War of the signposts

OUR sincere thanks to the good folk of Moonwassie Avenue - or is it Siebaran Drive? - in Diamond Village, off San Fernando, for providing us with some comic relief in these troubling times of high crime and kidnappings. While we agonise over the rising murder rate and share the agony of families of kidnap victims, we may be consoled by the civic virtues of Diamond Villagers who have found other things to worry about, namely the naming, or rather the renaming, of one of their streets. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the question is asked, “What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” This piece of philosophising has since acquired celebrity status, as it seems the perfect answer to recurring disputes over the naming of names. However, we have our doubts whether it would serve any useful purpose in applying it to the situation at Diamond Village where the Moonwassieans are adamantly opposed to the the Siebarans in the naming of their little street.

The zeal of the opposing factions has been demonstrated in a virtual war of the sign posts, with activists on both sides planting and uprooting according to their respective loyalties. Eventually, the quarrel, which seems more Naipaulian than Shakespearean, attracted two teams of policemen but, on sober consideration, the lawmen apparently saw no need for taking any arresting action. The Moonwassieans, it would seem, have history on their side. The Siebarans, on the other hand, want a change to match the area’s development. As parochial as this dispute may appear, however, the crux of it happens to be a familiar one, having almost universal application. The question is this: Should the familiarity of history and tradition inherent in any area, including its place names, give way to the changes wrought by progress and physical development?

For 78-year-old Kissoon Lookhor the answer to that question is a definite no. A descendant of the Moonwassie family, cane farmers who owned most of the land at Moonwassie Hill, Lookhor is determined to have the street renamed Moonwassie Avenue. Lookhor, it seems, has the backing of the Debe/Penal Regional Corportion which recently passed a resolution giving the street this particular name. The dispute arose when land developer Rawle Siebaran attempted to name the street Siebaran Drive, acting on the authorisation of Caroni Ltd which owns the road. Lookhor and the Moonwassieans would have none of that and had the Corporation’s workmen uproot this street sign on each of the five times it was planted. Propelled by his ancestral feelings, Lookhor vowed to pitch a tent next to the Moonwassie Avenue sign which the Corporation had finally erected to ensure it was not uprooted.

“I’m not leaving here...They will have to kill me first,” the old man declared. The war of the signposts, however, seems far from over as former Caroni CEO Clarence Rambharat had written to the Siebaran Drive Action Group explaining that the company would recognise the road, which had formerly been known as Estate Road, as Siebaran Drive. Still, with the dissolution of Caroni Ltd the strength of that assurance may well become questionable. As a sign that the dispute is still alive and kicking, the land developer has erected a post in his own yard with the name, Siebaran Drive. What’s in a name? Well, Mr Shakespeare, we now know that a street by any other name would not smell as sweet.