Dr
Selwyn R Cudjoe’s emancipation dinner address on
July 31 at the Centre of Excellence unconsciously highlighted
the reason why the African condition is the way it is
under the People’s National Movement (PNM).
Dr Cudjoe’s theme was essentially a continuation
of the “gimme-gimme” value that has been actively
cultivated within the Afro-Trinidadian population by his
PNM.
This calypso academic began his address with errors of
facts when he stated that “the Government was forced
to give the Maha Sabha a radio licence to undertake its
own form of propaganda.”
Everyone knows that the Maha Sabha did not “force”
the Government to do anything. It was the Judicial Committee
of the Privy Council in London that ruled that the PNM
Government actively discriminated against the Maha Sabha
in denying our application for a radio licence after we
had fulfilled all the State’s requirements and even
assigned a frequency.
Dr Cudjoe’s friend and fellow PNM supporter, Louis
Lee Sing, was however really given a radio licence in
true “gimme-gimme” style during the 18-18 election
tie. It was that singular act of discrimination by the
PNM against the Maha Sabha that resulted in the Privy
Council ordering the award of a radio licence.
Today, years afterward the Government lost at the Privy
Council, it is still to pay the Maha Sabha costs and compensation
for the over $1 million spent on the legal battle as well
as the millions of potential lost revenue.
Now like Lee Sing, the government-appointed Central Bank
director Dr Cudjoe wants to be also given a radio licence
by the Government.
It will not surprise me if my friend Cudjoe even asks
Mr Manning for money to by broadcast equipment and a home
from which to broadcast.
Following this appeal to be given a free radio frequency,
Dr Cudjoe then objected to the Government’s “massive
transfer of state lands to East Indians at the expense
of Africans.” Without providing evidence of the terms
and conditions of the closure of Caroni (1975) Ltd, he
juxtaposed this with the shutting down of BWIA and the
Port Authority.
Another piece of fiction created by Dr Cudjoe is that
the Indians’ wealth stems from the free land received
through the planters and colonial masters. Indian historians
have denied this falsehood.
Dennison Moore, author and historian, writing from Ottawa,
Canada, states in the Guardian of August 11:
“Finally
Cudjoe states that according to the terms of their indentureship,
they (Indians) were given lands in lieu of their passage
back to India. No such terms were written in the indentureship
contracts.”
Radica Mahase in the Guardian of August 13, quoted historian
Prof Bridget Brereton:
“Most
Indians however received their land not by a commutation
scheme but by purchasing lots of Crown Land in the normal
way.”
Mahase also observed that Cudjoe the historian had his
facts wrong:
“Other
than getting the basic facts wrong—1470,900 Indian
labourers came to Trinidad, not 237,000—Cudjoe is
also mistaken about land grants and Indian indentured
labourers.”
What should be asked by Dr Cudjoe is whatever happened
to the African middle-class that was striving and had
dominated the professions in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.
The Maha Sabha suggests that what delivered the death
blow to the African community was the PNM and people like
Dr Selwyn Cudjoe.
Slowly the PNM made the African communities dependent
on the State with “make work” schemes such as
DEWD, LIP and URP, and with an encouragement to the civil
service with no level of performance management.
The newest incarnation of the PNM with Patrick Manning
as leader has seen a modernised version of this tired
strategy. There is now the policy “to create entrepreneurs,
there is the Civil Conservation Corps, Mylatt, Mypart,
Gapp, UTT” and a host of other measures giving away
opportunity and taxpayers’ money to predominantly
Afro-Trinidadians.
This is of course excluding secret scholarships awarded
by the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Public
Administration. Do these programme, in Dr Cudjoe’s
words, “not have the effect of keeping Africans in
fiefdom for the rest of their natural lives?”
Emancipation Day celebrations received over $4 million
from the State and millions more from the state enterprises
and private sector. Indian Arrival Day saw nothing close
to that level of public expenditure.
So while the State pays for African presidents and prime
ministers to be feted at Cudjoe’s emancipation dinner,
the Indian community has to essentially find its own funding
to celebrate Indian Arrival Day.
The Indian community has thrived and excelled not because
of government support but despite lack of support. Indeed,
that starvation of the largesse of the State has resulted
in the Indian community forcing itself to become self-reliant.
We wish Dr Cudjoe well with his demands and we suspect
that he may get it as he is in the right party. He might
get a free radio station to spread his version of history.
n Satnarayan Maharaj is the
secretary general of the
Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha
