, for they are pro­found, but we must be pre­cise. The fight for our Re­pub­lic is tee­ter­ing on an in­flec­tion point.

Most “na­tions” are ar­ti­fi­cial and found­ed on agreed-up­on lies, which are of­ten po­lite­ly called myths or ideals. Amer­i­cans have their Dream, the British have their Ex­cel­lence. The lie we chose in or­der to move for­ward is that of some kind of racial par­adise danc­ing in uni­son to­ward a pros­per­ous fu­ture. There is still faith in this aim, even as we ac­knowl­edge there is no par­adise with­out an un­der­bel­ly. What we be­lieve “pros­per­i­ty” looks like is where the blame lies. It re­sides in the mind­less search for prof­it, end­less com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion and com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion, and the mim­ic­k­ing of op­pres­sors who nev­er quite left our shores, fi­nances, or minds. This hunger did not come from thin air. It is part of the Trin­bag­on­ian sto­ry from the dawn of coloni­sa­tion to this very mil­lisec­ond.

His­to­ry is in flux. Whose nar­ra­tive pre­vails de­pends on who has pow­er and what pur­pose it can serve at a par­tic­u­lar present. I am one gen­er­a­tion re­moved from ex­plic­it colo­nial­ism and not at all re­moved from the Com­mon­wealth, neo­colo­nial by na­ture. T&T is beau­ti­ful, flawed, and fray­ing at the edges. It is not be­cause we do not know “our cul­ture,” wo­ven to­geth­er out of many. We lost our way not be­cause we do not speak Swahili, a lan­guage spo­ken by East Africans and not the en­slaved West Africans Afro-Trin­bag­o­ni­ans are de­scend­ed from. It is not be­cause the In­do-Trin­bag­on­ian de­scen­dants of the in­den­tured do not speak lan­guages from the Hin­di Belt. De­scen­dants of Africans and In­di­ans are not the on­ly peo­ple in Trinidad, and each small­er group re­tains cus­toms. From where I stand, my gen­er­a­tion is plugged in­to what is hap­pen­ing on the Con­ti­nent and Sub­con­ti­nent in cul­ture. This en­gage­ment is not triv­ial, de­spite it prob­a­bly need­ing to be more med­i­ta­tive as Ms Math­ur con­tends.

While our com­mon lan­guage is a di­alect based off of our most re­cent colonis­er’s, the lan­guages of our an­ces­tors are em­bed­ded in wor­ship, song, and dance. They are not in­signif­i­cant—this is cul­tur­al mem­o­ry. It will not al­ways look like a Eu­ro­cen­tric ver­sion. The method of cul­tur­al trans­mis­sion in most African and In­di­an tra­di­tions is chiefly oral. Cul­ture bow­ing to the dol­lar places it, and us, in dan­ger. Ms Math­ur is cor­rect: we ought to be pre­serv­ing our art forms and cul­tur­al mark­ers in a more per­ma­nent, ac­ces­si­ble way. How­ev­er, it is un­fair and in­ac­cu­rate to pre­tend they are dead or nonex­is­tent. There are pan work­books, though I pray for my fu­ture chil­dren to be able to use their ears to play as many did be­fore them. We are in an age where cap­i­tal­ism is quite lit­er­al­ly killing us, en­tire ways of life, and the plan­et. It has not suc­ceed­ed yet. We can find our way.