As we have just passed Jan­u­ary 1, 2019, isn't it trag­ic that there is no of­fi­cial re­mem­brance that 75 years ago Dr Er­ic Williams wrote “Cap­i­tal­ism and Slav­ery”? From that book, there are many lessons that we may learn about Africans in our part of the world.

In ad­di­tion, as we move in­to the year we have not recog­nised the sig­nif­i­cance of New Year's Day for the Haitians. Un­der the lead­er­ship of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Haiti de­clared In­de­pen­dence on Jan­u­ary 1, 1804, there­by cre­at­ing “the first in­de­pen­dent na­tion in Latin Amer­i­ca, the first post-colo­nial in­de­pen­dent black-led na­tion in the world, and the on­ly na­tion whose in­de­pen­dence was gained as part of a suc­cess­ful slave re­bel­lion”.

Like­wise on Jan­u­ary 1, 1863, in the midst of the Amer­i­can Civ­il War, Pres­i­dent Abra­ham Lin­coln, de­clared Eman­ci­pa­tion for all slaves in the Union held ar­eas of USA, even­tu­al­ly lead­ing to the 13th Amend­ment in 1865.

Why is this pre­am­ble nec­es­sary? It is be­cause we are al­so in the 5th Year of the In­ter­na­tion­al Decade of Peo­ple of African De­scent (IY­PAD) and the Gov­ern­ment of T&T, un­der the lead­er­ship of Er­ic Williams's par­ty, has made no de­c­la­ra­tion as yet about IY­PAD!

Maybe it is be­cause the present lead­er­ship does not have any re­gard for ei­ther our his­to­ry or con­tem­po­rary de­vel­op­ments re­gard­ing Africans and there­fore they would not men­tion or com­mem­o­rate their own founder's book or em­brace IY­PAD.

This fifth year of the IY­PAD meets T&T suf­fer­ing from an ex­plo­sion of black on black vi­o­lence. There is a clear prob­lem of a kind of de­pres­sion among some African youth whose pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with ma­te­ri­al­ism, in­stant grat­i­fi­ca­tion, bling and oth­er cos­met­ics like weaves go back is dis­tract­ing from the achieve­ments of the more am­bi­tious ones. The prob­lem is that the same de­mo­ti­vat­ed Africans are al­so think­ing peo­ple and we do not know what is fore­most in their minds.

Er­ic Williams's book be­comes rel­e­vant be­cause he ad­mits that as op­pressed as the en­slaved African was, he/she was al­ways alert to their sit­u­a­tion. In the chap­ter “The Slaves and Slav­ery” he ob­served that while cer­tain his­to­ri­ans of his time were ig­nor­ing the en­slaved Africans in their strug­gle for free­dom “the planters and British of­fi­cials and politi­cians of the time nev­er made that mis­take”.

Williams wrote “Not near­ly as stu­pid as his mas­ter as his mas­ter thought him and lat­er his­to­ri­ans have pic­tured him, the slave was alert to his sur­round­ings and keen­ly in­ter­est­ed in dis­cus­sions about his fate. “Noth­ing,” wrote the gov­er­nor of British Guiana in 1830, “can be more ob­ser­vant than the slaves are of all that af­fects their in­ter­ests”.

Hav­ing made his analy­sis of the con­di­tions which pre­vailed in Eng­land and its then Em­pire in­clud­ing the fact that African en­slave­ment was the means where­by Eng­land gained foun­da­tion for its In­dus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion, Williams con­clud­ed that the en­slaved Africans, con­trary to oth­er views, played a ma­jor part in their own Eman­ci­pa­tion.

Read Williams again…

“In 1833…the al­ter­na­tives were clear: Eman­ci­pa­tion from above or Eman­ci­pa­tion from be­low. But EMAN­CI­PA­TION Eco­nom­ic change, the de­cline of the mo­nop­o­lists, the de­vel­op­ment of cap­i­tal­ism, the hu­man­i­tar­i­an ag­i­ta­tion in British Church­es, con­tend­ing per­ora­tions in the Hall of Par­lia­ment had now reached their com­ple­tion in the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the slaves them­selves to be free. The Ne­groes (sic) had been stim­u­lat­ed to free­dom, by the de­vel­op­ment of the very wealth their labour had cre­at­ed”.

Once Africans, now or in the fu­ture, in T&T and the wider Caribbean some­how be­came re-ac­quaint­ed with the ideas in books like “Cap­i­tal­ism and Slav­ery”, re­call the Hait­ian Rev­o­lu­tion, study the caus­es and con­se­quences of the Amer­i­can Civ­il War and be­come alert­ed to IY­PAD they will be in­spired to do bet­ter than they are do­ing now.

The op­ti­mism in me says it is not be­yond pos­si­bil­i­ty.

Aiye­goro Ome

Mt Lam­bert