Stages of Independence

One of the most common lamentations of those who lived through the post-independence era is the fact that ‘things were much better then’ or ‘when you hear about a murder, that was a big thing’ or ‘them days you walking miles.

Them young people don’t know ‘bout that.’ Come independence and things were supposed to be better and suddenly some people wanted the British back here.

Ideas of history are complex for history itself, or at least what is written and produced for our consumption is not necessarily the whole truth. Many times, fragments of lives are delivered to us. It’s like taking a photograph of a wide expanse of land; but rarely do we see the lives of the insects that inhabit the space. All we get is a general overview of that scene. It is much the same with historical data. Hence, the notion that history is constantly being rewritten as it should be.

I have often thought of Trinidad as a space where immigrants were placed at points of their cultural and social histories and their personal histories into a place where there was another or other histories being created.

In a sense then, it becomes a meeting of performers, somewhat like the playful tassa stand-off during the Hosay celebration. Rhythm challenges rhythm to oppose, to unite. There is a general play taking place and we are all performers.

Even before independence became a declaration, something concretized, our society had moved through several stages of independence. From indentureship (which contained several stages of experimentation with replacement labour), followed by emancipation (which also had different stages), followed by different stages of independence — we were in preparation for an independent state.

And independence comes off as a sort of general event that happens and is now celebrated by some and not celebrated by others who insist that we are truly not independent as yet.

Within the eras through which the island passed, there were various histories being created in small pockets.

These pockets still exist and comprise parts of the whole that we see as Trinidadian history and culture.

It is by no means homogeneous for there is a general sense of diversity in people’s historical realities. This diversification of realities is essentially to me, the whole point of an independent state.

It allows us the freedom to create.

To borrow a term (which I will not use but rather provide a general idea of) from the scholar Gayatri Spivak, famed for her work on the subaltern, Trinidad offers us a space to construct ourselves, to reconstruct, to re-imagine.

There is nothing binding here that keeps us like sheep inside an imaginary fence. While we have been given the national instrument, the bird, the motto, the anthem and all the paraphernalia that independent nations are obliged to have, as individuals, we possess the capacity to think of things differently. And it begins from the way we learn and understand our history.

We congratulate the government’s effort to have a rewritten history of Trinidad. It is also why Angelo Bissessarsingh’s work is of such importance as it provides us with the stories with which we can connect.

The national award bestowed on him is encouragement to the life of his mind and to others who would follow.

The popularity of his work also breaks down the notion that we don’t care for history. It says that we do, but perhaps our exposure to it at schools and the way in which it is taught to us has little relevance.

Angelo’s work begins with what we know - stories. It is built on our heritage of orality in a sense. Trinidad is after all a culture of performance and oral traditions. Today the performance diversifies with the popularity of visual culture — photographs in particular. As human beings, we are performers. The language we use, our dress, the music we listen to etc are signs of how we wish to be seen, to be understood. Take this into the realm of history and we will understand that as time passes, our performance changes to accommodate changes in our external space. An old performance becomes outdated and we are obliged to reconstitute the performance space and action.

So, as we move into yet another year of independence, I prefer to look forward, to understand this space within a contemporary world, to understand people as products of particular times and experiences, to read our history not as something that should remain stuck in time, but something that is ever changing. In this effort we should celebrate the small successes. But we should also be aware of the changes to be made for the betterment of all, rather than the self-interest of the few.

E d i t o r ’ s Note: Columnist Jamille Broome returns next week.