Dr Williams also stands accused

THE EDITOR: PNM spokespersons have accused UNC PRO Kirk Meighoo of rewriting history because of his assertion that PNM founder Dr Eric Williams was not TT's first prime minister.

The irony here is that Williams himself was often accused of rewriting history to misrepresent facts by his academic contemporaries who established the foundations of Caribbean history.

Elsa Goveia, the region’s first professor of West Indian history, in a review of Williams’ History of the People of Trinidad and Tobago, accused him of “omissions and hasty dogmatism,”, noting “the road to hell is paved with authoritative half-truths.”

K.O Laurence, whose A Question of Labour is the definitive text of Indian indentureship, described Williams’ book as “frankly partisan,” and warned that, “the nationalist politician has from time to time led the historian to serve dangerously.”

The late Gordon Rohlehr, a literature professor who became better-known as a calypso historian, wrote that From Columbus to Castro, “cannot be safely used as the reference text it was intended to be, since the student has no immediate or removed means of checking either the facts or figures.”

By contrast, current UWI historians who have criticised Meighoo are ardent supporters of rewriting history, not to reveal new facts but to promote ideological agendas.

Dr Claudius Fergus in public statements has pushed for the removal of the statue of Christopher Columbus and changing street names; Dr Jerome Teelucksingh in a Newsday column, asserted on no evidence whatsoever that Canadian missionaries murdered indigenous children in residential schools.

KEVIN BALDEOSINGH

Freeport