Spoke with the family today living in the cold north and was told that even though the temperature was 03.C they were still heading out for a long walk because the sun was shining. I can so appreciate people adapting to their surroundings, it is what it is. So often you hear people saying 'I cyar live there because.....'. It is your home, this is where your family lives and like everywhere else there will be mosquitos or some other flying nuisance, that is if you are not living in the Antartic, but then there is penguin poop.
Went to the 48th Anniversary of the State of Emergency in 1970 at an NJAC held forum last night. It is good that the organization continues to commemorate the occasion. Last night was actually organized by the daughter of one of the persons heavily involved in the modern day revolution. It is so sad that government after government refuse to acknowledge that 1970 actually happened. Just like the 1937 Butler Riots. My father told me that if it was not for Butler his life might have been slightly different. He was then working for the newly arrived PanAm flying boats at Cocorite and his pay scale was very different to those expats who were doing the same job.
It seems that we are scared stiff of history or may I say the true history. '1970' is one of those periods that every modern day government seems destined to hide for fear of a repeat. Will '1970' be repeated, you never know, but for sure if you do not understand the real significance of what happened it may just come back to bite you. The issue of 'Black Power' was very different to the mutiny with the army. We did the documentary '70 the Revolution' and after taping over 65hrs of interviews with persons who were directly involved with '1970' we still cannot find a suitable repository for this historic information. Why? we fraid history!
Over many years there has been a 'migration' from the neighboring islands. I have had people coming to me telling me how they arrived here, once you reached you were given a Trinidad and Tobago ID Card and therefore you were eligible to vote. Over the weekend some 80 Venezuelan nationals were repatriated to their homeland. Apparently, many of them had applications for asylum as they considered themselves as refugees. These applications had actually been filed with the relevant authorities. What does T&T do, we march them off to Piarco and deport them. The legal counsel handling their case was not even given permission to meet with his clients.
We have the PMOTT meeting with the Queen talking about the plight of the 'Windrush' people and how wicked the United Kingdom is to even be thinking of repatriating that group of West Indians back to their original homeland after 60 years.
We are truly a wrong side country, we have no position on anything, we deal with things on the spur of the moment, whatever sounds good at the time that's our policy.
It could be immigration, refugees, repatriation, LBGTQI, domestic violence, sexual harrasment you name it. If it sounds like it will create a problem for us then simply shove it under the carpet or like in the case of the Venezuelans, do it in the most clandestine way.
People are running from a most opressive regime and what do our courts do, fine them, jail them and now illegally deport them. Nice, PMOTT tell the Queen what you are really doing!
In two years time we will be celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the 1970 Black Power Revolution. How will we recognize this event that actually changed Trinidad and Tobago? It will probably fall on a Tuesday so no holiday and therefore no long weekend, for what?.... Black Power?
People of the Rock, I do not know what to say. The future of the Rock is very much up to all of us understanding who we are, learning from our history, more so understanding our history, removing ourselves from real bondage - our broken political system, and creating a real society that the riots for water in 1903, labor in 1937 and 1970 longed for. It's all about equal opportunity!
Another brilliant day on the Rock, good night and good luck!
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