Yvonne Ba­boolal

Makan­dal Daa­ga helped en­gen­der a spir­it of African/In­di­an uni­ty dur­ing the 1970s Black Pow­er Rev­o­lu­tion and he can achieve the same thing on an Op­po­si­tion elec­tion cam­paign plat­form. This is the be­lief of Kafra Kam­bon, who met Daa­ga at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) in the 1960s and was a co­hort dur­ing the Black Pow­er Rev­o­lu­tion. Kam­bon, who broke away from Daa­ga's Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC) in 1983 and now heads the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee, re­called the spir­it of African/In­di­an uni­ty in the 1970s. "Daa­ga, born and bred in Laven­tille and ed­u­cat­ed at St Mary's Col­lege and UWI, head­ed a move­ment that start­ed in the ur­ban African area of Port-of-Spain and reached the plains of Ca­roni," he said.

"There was an ide­o­log­i­cal di­men­sion to it that drew the In­di­ans." Kam­bon said while Daa­ga, born Ged­des Granger, changed his name to an African one and wore African clothes, for him Black meant non-White in the 1970s when Whites still ran the show in T&T. Kam­bon re­called the Ca­roni March of March 12, 1970, when Daa­ga and his group marched from Port-of-Spain to Cou­va in a demon­stra­tion of sol­i­dar­i­ty with the In­di­ans. "It was a defin­ing mo­ment of the Black Pow­er move­ment. A group of large­ly Afro-Trinida­di­ans marched to Ca­roni and in­to Ch­agua­nas and to Cou­va. "Peo­ple lined the streets and school­child­ren were brought out. There was a large In­di­an au­di­ence in Ch­agua­nas and, par­tic­u­lar­ly, in Cou­va."

RIGHT: Daa­ga at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in his hey­day.

Kam­bon said In­di­ans came out de­spite threats by then sug­ar leader, Bhadase Sagan Ma­haraj, and warn­ings by the po­lice to lock up their busi­ness­es and homes and stay in­doors. Kam­bon feels Daa­ga will make a dif­fer­ence on the Op­po­si­tion plat­form. "He will make a dif­fer­ence in how peo­ple per­ceive the uni­ty as­pect of the plat­form." Fur­ther, Kam­bon feels there is not an­oth­er plat­form speak­er like Daa­ga. "When he speaks, he con­nects. He will be an as­set to the al­liance." Dur­ing his maid­en ad­dress at the UNC's meet­ing in Fyz­abad three weeks ago, Daa­ga asked sup­port­ers to put their right hands across their hearts and say, "I am the Gov­ern­ment!" He asked them to re­peat it, loud­er. Kam­bon said this is 1970s ide­ol­o­gy.

"It's not about dis­miss­ing the idea of lead­er­ship. It means that you don't just hand pow­er over to the leader. Par­tic­i­pa­tion has to con­tin­ue." Daa­ga al­so told the large crowd that his dream was ful­filled. "Nev­er again would you be ser­vants in your own coun­try. This land is yours. Hope has been re­alised."

Laven­tille roots strong

Daa­ga's moth­er was a reg­u­lar, poor Laven­tille woman, Kam­bon, who vis­it­ed the Granger's home of­ten, re­called. "But she was full of pride and a very strong-willed per­son. Daa­ga was very bright and went to St Mary's Col­lege but grew up in Laven­tille and saw the op­pres­sion." Daa­ga, close to 70 now, still lives in Laven­tille. Kam­bon said he was leader of the Stu­dents Guild at UWI in 1966 and made a lot of dif­fer­ence among stu­dents and even the com­mu­ni­ty. Kam­bon said un­der Daa­ga's charge, stu­dents went to dis­ad­van­taged com­mu­ni­ties and taught class­es and af­fil­i­at­ed with the trade union move­ment. "Lots of lit­tle groups were formed in 1968 and 1969, like the Black Pan­thers, Afro Turf Limers and the Na­tion­al Free­dom Or­gan­i­sa­tion led by Chan Ma­haraj.

Chal­leng­ing racism

A racist in­ci­dent at Sir George Williams Uni­ver­si­ty in Cana­da led to the for­ma­tion of NJAC in Feb­ru­ary 1969, Kam­bon said. "At the same time, Cana­di­an banks in T&T were not hir­ing In­di­ans and Africans."

Kam­bon said Daa­ga, with the sup­port of com­mu­ni­ty groups, chal­lenged im­pe­ri­al­ism and racism. Un­der his lead­er­ship in the Guild, stu­dents blocked the Cana­di­an gov­er­nor gen­er­al from en­ter­ing the cam­pus, rais­ing a hor­net's nest in T&T. So­cial un­rest grew and on Feb­ru­ary 26, 1970, there was a sol­i­dar­i­ty march with some 200 peo­ple who demon­strat­ed in front the Cana­di­an Em­bassy and were beat­en by the po­lice.

They stormed Im­pe­r­i­al Man­shop in Port-of-Spain, owned by the White Mon­tanos, and the Cathe­dral of the Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion (Ro­man Catholic Cathe­dral) where they re­port­ed­ly draped the stat­ues in black. "By then, the crowd had grown to thou­sands," Kam­bon re­called.

"Busi­ness­es shut their stores. There was a mood of 'pow­er to the peo­ple' in the coun­try." The marchers were ar­rest­ed and jailed and a state of emer­gency was de­clared in T&T. The Ca­roni March fol­lowed short­ly af­ter. "Black broth­ers from Bel­mont and Laven­tille march­ing to Ca­roni want­ed to say to the In­di­ans, 'we em­brace you', and to ce­ment the uni­ty that was grow­ing," Kam­bon said.