Dr Garvin Heer­ah

Last week, I wrote about the pass­ing of the leg­endary Slinger Fran­cis­co, the Mighty Spar­row, and how of­ten we re­mem­ber our na­tion­al he­roes most loud­ly af­ter they are gone. Read­ers’ re­sponse showed me that the con­science of Trinidad and To­ba­go is still alive.

But if we are se­ri­ous about ho­n­our­ing our he­roes, the con­ver­sa­tion can­not end with Spar­row. We must move from trib­ute to ac­tion, re­mem­brance to preser­va­tion, and ap­plause to lega­cy-build­ing. This week, I want to chal­lenge those with the au­thor­i­ty, re­sources and in­flu­ence to act be­fore it is too late.

Trinidad and To­ba­go pos­sess­es some­thing ex­tra­or­di­nary. We call it Car­ni­val, ca­lyp­so, pan, mas, mu­sic and cul­ture. But per­haps we have un­der­es­ti­mat­ed what we hold. These are not mere­ly en­ter­tain­ment. They are ed­u­ca­tion, his­to­ry, pol­i­tics, cre­ativ­i­ty, sto­ry­telling, en­tre­pre­neur­ship and in­no­va­tion—a jour­ney through the evo­lu­tion of a peo­ple. Prop­er­ly pre­served and pre­sent­ed, this in­her­i­tance could draw vis­i­tors from around the world.

Imag­ine a vis­i­tor be­ing told: “Be­fore you leave, you must ex­pe­ri­ence our Cen­tre of Re­mem­brance.” Not a mu­se­um of dusty arte­facts be­hind glass, but an im­mer­sive ex­pe­ri­ence where peo­ple can walk through our past and ex­plore the art forms that helped de­fine us.

Vis­i­tors could hear the mu­sic, see the cos­tumes and in­stru­ments, and learn about the strug­gles and tri­umphs be­hind them. Lord Kitch­en­er, the Mighty Spar­row, the Shad­ow, Ras Shorty I, Pre­tender and Spoil­er would be more than names on a wall; their con­tri­bu­tions would come alive.

Pe­ter Min­shall’s con­tri­bu­tion to mas could be brought to life through tech­nol­o­gy and re­con­struct­ed cre­ations. The sto­ries of pan pi­o­neers could show how peo­ple trans­formed dis­card­ed met­al in­to an in­stru­ment that car­ried Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sound to the world. There are many names to re­mem­ber: George Bai­ley, Ed­mund Hart, Wayne Berke­ley and the Kalicha­rans from South, among oth­ers.

Con­sid­er Ja­son Grif­fith, an icon­ic Trinida­di­an mas­ter mas­man, bar­ber and cul­tur­al pi­o­neer whose fin­ger­prints re­main on sailor mas. We should know his sto­ry, and those of count­less oth­ers whose work is em­bed­ded in our cul­tur­al his­to­ry.

Tech­nol­o­gy could make these his­to­ries tan­gi­ble. Vis­i­tors might hear an old ca­lyp­so and learn about the bar­rack yards and chantwell, watch archival footage of a steel or­ches­tra, or use vir­tu­al re­al­i­ty to jump in­to a band.

A recre­at­ed mas camp could teach the skills be­hind cop­per mas and wire-bend­ing, while a ca­lyp­so tent could bring back the at­mos­phere of a fad­ing era, per­haps with Spran­galang or Tom­my Joseph in­tro­duc­ing a ca­lyp­son­ian. Stu­dents could ex­plore our tra­di­tions and ca­lyp­so’s so­cial and po­lit­i­cal mes­sages.

Tourists al­ready trav­el thou­sands of miles to ex­pe­ri­ence Car­ni­val. Why would they not vis­it a world-class cen­tre ex­plain­ing how it be­came what it is? Cul­tur­al am­bas­sadors could guide them through halls named for our gi­ants, in­clud­ing a Liv­ing Leg­ends Gallery up­dat­ed while our re­main­ing pi­o­neers are still with us.

That is the ur­gency. We are run­ning out of time. The peo­ple who re­mem­ber the old days are age­ing; those who know the sto­ries be­hind the pho­tographs are leav­ing us. Once they are gone, we can­not search on­line for the emo­tion, at­mos­phere or oral his­to­ry of be­ing there. A pho­to­graph shows what some­one looked like, and a record­ing lets us hear a voice. On­ly peo­ple can tell us what it felt like.

Gov­ern­ment does not have to do this alone. Busi­ness­es, tourism in­ter­ests, uni­ver­si­ties, cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions, artists, his­to­ri­ans, ed­u­ca­tors and tech­nol­o­gists should help shape a na­tion­al part­ner­ship. We can as­sess what ex­ists, de­vel­op a sound busi­ness mod­el and use dig­i­tal tools, im­mer­sive sound and archival digi­ti­sa­tion to bring his­to­ry alive.

This should be more than a mon­u­ment to the past. It can gen­er­ate ed­u­ca­tion, tourism, em­ploy­ment and en­tre­pre­neur­ship, while strength­en­ing na­tion­al iden­ti­ty. Above all, our cul­ture be­longs to our chil­dren. They de­serve to know who built the foun­da­tions of to­day’s Car­ni­val and un­der­stand the vi­sion, courage and in­ge­nu­ity be­hind tra­di­tions we may take for grant­ed.

Per­haps it is time to stop ask­ing, “What can we do to cel­e­brate them?” and ask, “What can we build to en­sure they are nev­er for­got­ten?” A Na­tion­al Cen­tre of Re­mem­brance and Cul­tur­al Her­itage could be a place where his­to­ry speaks, sings, moves, dances and comes alive: where the old can re­mem­ber, the young can learn, tourists can ex­pe­ri­ence and re­searchers can dis­cov­er.

Last week, I asked whether we re­al­ly like it so. This week, I ask: What are we wait­ing for? Let us not wait for an­oth­er cul­tur­al gi­ant to pass be­fore scram­bling for pho­tographs, record­ings and mem­o­ries. Let us build while the sto­ry­tellers are still here, record while mem­o­ries are alive and pre­serve what re­mains.

The great­est tragedy would not be that our gi­ants even­tu­al­ly die. That is the nat­ur­al jour­ney of life. It would be al­low­ing their sto­ries to die with them. Trinidad and To­ba­go has giv­en the world mu­sic, mas, pan, ca­lyp­so and Car­ni­val. Now let us give our­selves and gen­er­a­tions yet un­born a place to dis­cov­er why.

The clock is tick­ing. The mem­o­ries are fad­ing. The gi­ants are leav­ing us.

Let us move.