The pro­posed re­nam­ing of Nel­son Is­land is an oc­ca­sion for our mul­ti-eth­nic, mul­ti-cul­tur­al, mul­ti-re­li­gious so­ci­ety to turn the present po­ten­tial for open con­flict over the name change in­to an op­por­tu­ni­ty to use his­to­ry, log­ic, cul­tur­al need, shorn of po­lit­i­cal an­tag­o­nism, to ini­ti­ate a pat­tern of mul­ti-cul­tur­al un­der­stand­ing and ac­cep­tance, to guide the fu­ture.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in the com­pa­ny of the In­di­an For­eign Min­is­ter, Dr Sub­rah­manyam Jais­hankar, on a tour of the is­land, in­vit­ed the pop­u­la­tion to pro­pose a change of name from the mean­ing­less, Nel­son.

Im­me­di­ate­ly, the con­tention has be­gun as is the norm when there is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the groups in this plur­al so­ci­ety to be­gin to lay claim for recog­ni­tion, su­prema­cy and en­ti­tle­ment one over the oth­er.

A far bet­ter op­tion will be for the Prime Min­is­ter and her Gov­ern­ment to ini­ti­ate a con­ver­sa­tion amongst cit­i­zens, based on the re­search which has al­ready been done by Pro­fes­sor Brid­get Br­ere­ton and her Com­mit­tee. Hav­ing not seen the re­port, and I am un­aware if it has been made avail­able to the pop­u­la­tion, I would sure­ly ex­pect that the Pro­fes­sor of His­to­ry and her mem­bers must have laid down a philo­soph­i­cal, his­tor­i­cal and so­ci­o­log­i­cal ba­sis for the move­ment from colo­nial place names, etc., to ones which re­flect our civil­i­sa­tion.

Such a ba­sis for change must serve the need for a dis­course which can con­tribute ra­tio­nal think­ing and ap­proach to leav­ing Nel­son be­hind in the move for­ward to a name which re­flects that which was im­por­tant in the past, and can guide change to the present and fu­ture.

Com­men­tary has sur­faced re­gard­ing the is­land hav­ing been used as a de­ten­tion and pro­cess­ing cen­tre for the 110,000-plus in­den­tured In­di­ans who were processed there by the British colo­nial gov­ern­ment to work on the sug­ar es­tates to re­place the Africans, the ma­jor­i­ty of whom placed dis­tance be­tween them­selves and the plan­ta­tion af­ter Eman­ci­pa­tion.

That is the es­sen­tial ba­sis to have the is­land re­named as a memo­r­i­al to the an­ces­tors of the In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty. It is well known that a large por­tion of the in­den­tured im­mi­grant pop­u­la­tion stayed on at the end of their con­tracts and have con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the emer­gence of an in­de­pen­dent Trinidad and To­ba­go. To­day, the In­do-Tri­ni com­mu­ni­ty ac­counts for 40 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion (CSO), and have been in­stru­men­tal and cen­tral to the growth and de­vel­op­ment of mod­ern Trinidad and To­ba­go in all es­sen­tial ar­eas of the so­ci­ety, econ­o­my, poli­ty and cul­ture.

In re­la­tion to the Afro-Trinida­di­an and the ex­pec­ta­tion that ref­er­ence to its pop­u­la­tion and the mak­ing of the lore of Nel­son Is­land can be found in two ma­jor in­ter­ven­tions by the British colo­nial and lo­cal-colo­nial au­thor­i­ties to use Nel­son Is­land as a means of block­ing the path out of colo­nial op­pres­sion and the quest for the de­coloni­sa­tion of the coun­try.

Ful­ly aware of the de­sire by a sig­nif­i­cant group of the Afro-Tri­ni pop­u­la­tion for free­dom, the colo­nial gov­ern­ment used the mo­ment of WWII to ar­rest and im­prison on Nel­son Is­land, the leader of the labour rev­o­lu­tion led by the Afro-Grena­di­an-Tri­ni, Tubal Uri­ah “Buzz” But­ler, who was un­com­pro­mis­ing in his in­tent to achieve change.

It should al­so be not­ed that an In­do-Trinida­di­an, Adri­an Co­la Rien­zi – Kr­ish­na De­onar­ine, and groups of In­do-Tri­nis work­ing in the oil and cane fields were deeply in­volved in the at­tempt to trans­form the con­di­tions un­der which labour was con­tract­ed for both In­do and Afro Tri­nis – Brins­ley Sama­roo – “Adri­an Co­la Rien­zi”.

Thir­ty-five years lat­er, But­ler’s chil­dren and grand­chil­dren, who had been per­suad­ed by his­to­ri­an Dr Er­ic Williams that he had come to take the na­tion in­to a new world, free of the colo­nial en­trap­ment, re­volt­ed against the non-achieve­ment of the promis­es, once again, Nel­son Is­land was made their phys­i­cal prison. Be­yond the phys­i­cal iso­la­tion, plac­ing the NJAC group, But­ler’s trade union chil­dren, led by the likes of George Weekes, and the sol­diers who had hoped for a fu­ture dif­fer­ent, and were threat­en­ing to stand the so­ci­ety on its head, Nel­son Is­land was again used, on this oc­ca­sion by a lo­cal gov­ern­ment to jail the pro­test­ers and, im­por­tant­ly, to sup­press that ris­ing con­scious­ness.

There are there­fore pow­er­ful ar­gu­ments to sup­port a name change to the is­land that re­flects its his­to­ry and im­por­tance to a Trinidad and To­ba­go look­ing to gain in­spi­ra­tion from the con­tri­bu­tions to na­tion-build­ing of both In­do and Afro-Trinidad.

The ob­jec­tive, there­fore, to find a name which would ac­cu­rate­ly and sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly re­flect the past, and give in­spi­ra­tion to the fu­ture; one which In­do and Afro-Trin­bag­o­ni­ans, and the oth­er eth­nic­i­ties and mixed groups of na­tion­als, should feel com­fort­able with.

Crit­i­cal to the task, post the evolv­ing of a name to suit the ob­jec­tives, is that the re­named is­land must then be used in a man­ner which re­flects cul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic ob­jec­tives and ac­tion to the ad­vance­ment of a mul­ti-cul­tur­al and eth­nic Trinidad and To­ba­go, to which all groups have con­tributed.

Sim­ply to change the name, even one that is ac­cept­able to large por­tions of the na­tion, and then to leave the is­land in se­mi-iso­la­tion from the na­tion will not suf­fice as an ef­fort.

Tony Rakhal-Fras­er – free­lance jour­nal­ist, for­mer re­porter/cur­rent af­fairs pro­gramme host, and News Di­rec­tor at TTT; pro­gramme pro­duc­er/cur­rent af­fairs di­rec­tor at Ra­dio Trinidad; cor­re­spon­dent for the BBC Caribbean Ser­vice and the As­so­ci­at­ed Press; grad­u­ate of UWI, CARI­MAC, Mona, and St Au­gus­tine – In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions.