AKASH SAMA­ROO

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

A for­mer deputy prin­ci­pal of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) be­lieves the pass­ing of Prof Brins­ley Sama­roo should be the cat­a­lyst for an awak­en­ing in this coun­try to fi­nal­ly take its his­to­ry se­ri­ous­ly.

The 84-year-old Sama­roo passed away on Ju­ly 9 fol­low­ing what his fam­i­ly de­scribed as “a brief ill­ness.”

Prof Rho­da Red­dock told Guardian Me­dia that un­for­tu­nate­ly his­to­ry is not val­ued in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“His pass­ing should be a cause for re­flec­tion, in this a his­tor­i­cal so­ci­ety, a so­ci­ety where every­body quotes every­thing in his­to­ry, but they nev­er read any­thing, they nev­er learnt it in school, there’s no pro­grammes on his­to­ry on tele­vi­sion and ra­dio, we re­al­ly are ig­no­rant, but the worst part is that we be­lieve we know our his­to­ry.”

Prof Red­dock said Prof Sama­roo was a “peo­ple’s his­to­ri­an” in a land­scape that has very lit­tle re­spect for the field.

“As a re­sult, the num­ber of stu­dents read­ing his­to­ry is lim­it­ed, there is not a gen­er­al ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the com­plex­i­ty and rich­ness of our his­to­ry and there­fore there are a lot of myths, un­truths and mis­in­for­ma­tion that mas­quer­ade as Trinidad and To­ba­go’s his­to­ry.”

She posit­ed that Pro­fes­sor Sama­roo was one of the few who at­tempt­ed to bridge that knowl­edge gap.

“This should be a wake-up call for us all to be more con­scious of our his­to­ry, to read his books and to see how we could do more to de­vel­op our his­tor­i­cal knowl­edge.”

She urged peo­ple to vis­it the na­tion­al and uni­ver­si­ty li­braries to read his work to en­sure his teach­ings and re­search live on.

Prof Red­dock said she in­ter­act­ed with Prof Sama­roo as a stu­dent, col­league and friend and she said his fond­ness for a good time should al­so be re­mem­bered.

“For Brins­ley work was nev­er far from en­joy­ing life, he was very se­ri­ous about his work, but he al­so had the ca­pac­i­ty for lim­ing and hang­ing out, and that is a very im­por­tant com­po­nent of Brins­ley he was re­al­ly the quin­tes­sen­tial Trinida­di­an.”

Mean­while, the UWI St Au­gus­tine Prin­ci­pal, Prof Rose-Marie Belle An­toine paid trib­ute to Prof Sama­roo, who was a for­mer head of the His­to­ry De­part­ment by ex­press­ing her grat­i­tude not on­ly for his con­tri­bu­tions to acad­e­mia but al­so to the Caribbean re­gion.

“Prof Sama­roo’s lega­cy ex­tends far be­yond his au­thored books and re­search jour­nals, as he ex­em­pli­fied the true essence of an un­selfish and con­scious aca­d­e­m­ic.

“His com­mit­ment ex­tend­ed be­yond the con­fines of the cam­pus, as he ac­tive­ly en­gaged with com­mu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing our First Peo­ples, gen­er­ous­ly shar­ing his knowl­edge.

“He had the spe­cial touch to make his­to­ry vi­brant and ur­gent. His ab­sence will be deeply felt by all those who had the priv­i­lege of know­ing him.”

Vice Chan­cel­lor of the UWI, Prof Sir Hi­lary Beck­les said Sama­roo was his broth­er and col­league for over 40 ears and added that he was a kind and gen­er­ous “uni­ver­si­ty man to the bone.”

Pay­ing homage to Prof Sama­roo’s con­tri­bu­tion to the Black Pow­er Rev­o­lu­tion of 1970, the Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC) has called for the UWI to find an ap­pro­pri­ate and fit­ting way to ho­n­our his lega­cy.

“Prof Sama­roo was one of three lec­tur­ers from the UWI who chal­lenged the sta­tus quo at that time. Along with the lead­ers of NJAC, they took the lec­tures from with­in the con­fined walls of the uni­ver­si­ty to the street cor­ners of the most de­pressed com­mu­ni­ties, in an ef­fort to ed­u­cate and en­light­en the broth­ers and sis­ters who were lim­ing on the blocks.

“This had a pro­found im­pact on var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties and made an in­valu­able con­tri­bu­tion to the Rev­o­lu­tion,” NJAC said via a me­dia re­lease.

And for­mer col­league and cel­e­brat­ed Caribbean au­thor, Prof Ken­neth Ram­c­hand said Sama­roo should be re­mem­bered as an “oral hot­line” to so­cial be­hav­iours and cul­tur­al prac­tice.

Prof Ram­c­hand said he knew Sama­roo for 70 years and adored how he in­ter­act­ed with the pub­lic.

“He moved among the big boys with­out liv­ing like them,” Ram­c­hand said in a Face­book post,

“He had the com­mon touch, re­lat­ing in all sin­cer­i­ty to all the com­mu­ni­ties in the is­land.”

Prof Ram­c­hand said Prof Sama­roo was the liv­ing em­bod­i­ment of a “West In­di­ana li­brary, an in­spir­ing mod­el of dis­ci­plined and un­re­lent­ing com­mit­ment to work with­out end.”

In ad­di­tion to his aca­d­e­m­ic ca­reer, Sama­roo served as a min­is­ter in the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) gov­ern­ment from 1987-1991.

He was elect­ed as MP for Nar­i­va in 1991.