Tony Rakhal-Fras­er

Hav­ing ar­gued that sig­nif­i­cant seg­ments of the Afro-Trin­ba­go so­cial and eco­nom­ic un­der­class, main­ly, but not ex­clu­sive­ly, have se­ri­ous­ly drift­ed away from the achieve­ments of their an­ces­tors of the post- Eman­ci­pa­tion gen­er­a­tion, the need now is to pro­pose an ap­proach to re­turn am­bi­tion and achieve­ment.

Aware­ness and ac­knowl­edge­ment of the deep slide are the first steps to trans­for­ma­tion. Those con­clu­sions have to be ar­rived at across the Afro-Trin­ba­go so­ci­ety. The next step would be for in­di­vid­u­als and groups to come to their own con­clu­sions that the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty lies with the to­tal com­mu­ni­ty; no one else is com­ing to do it for them.

Afro-Trin­ba­go must recog­nise and be made aware of its own his­tor­i­cal self and its cen­turies-old cul­ture of achieve­ment: a peo­ple must have a pos­i­tive view of self, linked to their own sig­nif­i­cant an­ces­tral past, if they are to move for­ward to re­cap­ture self and to build on it; they can­not be seen as pari­ahs feed­ing on the cut­tings of oth­er civil­i­sa­tions.

The above con­scious­ness ar­rived at, the prob­lems and so­lu­tions have to be con­ceived of and tack­led at the com­mu­ni­ty, ed­u­ca­tion­al, fam­i­ly life, par­ent­ing lev­els, cul­tur­al and re­li­gious ground­ings of their lives.

Al­ready, there are com­mu­ni­ty-in­sti­tu­tions and fa­cil­i­ties to be used and ex­pand­ed for self-trans­for­ma­tion and hu­man ad­vance. Re­li­gious and cul­tur­al group­ings grow strength of pur­pose and be­lief in in­di­vid­u­als in a peo­ple; they have to be used where they ex­ist and cre­at­ed where need­ed.

Those Afro-Tri­ni-owned and man­aged small, medi­um and large busi­ness­es, which make their liv­ing on the ba­sis of their pa­trons across the eco­nom­ic-so­cial class group­ings, must find ways and means to lend sup­port to the ef­forts. It’s a very self-serv­ing propo­si­tion: busi­ness­es can on­ly pros­per based on the sup­port they gain from their com­mu­ni­ties.

It’s well known and ac­cept­ed that there are Afro-Tri­ni com­mu­ni­ties in which large num­bers, even a cou­ple of gen­er­a­tions of young men and women, have been so­cialised in­to short-term seem­ing­ly at­trac­tive op­tions for sur­vival.

Those who have the con­scious­ness and ex­pe­ri­ences of more vi­able and self-sat­is­fy­ing op­tions must share them with the un­con­scious and those caught in the trap of hu­man degra­da­tion.

Aca­d­e­m­ic and pro­fes­sion­al Afro-Trin­bag­o­ni­ans who have adopt­ed pos­i­tive routes to suc­cess and qual­i­ty hu­man liv­ing; their sto­ries should be a part of our liv­ing re­al­i­ty.

In­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­claimed T&T nov­el­ist, Earl Lovelace, re­cent­ly made the ob­ser­va­tion that the pro­fes­sion­al class re­flect­ed in the me­dia in var­i­ous ca­pac­i­ties lacks a like­ness of his com­mu­ni­ty.

One crit­i­cal fac­tor in all of the at­tempts at re­vival and re­turn to pos­i­tive lifestyles must be the in­cor­po­ra­tion and par­tic­i­pa­tion of the quite sub­stan­tial groups of Afro-Tri­nis in the mid­dle, up­per and pro­fes­sion­al class­es. They can­not “kick the lad­der down”; they have to join their ex­pe­ri­ences and re­sources to the ef­forts of re­vival in the same man­ner that they ben­e­fit­ed from the ex­pe­ri­ences and achieve­ments of their gen­er­a­tional an­ces­tors.

They must un­der­stand that they too will ben­e­fit from an en­larged mid­dle and pro­fes­sion­al class both in terms of nu­mer­i­cal strength and as a source of pride in the achieve­ments of their fel­low Afro-Trin­bag­o­ni­ans.

There is par­tic­u­lar space for the re­tired pro­fes­sion­als to lend their re­sources of time, skills, and hu­man un­der­stand­ing to en­sure they re­place them­selves in the so­ci­ety and econ­o­my open­ing up ahead.

A Trinidad and To­ba­go where the eth­nic, re­li­gious, so­cial, eco­nom­ic and cul­tur­al groups have eq­ui­table ac­cess to achiev­ing wealth, to be­ing con­sid­ered as hav­ing and in­putting to the na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, is ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary.

Such a T&T holds the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a na­tion of peo­ple work­ing to­geth­er in the na­tion­al in­ter­est is com­pul­so­ry. The at­tain­ment of such a need­ed plat­form for jus­tice and eq­ui­ty will re­duce con­flict, jeal­ousy and con­tribute to a com­mon work­ing to­geth­er.

To have the op­po­site, that of be­ing one of the ma­jor com­mu­ni­ties be­ing left be­hind, adrift from shar­ing eq­ui­tably in the ben­e­fits of the na­tion ac­cru­ing to se­lect groups, is a source of deep di­vi­sive­ness and po­ten­tial ex­plo­sion. And you don’t have to be­lieve me. Start by re­flect­ing on the his­tor­i­cal sources of con­flict which have im­pact­ed neg­a­tive­ly on this coun­try; in the main they have de­rived from dis­ad­van­tage and pref­er­ences.

Slav­ery, in­den­ture­ship, race and class dom­i­nance by the planters and mer­chants have all con­tributed to the lop­sided ac­cru­al of wealth and of pres­tige dur­ing colo­nial rule.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the “lo­cal gov­er­nors”, as Lloyd Best re­ferred to those who took over from the ex­pats, have adopt­ed sim­i­lar path­ways.

Looked at pos­i­tive­ly, with a greater spread of eco­nom­ic and so­cial eq­ui­ty, re­spect for cul­tur­al, re­li­gious and so­cial prac­tices of each oth­er, such a Trinidad and To­ba­go has a far greater chance of ad­vanc­ing mi­nus the con­tin­u­ing con­tes­ta­tions for pow­er.

As­pects of such fo­cused ad­vo­ca­cy of Afro-Trin­ba­go na­tion­als to emerge from a brew­ing cri­sis will come un­der scruti­ny and at­tract crit­i­cism as be­ing di­vi­sive. Such con­tention has to be ex­pect­ed and re­spond­ed to on the ba­sis that the co­he­sive­ness of com­mu­ni­ties, so­cial, re­li­gious, eco­nom­ic and eth­nic, has been the path used across hu­man ex­is­tence for sur­vival and growth of peo­ple and na­tions.

Trans­for­ma­tion re­quires Afro-Trin­ba­go to con­tem­plate it­self as a com­mu­ni­ty and to be pre­pared to change the present re­al­i­ty.

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.