To­day, we com­mem­o­rate the 182nd An­niver­sary of Eman­ci­pa­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Al­though The Abo­li­tion of Slav­ery Act was passed in Au­gust 1833 and came in­to ef­fect on Au­gust 1, 1834, slav­ery was not re­al­ly abol­ished in the British Caribbean un­til 1838.

Af­ter 1834 a “new raft of law-and-or­der mea­sures” came in­to ef­fect. “Un­der the new ‘ap­pren­tice­ships’, new­ly ‘freed’ peo­ple were still ex­pect­ed to re­main on the plan­ta­tions and put in 10-hour days. Ab­sen­teeism would re­sult in im­pris­on­ment in one of the many new jails (equipped with tread­mills) that were be­ing built to con­tain re­cal­ci­trant work­ers. Ad­di­tion­al tiers of ‘spe­cial of­fi­cers’ and stipen­di­ary mag­is­trates were cre­at­ed to po­lice the changes. ‘Ap­pren­tices’ could still be flogged with­out re­dress; fe­males in­clud­ed…The ef­fects of eman­ci­pa­tion in the British West In­dies var­ied from is­land to is­land. The ap­pren­tice­ship scheme would come to an end on­ly in 1838” (www.un­der­stand­ingslav­ery.com).

As some­one who has African blood run­ning through my veins, it is with a deep sense of pride that I con­tin­ue to ed­u­cate my­self about the strug­gles of those per­sons of African ori­gin whose in­domitable spir­it and re­lent­less quest for free­dom have led us even­tu­al­ly to this junc­ture. Do our ed­u­ca­tors find time in the cur­ricu­lum to share in­for­ma­tion about re­sis­tance/up­ris­ings/re­bel­lions by slaves in var­i­ous parts of the world e.g. Nan­ny of the Ma­roons in Ja­maica, Tou­s­saint Lou­ver­ture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines in Haiti, Bus­sa in Bar­ba­dos; Nat Turn­er in the USA? How many of you have told your chil­dren the sto­ry of peo­ple like abo­li­tion­ist and po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist, Har­ri­et Tub­man, who fear­less­ly risked her life to res­cue more than 70 en­slaved per­sons, in­clud­ing fam­i­ly and friends in the USA? Or do we on­ly tell stu­dents/chil­dren about ac­tion to end slav­ery by peo­ple such as William Wilber­force?

Too of­ten the his­to­ry of peo­ple of African ori­gin starts with the transat­lantic slave trade, when it should com­mence with the rich his­to­ry of Africa from which mil­lions were en­slaved and tak­en to var­i­ous parts of the world. Let us not for­get to high­light the dev­as­tat­ing neg­a­tive ef­fects of colo­nial­ism and im­pe­ri­al­ism, not on­ly on per­sons of African ori­gin, but on many oth­er eth­nic groups. Sad­ly, it is es­ti­mat­ed that about 40.3 mil­lion in­di­vid­u­als are vic­tims of mod­ern day slav­ery, with 71% of those be­ing fe­male, and 1 in 4 be­ing chil­dren.

What does Eman­ci­pa­tion mean to peo­ple of African ori­gin in TT to­day? Is our democ­ra­cy work­ing for every­one to­day? TT has gained In­de­pen­dence and Re­pub­li­can sta­tus; we are pad­dling our own ca­noe. We have made progress in many spheres of life, but we still have some way to go to cre­ate con­di­tions that will en­able every­one to live with a mod­icum of dig­ni­ty. Many still dream of equal­i­ty and eq­ui­ty.

The Vat­i­can II doc­u­ment: Gaudi­um et Spes, re­minds us that: “A just so­ci­ety can be­come a re­al­i­ty on­ly when it is based on the re­spect of the tran­scen­dent dig­ni­ty of the hu­man per­son…Hence, the so­cial or­der and its de­vel­op­ment must in­vari­ably work to the ben­e­fit of the hu­man per­son, since the or­der of things is to be sub­or­di­nate to the or­der of per­sons, and not the oth­er way around.”

While it is im­por­tant to cel­e­brate our rich African her­itage, and ac­knowl­edge the many ac­com­plish­ments of peo­ple of African ori­gin, let us al­so re­flect on the ar­eas that we need to ad­dress. NJAC chair­man, Aiye­goro Ome, right­ly stat­ed in News­day on 22 Ju­ly: “Africans should use Eman­ci­pa­tion Day as a fam­i­ly com­mem­o­ra­tion so that they can be­come more knowl­edge­able about their sev­er­al African achieve­ments. Re­mem­ber, Africans are now halfway through the UN-de­clared In­ter­na­tion­al Decade of Per­sons of African De­scent (2014-2025).

“We should use Eman­ci­pa­tion Day at home to pay at­ten­tion to our health, covid19 notwith­stand­ing”. He men­tions is­sues such as non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases, es­pe­cial­ly di­a­betes and hy­per­ten­sion, prostate can­cer, sick­le cell trait and sick­le cell dis­ease. “At the so­cial lev­el, African fam­i­lies, in cer­tain mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties where peo­ple are stig­ma­tised, must take ac­tion against the de­cline of their liv­ing, trapped as they are with­in dys­func­tion­al fam­i­lies, sub­ject­ed to in­fe­ri­or school­ing and abused by crim­i­nal el­e­ments...Eman­ci­pa­tion Day at home 2020 must be­come yet an­oth­er step­ping stone to­ward an African Re­nais­sance...”

This Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, let us re­mem­ber as we pre­pare to go to the polls on 10 Au­gust, that we will on­ly tru­ly achieve our goals as a na­tion when we view our di­ver­si­ty as a source of strength. I be­lieve that it is pos­si­ble to have uni­ty and har­mo­ny in di­ver­si­ty. Hap­py Eman­ci­pa­tion Day!