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Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Bissessarsingh: We all remember something

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20160228

Hun­dreds of peo­ple turned out to the launch of a new book, A Walk Back in Time: Snap­shots of the His­to­ry of Trinidad & To­ba­go, by An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh, on Feb­ru­ary 18.

The his­to­ri­an, founder of the Vir­tu­al Mu­se­um of T&T, launched the new pub­li­ca­tion at the ro­tun­da at West Mall, at an evening host­ed by Nigel R Khan. There was a sense of poignan­cy at the gath­er­ing, as Bisses­sars­ingh, pop­u­lar for his pas­sion and wit, has been di­ag­nosed with pan­cre­at­ic can­cer and had been giv­en on­ly a few months to live.

Fel­low his­to­ri­an and au­thor Fr An­tho­ny de Ver­teuil said an open­ing prayer be­fore Ker­ry Ann Bish­op of Queen Bish­op Pub­lish­ing, pub­lish­ers of Snap­shots, de­liv­ered con­grat­u­la­to­ry re­marks.Prof Brid­get Br­ere­ton, au­thor of A His­to­ry of Mod­ern Trinidad, laud­ed the new book, which in­cludes many rare and di­verse pho­tos of T&T's past.

Lord Re­la­tor (Willard Har­ris) treat­ed guests to some fit­ting vin­tage kaiso se­lec­tions in­clud­ing Bring Them Back, Old Time Days and Gavaskar (A Love­ly Day for Crick­et), be­fore Bisses­sars­ingh came to the lectern.

He thanked those who had "sup­port­ed and sus­tained" him, in­clud­ing the doc­tors and nurs­es on his med­ical team, fam­i­ly mem­bers and oth­er "guardian an­gels," Si­mone de la Bastide and the com­mit­tee formed for the pro­mo­tion and pub­li­ca­tion of his work, Nigel R Khan, friends in the me­dia and those who had "found val­ue in what I have to say."

He called on all cit­i­zens who care about pre­serv­ing na­tion­al his­to­ry to join him on his mis­sion. "This book is about us, it's the sto­ry we all share."

"We all re­mem­ber some­thing," he said. "We must build on what I and oth­ers have built."

But, he lament­ed, cul­tur­al im­pe­ri­al­ism and a cul­ture of in­dif­fer­ence to his­to­ry were fast di­lut­ing the na­tion's her­itage: "It pains me that very soon our iden­ti­ty may be lost," he said.

T&T's oil wealth has been a mixed bless­ing be­cause it has al­lowed us "to throw out the old and bring in the new."He cit­ed nu­mer­ous in­di­ca­tions that Amer­i­can cul­ture, made ubiq­ui­tous by the mass me­dia, was cap­tur­ing the hearts and minds of cit­i­zens, par­tic­u­lar­ly the young.

"Our chil­dren need to know where they come from," he said. He en­cour­aged every­one to "do your part to­ward pre­serv­ing the lega­cy for our chil­dren," and so they have "a sense of pride" in who they are.He spoke pas­sion­ate­ly about the im­por­tance of cher­ish­ing the rich and mul­ti-faceted na­tion­al lega­cy of T&T, much of which re­mains un­doc­u­ment­ed–his life's work.

"As short as my life is, I have been priv­i­leged to walk part of it with you."But de­spite his daunt­ing prog­no­sis, he urged those present to con­tin­ue the work of doc­u­ment­ing the past: "As lit­tle as we have left, there is still that in each of us that will en­rich our knowl­edge of our­selves."

"There are still many more sto­ries I have to tell."The 300-strong au­di­ence rose to their feet, giv­ing Bisses­sars­ingh a stand­ing ova­tion.His Ex­cel­len­cy, Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona, shared re­marks, al­so prais­ing Bisses­sars­ingh for his "in­spir­ing" work.


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