The black power of protest

Culture Matters

“...when they opened the doors, it was not only for Africans; many people benefitted from my own community.”
– Pundit Ravi Ji

“The essence of revolution is not the confrontation on the streets or the gun, the essence of revolution is the change in people’s minds and the change of structure that can come about from that.”
– Khafra Kambon, chairman, Emancipation Support Committee

THERE ARE some who believe that revolution is the way to effect change.

In 2019, as climate change protesters glue themselves to buildings in London, economic protesters in France confront police for months and ordinary Algerians force their president to resign, one would be inclined to agree.

Black Power revolution, uprising, movement. Whatever you choose to call it, the period from February to April 1970 indelibly changed the course of TT’s history. Was it a good change? Is it still relevant? Or have we begun to romanticise it away to the shadowy corners of faded memory?

In the future, will people with particular agendas convince younger generations that 1970 did not happen, as some are trying to do now with 500 years of African enslavement? This is certainly not an aspect of our history that is taught in schools, so what is to stop erasure from happening?

Well, the change is already here. It is quiet and slow-moving like molten lava, but just as potent. The cultural revolution spawned by those 56 days or so of protest continues to impact us today. Peter Blood has referred to the movement as “a crucible and nursery for black resistance in the arts, and a rise of consciousness amongst TT’s African population.”

He recalls that from Woodbrook to Belmont, Laventille and Cocoyea Village in south, artists like Andre Tanker, Black Stalin, Lancelot Layne and Astor Johnson were nurtured by supporters of new forms of cultural expression, inspired by revolution.

The year 1970 was also very much a battle for the mind. Embau Moheni, deputy political leader of the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC), has often referred to NJAC’s parallel campaign of knowledge. It was fuelled by the writings of authors across the revolutionary spectrum – Frantz Fanon of Martinique, Guyana’s Walter Rodney, Malcolm X, Mahatma Gandhi and even Eric Williams’s Capitalism and Slavery were considered required reading.

Eintou Springer, Lasana Kwesi and others pioneered the Black Traditions in Arts, introducing street theatre, poetry and literature into the collective experience of people of African heritage and the wider population. As one writer contends, Makandal Daaga, leader of the revolution, was keen for 1970 to be represented “not as a racial movement but as a national liberation movement.”

The catalyst for the outpouring of anger was the racist treatment of Caribbean students studying at St George Williams University, Canada. However, eventually trade unions and members of the East Indian community identified with the call for economic parity.

Moheni draws reference to the fact that at the time “90 per cent of the oil industry was wholly owned by foreigners...almost half of the land in estates, over 200 acres was owned by foreigners, (while) in the wholesale and retail distribution sector, foreign ownership was dominant...”

Brother Valentino echoed these sentiments in his haunting Dis Place Nice – “They don’t know their rights/ ...And forgetting that they own the soil/ Of which their foreparents toil/ ...For the oppressors and foreign investors/ Trinidad is nice, Trinidad is a paradise.../ Yet the song I sing, like if I hearing/ The chorus singing 'God save the king'/ Trinidad is nice, Trinidad is a paradise/ But I hear meh brother talking about revolution day/ Fighting on the way.”

Forty-nine years ago this week, some 50 of the rebels, insurgents, anarchists, revolutionaries (how would you classify them?) were incarcerated on Nelson Island and a state of emergency declared. What would we protest for today? Natural hairstyles are accepted in the corporate world, and ethnic wear is creeping in. Some of us choose African clothes when we “dress up” and people no longer laugh at African names, at least not openly.

Cultural changes have empowered our nation to an extent, while organisations like NJAC and the Emancipation Support Committee continue to promote positive African history and cultural practices.

But is it enough? There are some who believe that revolution is the way to effect change. From the Haitian Revolution in 1791, to protests across the world in 2019, it seems this is a valid opinion. The question is, do you believe in the power of protest, and if got to that point, where would revolution find you?

Dara E Healy is a performance artist, communications specialist and founder of the NGO, the Indigenous Creative Arts Network – ICAN