OWTU: TT still ‘painfully straddled’ with ‘modern-day massas'

The Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) is strongly condemning racism, saying it believes TT is still “painfully straddled with modern-day massas.”

In a release, the union said the “racist discourse” between Africans and East Indians intensified after the August 10 general election.

“As such, it is critically important that the working class first understand the politico-economic history of racism in this country and secondly reject all attempts by politicians and the elites in our society to divide and distract us from our real material interests.”

It said its 81st annual conference on Saturday “took the view that poor ordinary people and their interest could never be served with a racially divided working class.”

Hostility and division would only serve the best interest of the “elite class,” it said, adding that the current system is designed to keep the poor at a disadvantage.

“For many thousands of citizens their main concerns are finding a job, putting food on the table, finding money to pay rent, instalments, transport to reach to work for those who even have a job, educate their children or to pay their basic bills etc, as they struggle daily to meet the ever-increasing cost of living. These are issues that affect all the poor, the working class and the ordinary man and woman in the street regardless of race.”

If the two ethnic groups continue to attack each other, it said, the “elite” will still be “laughing all the way to the bank.

“We must not forget our colonial history – after the extermination of the indigenous people by the colonisers, the colonial powers recognised the contribution of labour to their profits and began the forced importation of workers as slaves. We wish to remind all that slavery was maintained through direct violence and the worse form of inhumanity. Indentureship which followed was maintained through legislated violence and also inhumanity. Through it all, there was a concerted effort to suppress the education, political organisation and unification of workers and to keep us racially divided as a class of people.”

But it believes that in spite of this, the working class has achieved “radical changes” and has made significant progress towards the development of TT.

“In 1970, as Black revolutionary consciousness spread and the Black Power Revolution took root, it was the unification of African and Indian workers that terrified the ruling class into declaring a state of emergency. It was the African and Indian workers united in struggle that dismantled the colourism and overt racism that discriminated against the ordinary citizens of TT…It has always been the intention of the elites and the politicians to send us all back to the plantation by distracting us with racism.”

It said the current racial tension in TT shows how “profound and prophetic” Leroy “Black Stalin” Calliste’s calypso Sufferers was, quoting the lyrics, “Sufferers doh care about colour/Sufferers doh care about race/Sufferers doh care about who migrate from where or who living in who place/Sufferers doh care who come from country/Sufferers doh care who from town/Sufferers only want to hear where the next food coming from.”