Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

While ho­n­our­ing the tragedies en­dured by en­slaved African peo­ple forms a core part of Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions, ex­ec­u­tive chair of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee (ESC) Za­kiya Uzoma-Wada­da is urg­ing the pub­lic to be vig­i­lant against mod­ern forms of colo­nial­ism, while be­ing proud of their cul­tur­al back­grounds.

Uzoma-Wada­da re­flect­ed on the sig­nif­i­cance of such Eman­ci­pa­tion Day ob­ser­vances dur­ing re­marks at the for­mal open­ing of the Lidj Ya­su Omowale Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage, at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, yes­ter­day, where she re­mind­ed the pub­lic that African his­to­ry was much more than slav­ery.

“Even be­fore we were en­slaved, we were very wise; we knew what was hap­pen­ing... we had our em­pires and we were well on our way.”

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia af­ter the for­mal open­ing of the vil­lage, Uzoma-Wada­da re­it­er­at­ed the need for greater in­tro­spec­tion among all peo­ple of colour be­yond the nar­ra­tive of op­pres­sion and geno­cide.

Re­fer­ring to the theme of this year’s vil­lage of “Ig­nit­ing African con­scious­ness and dis­man­tling colo­nial lega­cies,” she added that the ef­fects of colo­nial­ism were still present in every­day life.

“We still go to the Privy Coun­cil to have our fi­nal say.

“How we trav­el... we can’t take a plane and go from here straight to the (African) con­ti­nent; you have to fol­low a Eu­ro­pean char­tered route.

“Our chil­dren are not taught African his­to­ry, pre-slav­ery; I don’t know how much we teach about the Chi­nese ex­pe­ri­ence or the In­di­an ex­pe­ri­ence pre-in­den­ture­ship be­cause who were we? Our lives and his­to­ries didn’t start as en­slaved peo­ple or in­den­tured ser­vants.”

Dur­ing her fea­ture ad­dress, Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Michelle Ben­jamin vowed to con­tin­ue work­ing along­side groups like the ESC to pro­mote the preser­va­tion of cul­ture, while re­spect­ing the con­tri­bu­tions of dif­fer­ent eth­nic­i­ties to T&T’s cul­ture.

Re­call­ing com­ments Uzoma-Wada­da made ear­li­er in the pro­gramme about the chal­lenges in mak­ing this year’s vil­lage a re­al­i­ty, Ben­jamin promised to do her part in sup­port­ing the ini­tia­tive.

“As the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, I re­main com­mit­ted to sup­port ini­tia­tives like this and yes, sis­ter Za­kiya, I will stand with you... and the ob­sta­cles... I will help you car­ry them and over­come them.

“Let this Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage serve as a bea­con of uni­ty, un­der­stand­ing and hope. Let it ig­nite con­ver­sa­tions that strength­en our na­tion’s con­scious­ness, deep­en our ap­pre­ci­a­tion and reaf­firm our com­mit­ment to our cul­ture.

“May this cel­e­bra­tion re­new our com­mit­ment to build­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go where every cul­ture is ho­n­oured, every voice is val­ued and every cit­i­zen can con­tribute to our col­lec­tive fu­ture.”

Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne al­so at­tend­ed the open­ing and laud­ed the ESC for its work in high­light­ing the con­tri­bu­tions of the African di­as­po­ra.

Re­spond­ing to crit­i­cisms from some who felt that the re­moval of colo­nial-era mon­u­ments like the Christo­pher Colum­bus stat­ue in down­town Port-of-Spain was an at­tempt to rewrite his­to­ry, Al­leyne said he dis­agreed.

“I don’t view it that way. I view it as an at­tempt in some in­stances of re­mov­ing colo­nial graf­fi­ti that we have not on­ly in the city of Port-of-Spain but all over Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“This fes­ti­val is host­ed in ho­n­our of all the pris­on­ers of war of the colo­nial ex­per­i­ment. It is im­por­tant to cel­e­brate their ef­forts in bring­ing to an end that lega­cy 188 years ago and it’s im­por­tant for us to con­tin­ue to ad­vance the work they start­ed to bring about the full lib­er­a­tion of the peo­ple who suf­fered at the hands of the colo­nial op­pres­sors.”

The Re­pub­lic of Ghana’s am­bas­sador to T&T, William Anani-Abot­si, al­so vis­it­ed the vil­lage and said such fo­rums were im­por­tant in giv­ing mem­bers of the African di­as­po­ra to re­con­nect, not­ing that Ghana’s own eman­ci­pa­tion ob­ser­vances be­gan in the 1990s.

“It’s very re­ward­ing to con­nect with your kins­men and the di­as­po­ra com­mu­ni­ty and any oth­er per­son that shares the vi­sion of eman­ci­pa­tion, so I’m very glad to be here.”

In ad­di­tion to the cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of the vil­lage, it al­so hosts 200 en­tre­pre­neurs who fea­ture a va­ri­ety of goods, from tra­di­tion­al African cloth­ing, crafts, paint­ings, to or­na­ments and agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts.