Boos overshadow Emancipation Day calls for reparations

KE­JAN HAYNES

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

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Yes­ter­day’s African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions end­ed in boos and an on-stage con­fronta­tion in­volv­ing Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin, over­shad­ow­ing ear­li­er calls for repa­ra­tions, a di­rect air link to Ghana, the re­moval of Colum­bus’ ship from the na­tion­al Coat of Arms at the Er­ic Williams Fi­nan­cial Com­plex and the long-await­ed re­nam­ing of Ox­ford Street in ho­n­our of civ­il rights icon Kwame Ture.

A no­tice­ably small­er crowd gath­ered on In­de­pen­dence Square in Port-of-Spain to mark the 188th an­niver­sary of the full abo­li­tion of slav­ery, as speak­ers re­peat­ed­ly ar­gued that eman­ci­pa­tion re­mained an un­fin­ished jour­ney and urged Gov­ern­ment to move be­yond sym­bol­ism to tan­gi­ble ac­tion.

Bare­ly a cloud dot­ted the sky as open­ing li­ba­tions paid trib­ute to lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al pi­o­neers in the fight for repa­ra­tions, in­clud­ing Er­ic Williams and Mal­colm X.

Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin urged African de­scen­dants to re­main unit­ed and con­tin­ue the strug­gle for free­dom and eman­ci­pa­tion, but her ad­dress end­ed with a mi­nor con­fronta­tion.

Ben­jamin told those gath­ered that African peo­ple must con­tin­ue to stand to­geth­er and fight for their dreams.

“As an African com­mu­ni­ty, who will stand for us? We have to fight for our­selves, and we have to fight for our dreams,” she said. She added that free­dom was more than ap­pear­ances, say­ing, “Free­dom is who we are as a peo­ple,” and called on young peo­ple to “eman­ci­pate them­selves from men­tal slav­ery.”

As Ben­jamin spoke, a woman slow­ly inched clos­er to the front of the stage, ig­nor­ing gen­tle taps from pho­tog­ra­phers ask­ing her not to block their view. She stood di­rect­ly in front of the min­is­ter, star­ing in­tent­ly through­out the re­main­der of the speech.

The crowd re­mained large­ly silent un­til Ben­jamin praised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the Gov­ern­ment.

She said the spir­it of uni­ty was “echoed in the sen­ti­ments of the Cab­i­net of Trinidad and To­ba­go, led by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar,” adding, “I stand proud as part of that Cab­i­net.”

At that point, sec­tions of the au­di­ence erupt­ed in­to boos, jeers and hiss­es.

Ben­jamin pressed on, promis­ing con­tin­ued Gov­ern­ment sup­port for the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee.

“You have my com­mit­ment that every year we will be here, your crowds will be big­ger, and the en­ter­tain­ment will be big­ger, and of course we will help you build,” she said.

When the min­is­ter con­clud­ed her re­marks, the woman ap­plaud­ed be­fore re­peat­ing, “We will re­mem­ber that you promised food for to­mor­row while we starve to­day,” be­fore walk­ing away.

Ex­ec­u­tive Chair of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee Za­kiya Uzoma-Wada­da used yes­ter­day’s African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions to call for con­crete ac­tion rather than sym­bol­ic com­mit­ments, urg­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of a di­rect air link be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Ghana and re­newed fo­cus on repa­ra­tions.

Wel­com­ing a Ghana­ian del­e­ga­tion, Uzoma-Wada­da said it was time to move be­yond dis­cus­sions.

“Enough agree­ment. Yes, yes, yes. We want the plane,” she said, en­cour­ag­ing sup­port­ers to “hash­tag that.” She added, “We’re ready to go, and our broth­ers and sis­ters are ready to come, and we want to do it in eight hours rather than 12 and 24.”

She al­so re­newed calls for repara­to­ry jus­tice, telling the crowd, “Our cry right now, as part of that process, is repa­ra­tions, repa­ra­tions now, de­coloni­sa­tion now.”

Uzoma-Wada­da ar­gued that repa­ra­tions and de­coloni­sa­tion were in­sep­a­ra­ble, say­ing, “There can be no repa­ra­tions with­out de­coloni­sa­tion, and there can be no de­coloni­sa­tion with­out repa­ra­tions.”

Shaba­ka Kam­bon wel­comed the Unit­ed Na­tions’ March 25 vote de­clar­ing the transat­lantic slave trade the gravest crime against hu­man­i­ty, while urg­ing Eu­ro­pean Union mem­ber states to go fur­ther af­ter they ab­stained. He not­ed the three coun­tries that vot­ed against the res­o­lu­tion, the Unit­ed States, Is­rael and Ar­genti­na, but praised the 123 coun­tries that backed the res­o­lu­tion, say­ing, “The world has recog­nised this crime for its mag­ni­tude, the hor­ror of it, the du­ra­tion of it, and its lega­cy in the strug­gle that our peo­ple still face to­day.”

Kam­bon al­so called for the large Coat of Arms hang­ing across from him at the Er­ic Williams Fi­nan­cial com­plex to fi­nal­ly fea­ture the in­dige­nous Steel­pan and not Colum­bus’ three ships.

Mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion both at­tend­ed the march, but kept their dis­tance from each oth­er.

Ben­jamin walked in front with Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarts­ingh and mem­bers of the diplo­mat­ic corps, but Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, Kei­th Scot­land, Dr Amery Browne, Fos­ter Cum­mings, Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly were among the more promi­nent mem­bers to take to the streets. Beck­les said she nev­er miss­es a march. “For us, it’s a re­mem­brance of slav­ery, of eman­ci­pa­tion, of strug­gles to recog­nise that peo­ple came from Africa here as slaves and they earned their free­dom and that we recog­nise the con­tri­bu­tion of the slaves now free to the build­ing of Trinidad and To­ba­go. “

Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne cre­at­ed his­to­ry yes­ter­day, fi­nal­ly re­nam­ing Ox­ford Street in ho­n­our of Kwame Ture. He said the event marked the be­gin­ning of a broad­er ef­fort to shed the cap­i­tal’s colo­nial lega­cy, as he un­veiled the new street sign dur­ing African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions.

The cer­e­mo­ny ful­filled a promise that had been made by suc­ces­sive politi­cians over the years to ho­n­our the Trinidad-born civ­il rights icon, who was born Stoke­ly Carmichael be­fore lat­er adopt­ing the name Kwame Ture. Ture be­came a lead­ing fig­ure in the Black Pow­er move­ment in the Unit­ed States and cham­pi­oned racial equal­i­ty and repara­to­ry jus­tice.

Al­leyne, who was al­so ap­plaud­ed ear­li­er that morn­ing for over­see­ing the re­moval of the Christo­pher Colum­bus stat­ue from Port-of-Spain, de­scribed the un­veil­ing as an im­por­tant mile­stone.

“This is a very im­por­tant mo­ment in the his­to­ry of the city,” he said. “This mo­ment is the cul­mi­na­tion of cen­turies of work by our an­ces­tors; it is the cul­mi­na­tion of decades of work by the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee.”

Call­ing the move on­ly the be­gin­ning, Al­leyne told the crowd, “This is a ma­jor step. Don’t hold your breath for too long be­cause there are many more ma­jor steps to come.”