Proud to be Trini

Like most of us, I am proud to be a Trini, and given a second chance I would choose the same again. It is not only because the Soca Warriors made us the smallest nation to ever qualify for the football World Cup. Nor is it just that Brian Lara, the world’s highest ever scorer of test-cricket runs, is a Trini. It is also because of all the other Trinis who have gone out into the world, and made waves. Big waves. It is because a nation of 1.3 million people could produce such outstanding and diverse talents that compete at world level and triumph. In November, in the Arab Emirate of Qatar, a twelve-year old Trinidadian, Jonathan Bishop, was wowing the Emir and everyone else in sight with his leading-role performance as a young sultan in a musical inaugurating the venue of the 2006 Asian Games. In October, 35-year-old Kwame Ryan excited London’s opera audiences and critics with his vivacious yet sensitive conducting of the English National Opera’s orchestra in a production of Salome. I had never heard those musicians play with such heart.

I am sure for each month of this year I could, if I tried, find some arena or other in which a Trinbagonian was excelling.  And that is not including our young men and women garnering top marks in the 2005 Advanced level examinations. The fact that we are recognised internationally as punching above our weight became evident during my time in Japan. Amazingly, everyone I met there knew where TT was.  And for one very simple reason. The nationalistic Japanese had remarked that in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo a handful of brave sports men and women had marched confidently around the arena at the opening ceremony, the TT flag held proudly aloft.  Behind them came the masses of competitors from the USA and the USSR that made our tiny contingent appear mere dots on the landscape. The Japanese think we are a great people.  Winning medals in ’64 was only part of the admiration.  It was the courage and belief that we displayed, the David taking on Goliath, the stuff of heroism. 

We celebrate the impressive achievements of our sport stars and beauty queens, our mas’ men and calypsonians, but many of our other high achievers go unnoticed.  The National Institute of Higher Education, Research and Technology (NIHERST) has decided to correct this.  It just published Volume 1 of Trinidad Icons in Science and Technology that profiles thirty-nine people who made outstanding contributions in their fields, not just in Trinidad and Tobago, but in the world. How many mathematicians have a theory named after them? Rudranath Capildeo (1920-70) is one of the few.  “The Capildeo Theory” is also known as “The Theory of Rotation and Gravity” and reviewed areas of uncertainty in Einstein’s theory.  Andre Cropper (1961-), from St James but now working for US Defence, has developed a new semi-conductor from thin layers of laboratory-produced diamond that is ready to “revolutionise the electronics market with new innovations.”

I would bet most of us are ignorant of the fact that for example, Bert Achong (1928-96) worked on the discovery of the Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) in 1964.  EBV is linked to two human cancers and his research helped in the treatment of related illnesses. Also, he found the first example of a retrovirus infection in man using electron microscopy. We may joke about an animal called a buffalypso but it is a prize breed of water buffalo that can resist parasites and provides good quality beef, milk and leather.  The vet, Stephen Bennett (1922-), from Princes Town, developed it here in the 1960s. Joseph Parwan’s (1887-1957) discovery that vampire bats spread rabies changed our lives forever.  Elisha Tikasingh’s (1927-) techniques for identifying viruses spread by mosquitoes and ticks became an international standard in arbovirology. 

And of course, the man who transformed a 55-gallon steel drum into a musical instrument, the only one invented in the 20th Century that survives, is a great inventor.  Elliot Manette (1927-) still works with “leading acoustic physicists and metallurgists on the science of the steelpan.” If we add our writers, artists and star professionals, we have much to be proud of. But there are questions: —  how can we continue to produce such a volume of exceptional people? And, how can we keep them onside?  The icons I cite stayed connected to TT but this country remains a net exporter of incredible talent. With globalisation, the trend is intensifying and the fact that TT is increasingly an unattractive place to live feeds the brain drain. Crime is only one factor, the greater, more important point is that it is clear we have not learned to run our affairs properly. We cannot hope, given where we seem headed, to convince our gifted that this is the place where they could realise their potential. If ever we could do that I would be a very proud Trini indeed.