In one of his fi­nal lec­tures, Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus Brins­ley Sama­roo shared some ad­vice which, in ho­n­our of the ster­ling con­tri­bu­tions he has made to this coun­try, should be de­vel­oped in­to a na­tion­al pro­gramme in his mem­o­ry.

At the in­au­gur­al Adri­an “Co­la” Rien­zi Memo­r­i­al Fo­rum Award 2023 last month, Prof Sama­roo made a stir­ring ap­peal for young peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly those at risk of falling un­der the in­flu­ence of crim­i­nal el­e­ments, to be ed­u­cat­ed about the life and cul­ture of their an­ces­tors.

The nuggets of wis­dom that he shared then should res­onate with every pa­tri­ot­ic cit­i­zen con­cerned about the con­tin­ued law­less­ness and vi­o­lence plagu­ing this so­ci­ety.

Prof Sama­roo said, “When you think about the way in which they plan a rob­bery, plan a heist, how care­ful­ly they do it, it shows they have sense. But the rest of the coun­try has de­cid­ed to fight these bright, young peo­ple of the crim­i­nal el­e­ment.”

He fur­ther warned, “The more you fight them, the more they fight you back; suc­cess­ful­ly be­cause they are not stu­pid.”

This turned out to be valu­able part­ing ad­vice from a re­spect­ed aca­d­e­m­ic and his­to­ri­an as just three weeks lat­er, Prof Sama­roo died af­ter a brief ill­ness.

Since his pass­ing last week, the trib­utes have been pour­ing in, with peo­ple from all walks of life ac­knowl­edg­ing the many achieve­ments of a man whose ser­vice in pol­i­tics and acad­e­mia is un­par­al­leled.

As Head of the His­to­ry De­part­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Prof Sama­roo was an in­spi­ra­tional and pos­i­tive in­flu­ence on the many stu­dents who sat in his class­es at the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus.

But it was his ser­vice in the realm of pol­i­tics that first earned him na­tion­al recog­ni­tion, first as an op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor for the Unit­ed Labour Front (ULF) from 1981 to 1986 and then as a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter in the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) ad­min­is­tra­tion of 1986 to 1981.

His en­dur­ing lega­cy, how­ev­er, is in the depth and re­search and knowl­edge shared through his ex­ten­sive writ­ings. That is the plat­form from which a trans­for­ma­tion­al project can be built for the young peo­ple Prof Sama­roo spoke so pas­sion­ate­ly about in one of his fi­nal pub­lic ad­dress­es.

His fo­cus on work­ing-class move­ments, In­do-Caribbean his­to­ry, and po­lit­i­cal and in­sti­tu­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, can be used to fos­ter a deep­er ap­pre­ci­a­tion of T&T’s her­itage and pro­mote the greater com­mit­ment to na­tion-build­ing so ur­gent­ly need­ed at this time.

There is so much to be gleaned from his writ­ings and his books —In­dia in the Caribbean; Glimpses of the Sug­ar In­dus­try; Adri­an Co­la Rien­zi: The Life and Times of an In­do-Caribbean Pro­gres­sive; and The Price of Con­science: Howard Noel Nankiv­ell and Labour Un­rest in the British Caribbean— should be made avail­able to stu­dents, re­searchers and oth­ers who want to be ed­u­cat­ed about T&T’s his­to­ry.

Ed­u­ca­tion was the path he took to­ward achiev­ing his goals, start­ing with his Bach­e­lor of Arts, then an MA in His­to­ry from Del­hi Uni­ver­si­ty in In­dia. He earned his PhD from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don, then re­turned home to teach New World and South Asian His­to­ry at UWI.

Prof Sama­roo’s ser­vice in the sphere of ed­u­ca­tion, as head of the His­to­ry de­part­ment at UWI and then as a se­nior re­search fel­low at the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT), should not be for­got­ten. There­fore, it is on­ly fit­ting that ed­u­ca­tion should be the ba­sis of a memo­r­i­al in his ho­n­our.