Prof Sel­wyn R Cud­joe

The steeple of St Mary's An­gli­can Church is the first land­mark that greets any­one who en­ters the vil­lage of Tacarigua from its west­ern side. Al­though the present build­ing was con­struct­ed in 1901, this ar­chi­tec­tur­al splen­dour has been a part of the vil­lage land­scape since 1843. On Au­gust 22, 1901, the Mir­ror re­port­ed that "the old parish Church of St Mary's is now lev­elled to the ground with the ex­cep­tion of the west­ern wall, which it is be­lieved will form part of the new St Mary's."

Di­rect­ly across the East­ern Main Road is the St Mary's Chil­dren's Home. Its first build­ing was con­struct­ed in 1857 to ac­com­mo­date East In­di­an chil­dren whose par­ents were lost dur­ing the long cross­ing from In­dia to Trinidad. My great grand­fa­ther, Jonathan Cud­joe and his wife, Amelia (my great grand­moth­er), were born in 1833 and 1837 re­spec­tive­ly and lived in Tacarigua. Al­though they re­mained devo­tees of the Yoru­ba re­li­gion (whose supreme de­ity is called Olorun), colo­nial­ism de­mand­ed that they at­tach them­selves to the Chris­t­ian faith, the re­li­gion of the colonis­er, to ad­vance them­selves in the so­ci­ety. They be­came An­gli­cans and St Mary's An­gli­can Church be­came one of their re­li­gious homes.

Many of Jonathan's chil­dren went to the St Mary's An­gli­can School that was con­struct­ed by en­slaved Africans pri­or to the abo­li­tion of slav­ery. The Tacarigua Pres­by­ter­ian School opened in 1884. When Amy Black­ad­der be­came the prin­ci­pal of the lat­ter school in 1887, my fa­ther and un­cle be­came pupil-teach­ers there. Jonathan's off­springs at­tend­ed the An­gli­can as well as the Pres­by­ter­ian school. The at­ten­dance of my broth­er, sis­ter and I at the An­gli­can school had a lot to do with my moth­er's in­sis­tence that we go to school there. My first cousins, the chil­dren of my fa­ther's younger broth­er, all at­tend­ed the Tacarigua Pres­by­ter­ian School. I was a pupil-teacher at St Mary's be­fore I went to the US to fur­ther my ed­u­ca­tion.

On Sun­day I at­tend­ed ser­vices at St Mary's An­gli­can Church, my home church. Fr An­der­son Max-well, a chem­istry pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and as­sis­tant cu­rate, took a verse from Isa­iah as the theme of his ser­mon: "If you do not stand firm in your faith; you will not stand at all." In some quar­ters this verse is trans­lat­ed to read: "If you don't take your stand in faith you would not have a leg to stand on."

It may have been the drowsi­ness of the morn­ing-our ser­vices be­gin at sev­en o'clock- but I am sure I heard the pas­tor say: "If you don't stand firm in faith; you will not stand at all." Lis­ten­ing to Fr Maxwell's in­spi­ra­tional ser­mon, I took his theme as a fit metaphor for our na­tion: that is to say, if we do not stand firm, in faith, to­geth­er as a na­tion, then we will not have a leg to stand up­on. Al­ready, the na­tion stands up­on too many legs.

Fr Maxwell's mes­sage may have been co­in­ci­den­tal but it pos­sess­es great weight. As we ap­proach Christ­mas Isa­iah's mes­sage seems ap­pro­pri­ate for where we stand as a na­tion. Giv­en the com­min­gling of our var­i­ous peo­ples, it is a mes­sage that we ought to con­tem­plate as we en­ter in­to the new year.

In his ser­mon, Fr Maxwell sug­gest­ed that stand­ing firm in one's faith is an im­por­tant pre­req­ui­site for one's sal­va­tion. It is the nec­es­sary con­di­tion to achieve the promise that is of­fered to Chris­tians through their be­lief in the birth, the life and res­ur­rec­tion of Je­sus Christ. Im­plic­it in this re­as­sur­ance is the in­dis­pens­able el­e­ment of be­lief in the words and promise of the prophets.

Faith can be de­fined as a be­lief with strong con­vic­tion; firm be­lief in some­thing for which there may be no tan­gi­ble proof; or com­plete trust in an idea. I be­lieve the re­sult of the May 24 elec­tions opened up a new di­men­sion in our evo­lu­tion as a so­ci­ety that al­lows for dif­fer­ent con­cep­tions of defin­ing our Trini­d­i­an­ness and To­bag­o­ni­an­ness. One's na­tion­al iden­ti­ty nev­er comes in one fell swoop nor for that mat­ter is it some­thing that came in­to be­ing with the ar­rival of our fore­fa­thers and our fore­moth­ers from dif­fer­ent shores. It is some­thing we ac­quire grad­u­al­ly as we live in this en­vi­ron­ment and which, with each new gen­er­a­tion, is con­stant­ly chang­ing.

The Trinida­di­an­ness that Jonathan Cud­joe felt in 1867 was quite dif­fer­ent from what I, his de­scen­dant, feel and ex­pe­ri­ence as a 20th cen­tu­ry Trinida­di­an. Sim­i­lar­ly, the Trinida­di­an­ness Sat Ma­haraj's fa­ther felt was quite dif- fer­ent from that which Sat feels to­day. What it means to be a Trinida­di­an or To­bag­on­ian is an al­ways-chang­ing con­cept as is the se­mi- nal ques­tion: what dif­fer­en­ti­ates us, as Trinida­di­ans and To­bag­o­ni­ans, from cit­i­zens of oth­er na­tions? In oth­er words, are we still in the process of de­ter­min­ing what makes us Trinidada­di­ans and To­bag­o­ni­ans?

How­ev­er one re­sponds to this ques­tion pre­sumes a be­lief with strong con­vic­tion that these is­lands, Trinidad and To­ba­go, is home. Al­though one can­not put one's fin­ger on ex­act­ly what that means one must have com­plete trust that the en­ti­ty called Trinida­di­an and/or To­bag­on­ian is some­thing that is wor­thy of sac­ri­fic­ing one's best self to achieve. It al­so in­cludes a com­mit­ment to work ar­du­ous­ly to achieve a so­ci­ety in which every creed and race find an equal place. As the last of the im­mi­grants to our so­ci­ety, the year 2010 opens up new pos­si­bil­i­ties for East In­di­ans-and I am be­ing gen­er­al here -to re­cal­i­brate their en­gage­ment with a host so­ci­ety they now call their home. It al­so al­lows them to po­si­tion the so­ci­ety in a new di­rec­tion. Nec­es­sar­i­ly, such shift­ing em­phases de­mand that Africans re­fo­cus their so­cial lens and psy­cho­log­i­cal ap­pa­ra­tus­es to ac­cept the chang­ing ori­en­ta­tion that in­heres in In­di­an Time Ah Come.

Many psy­cho­log­i­cal ad­just­ments will have to be made as we de­vel­op our na­tion­ness (and this is a word). How­ev­er we de­fine our na­tion­al iden­ti­ty, we will have to demon­strate greater faith in the pos­si­bil­i­ties of our na­tion which re­main in­choate and un­know­able. At this mo­ment of tran­si­tion, I can think of no fit­ter ad­mo­ni­tion than an adap­ta­tion of Isa­iah's words: "If we don't stand firm in our na­tion's faith, then our na­tion will not stand at all." There can be no high­er na­tion­al pur­pose than trust­ing in our­selves and a will­ing­ness to sac­ri­fice for the na­tion's well be­ing. As we com­mem­o­rate the birth of Je­sus Christ, al­low me to say Mer­ry Christ­mas to all.