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Wednesday, July 30, 2025

The Columbus and Kwame Ture challenges

by

Prof Hamid Ghany
346 days ago
20240818
Political scientist Prof Hamid Ghany

Political scientist Prof Hamid Ghany

In my col­umn last Sun­day, I chid­ed the Gov­ern­ment for start­ing a process about the re­view of the place­ment of stat­ues, mon­u­ments, and sig­nage in T&T in Ju­ly 2022 by ap­point­ing a Cab­i­net com­mit­tee to con­duct such a re­view by the end of 2022 and then drop­ping the ball.

In­ter­est­ing­ly, last Sun­day, con­cur­rent with the pub­li­ca­tion of my col­umn, the Gov­ern­ment placed a full-page ad­ver­tise­ment on page 4 of the Sun­day Guardian invit­ing com­ments on the very sub­ject of stat­ues, mon­u­ments and sig­nage.

This was the sec­ond time in two years that such a call had been made. One does not know the rea­son for the lethar­gy on the sub­ject, how­ev­er, with an elec­tion just over the hori­zon and no dead­line date for the sub­mis­sion of com­ments in­clud­ed in the ad­ver­tise­ment, one does not know where this ef­fort will go.

The sub­mis­sions from the pub­lic are re­quest­ed to ad­dress the fol­low­ing:

“1. The re­moval or re­ten­tion of spe­cif­ic stat­ues or mon­u­ments in pub­lic spaces, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Colum­bus stat­ues.

2. The ac­tions that should be tak­en with stat­ues or mon­u­ments to be re­moved from their cur­rent lo­ca­tions.

3. Sug­ges­tions for new stat­ues, mon­u­ments, and sig­nage in pub­lic spaces.”

The ad­ver­tise­ment in­clud­ed a pic­ture of Christo­pher Colum­bus and a sign of Pic­ton Street. The chal­lenge to re­name Pic­ton Street will have a much low­er thresh­old than any at­tempt to in­ter­fere with the Colum­bus lega­cy that was so de­fin­i­tive­ly made a part of our iden­ti­ty by the fa­ther of the na­tion, Dr Er­ic Williams.

The por­trait of Thomas Pic­ton, the Gov­er­nor of the colony of Trinidad, was tak­en down in­side the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um in Cardiff, Wales, on No­vem­ber 3, 2021.

His rep­u­ta­tion for bru­tal pun­ish­ment while serv­ing first as the Mil­i­tary Gov­er­nor and then as the Civ­il Gov­er­nor of the colony of Trinidad af­ter its cap­ture in 1797 un­til his res­ig­na­tion in 1803 was frontal­ly ex­posed in 2021, which led to the re­moval of the por­trait.

In Pic­ton, the com­mit­tee may find low-hang­ing fruit. How­ev­er, with the is­sue of Colum­bus, the chal­lenges are enor­mous. Dr Er­ic Williams ap­proved the fi­nal de­sign of the na­tion’s coat of arms in 1962, with the sym­bol­ism of Colum­bus be­ing an es­sen­tial com­po­nent in­so­far as the ships of Colum­bus are cel­e­brat­ed. Ac­cord­ing to the web­site of the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, the de­scrip­tion for the coat of arms reads, in part, as fol­lows:

“At the top is the crest—a ship’s wheel in gold in front of a fruit­ed co­conut palm. This palm had al­ways been the cen­tral fig­ure on the Great Seals of British Colo­nial To­ba­go. Be­neath the wheel is the wreath, which holds the man­tle in place. The Helm is a gold hel­met fac­ing front, which rep­re­sents the Queen.

The de­vices on the shield are the two hum­ming­birds. The three gold ships rep­re­sent the Trin­i­ty—the dis­cov­ery of the is­lands and the three ships of Colum­bus; the sea that brought our peo­ple to­geth­er; and the com­merce and wealth of our coun­try. The colours of the na­tion­al flag are dis­played on the field.

The sup­port­ers are a Scar­let Ibis (the na­tion­al bird of Trinidad) on the left and a Cocrico (the na­tion­al bird of To­ba­go) on the right. Both are shown in their nat­ur­al colours. The Three Peaks com­mem­o­rat­ed both Colum­bus’ de­ci­sion to name Trinidad af­ter the Blessed Trin­i­ty and the three Peaks of the South­ern moun­tain range, called the ‘Three Sis­ters’ on the hori­zon.

In­scribed on the mot­to scroll are the words, ‘To­geth­er we as­pire; to­geth­er we achieve,’ which speaks for it­self and pro­motes har­mo­ny in di­ver­si­ty for na­tion­al achieve­ment.”

This will be the biggest chal­lenge for the Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed com­mit­tee, as any de­ci­sion to down­grade Colum­bus and any mem­o­ra­bil­ia as­so­ci­at­ed with him will in­volve dis­man­tling the coat of arms and re­design­ing it to elim­i­nate Colum­bus. The Kei­th Row­ley Cab­i­net is un­like­ly to un­do the hand­i­work of Dr Er­ic Williams, who cel­e­brat­ed Colum­bus and his lega­cy by en­dors­ing his con­nec­tion to this coun­try for all time.

As re­gards Kwame Ture (for­mer­ly Stoke­ly Carmichael), any de­ci­sion to em­brace the re­quest to re­name Ox­ford Street af­ter him will in­volve re­viv­ing the mem­o­ries of 1969/1970 and the de­ci­sion of Dr Williams and the then PNM Gov­ern­ment to ban him from com­ing to the land of his birth be­cause of the Op­po­si­tion to his ad­vo­ca­cy of Black Pow­er in the Unit­ed States as a civ­il rights leader.

It al­so will re­vive the role of Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day and the UNC in 1996, when the ban that Er­ic Williams had im­posed on Kwame Ture since 1969 was lift­ed.

Kwame Ture was wel­comed back to his home­land by Pan­day.

Dr Hamid Ghany is Pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). He was al­so ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of The UWI up­on his re­tire­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. He con­tin­ues his re­search and pub­li­ca­tions and al­so does some teach­ing at The UWI. 


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