Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

Racism and neg­a­tive stereo­types dat­ing back to the colo­nial era are re­spon­si­ble for the killing of young African males by the po­lice, says Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee of T&T (ES­CTT) Za­kiya Uzoma-Wada­da.

“We have a so­ci­ety where 70 to 80 per cent of the peo­ple in our pris­ons are Africans, the ma­jor­i­ty of the home­less are Africans, if you go in­to the chil­dren’s homes the ma­jor­i­ty are Black chil­dren,” she said.

“We can’t say that African peo­ple are worth­less and they are not tak­ing ad­van­tage of op­por­tu­ni­ties. We were en­slaved for 400 years. We have been work­ing hard for many years trans­form­ing minds so that we can have a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of our African her­itage.”

Speak­ing ahead of this year’s Eman­ci­pa­tion cel­e­bra­tions un­der the theme “Com­mem­o­rat­ing 30 years of Trans­for­ma­tion and Re­silience,” Uzoma-Wada­da ex­plained that po­lice vic­tim­i­sa­tion of Black youths can be traced back to slav­ery.

“One of the things we must al­ways re­mem­ber is that the po­lice were cre­at­ed to bring run­away en­slaved back to the plan­ta­tions. The po­lice were al­ways there to look for and ar­rest African peo­ple. They did that on be­half of the colo­nial mas­ters. Un­less we re­move that men­tal­i­ty, these things be­come en­graved in­to our minds as self-hate and all the things that were taught as part of that ex­pe­ri­ence of en­slave­ment.”

She de­scribed the killing of three young men in a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing in ear­ly Ju­ly in Port-of-Spain as an ex­am­ple of age-old neg­a­tive stereo­typ­ing of Black peo­ple, adding that the “at­ti­tude of the po­lice to three young Africans from these com­mu­ni­ties in east Port-of-Spain is very dif­fer­ent from the at­ti­tude of three young White Cau­casians in a dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ty.”

Uzoma-Wada­da added: “Some­thing is wrong here. That is why our goal must be trans­for­ma­tion via ed­u­ca­tion. Some of us do not un­der­stand our his­to­ry enough to ap­pre­ci­ate and love our­selves and to un­der­stand how beau­ti­ful we are.”

Gov­ern­ment needs to in­vest more in low­er-in­come com­mu­ni­ties where peo­ple of African de­cent live rather than spend the biggest chunk of the na­tion­al bud­get on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, she said

“We could go in­to our com­mu­ni­ties and we can deal with the chal­lenges, es­pe­cial­ly in those ar­eas re­ferred to as hot spots. When they find they are in a space where they do not mat­ter and their open sur­vival is at stake they find their own way to sur­vive. This then re­sults in these cas­es of so­cial un­rest,” Uzoma-Wada­da ex­plained, adding that the wider pop­u­la­tion needs to change the neg­a­tive way they look at peo­ple of African de­scent from low­er-in­come com­mu­ni­ties.

“For ex­am­ple, we would say that peo­ple in the Beetham are this or that but look at their liv­ing con­di­tions then com­pare it to the liv­ing con­di­tions of peo­ple who be­have well. Look at where they live. We have to spend mon­ey in these com­mu­ni­ties,” she said.

More mon­ey need­ed

Ac­tiv­i­ties in the lead-up to to­mor­row’s Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions be­gan on African Lib­er­a­tion Day on May 25.

Ac­cord­ing toUzoma-Wada­da, stag­ing Eman­ci­pa­tion ac­tiv­i­ties is a cost­ly ex­er­cise.

“We had our You­ba Vil­lage Drum Fes­ti­val, we had the show­cas­ing of the Yoru­ba Vil­lage mon­u­ment, we had our African fash­ion show. There was a lec­ture se­ries go­ing on on the de­col­o­niza­tion process and there was al­so the open­ing of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage last Thurs­day,” she said

“We have not re­ceived any funds as yet from the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture, and Arts. It’s a work in progress. I don’t think there is a fi­nal fig­ure as yet, so we’re wait­ing with a lot of hope. We’re hop­ing that what we get cov­ers the cost of do­ing this.

“We were able to get a con­tri­bu­tion of $400,000 from the Sports and Cul­ture Fund and that has tak­en us through to this point. That fund comes out of the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.”

How­ev­er, she added, that is a “drop in the buck­et” since it cost more than $1 mil­lion just to set up the Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage.

“You have to pay artistes, you have to pay the dif­fer­ent ser­vice providers. There are tents, sound per­sons, light­ing, gen­er­a­tors, and oth­er lo­gis­tics to pay for. It is a cost­ly ex­er­cise. We have al­so asked peo­ple to make a con­tri­bu­tion of $30 to come to the Vil­lage but af­ter 3 pm it is free,” she said.

Cel­e­brat­ing the end of slav­ery

Eman­ci­pa­tion cel­e­bra­tions cul­mi­nate to­mor­row with the Kam­bulé pro­ces­sion which re­turns to the streets of Port-of-Spain to­mor­row af­ter two years of be­ing cur­tailed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Par­tic­i­pants will as­sem­ble for the ear­ly morn­ing event at the Trea­sury Build­ing where there will be a li­ba­tion (prayer) and the read­ing of the Eman­ci­pa­tion procla­ma­tion.

The pro­ces­sion will go through the streets of Port-of-Spain stop­ping at his­tor­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant sites on Pic­cadil­ly Street, the site of the Yoru­ba vil­lage and Hell Yard, site of the Kam­bulé ri­ots of 1881, be­fore end­ing at the Lidj Ya­su Omowale Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage in the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

Al­though slav­ery was abol­ished though­out the British Em­pire when the Slav­ery Abo­li­tion Act came in­to ef­fect on Au­gust 1, 1834, cel­e­bra­tions and the pub­lic hol­i­day on­ly be­came a reg­u­lar fea­ture in 1985, one year af­ter gov­ern­ment used the oc­ca­sion of the 150th an­niver­sary of eman­ci­pa­tion to de­clare a pub­lic hol­i­day. There were cel­e­bra­tions to mark eman­ci­pa­tion in the 19th and ear­ly 20th cen­turies but in 1939 the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil re­placed those ac­tiv­i­ties with Dis­cov­ery Day, ho­n­our­ing Christo­pher Colum­bus

T&T was the first coun­try in the world to de­clare a na­tion­al hol­i­day to com­mem­o­rate the abo­li­tion of slav­ery.

Colo­nial era relics

The stat­ue of Colum­bus on In­de­pen­dence Square in Port-of-Spain is among sev­er­al stat­ues and street names from T&T’s colo­nial past that are the fo­cus of an on­go­ing cam­paign by the Cross Rhodes Free­dom Project led by Shaba­ka Kam­bon.

The coun­try waas re­cent­ly chal­lenged by Gaynor Legall, co­or­di­na­tor of the “Slave Trade and British Em­pire Au­dit” of his­toric mon­u­ments, build­ings, and street names in Wales to “grow a back­bone and take charge of all the sym­bol­ism on the is­land.” She did so in her con­tri­bu­tion to a pan­el dis­cus­sion which was part of the Kwame Ture Memo­r­i­al Lec­ture Se­ries, one of the ma­jor event host­ed in the count­down to Eman­ci­pa­tion Day.

Legall said lo­cal chil­dren grow up sur­round­ed by white su­prema­cist mon­u­ments ho­n­our­ing peo­ple like Thomas Pic­ton whom she iden­ti­fied among 204 per­sons com­mem­o­rat­ed in Wales that were as­so­ci­at­ed with the slave trade. Pic­ton, the first British Gov­er­nor of Trinidad (1797 - 1803), was cel­e­brat­ed as a British war hero mere­ly be­cause he was the high­est-rank­ing of­fi­cer to die at the Bat­tle of Wa­ter­loo in 1815.

In Ju­ly 2020, the Cardiff City Coun­cil in Wales vot­ed to re­move a mar­ble stat­ue of Pic­ton with a mo­tion stat­ing that height­ened aware­ness about the his­to­ry of slav­ery must in­clude a re­assess­ment of the re­gard in which we hold Pic­ton and many oth­ers who were ac­tors and ben­e­fi­cia­ries.”

How­ev­er, in T&T lit­tle has been done to re­move the names of these colo­nial-era hu­man rights abusers.

“At this mo­ment there are sev­en streets named in Pic­ton’s ho­n­our, one hous­ing set­tle­ment, an apart­ment com­plex, and a fort. The Free­dom Project’s Cross Rhodes Cam­paign pe­ti­tion to Par­lia­ment to es­tab­lish a Na­tion­al Com­mit­tee to ad­dress the mat­ter was read and ap­proved in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Ju­ly 1, 2020, with­out a dis­sent­ing voice. To this date, there has been no ac­tion from the au­thor­i­ties,” said Kam­bon.