Don't weaponise our heritage

As Trinidad and Tobago marked 64 years of political independence, the contrasting messages delivered by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar revealed a troubling double standard in how our national history is framed. When addressing the broader populace, the national narrative was flattened: citizens were instructed to 'grow up' and stop blaming the colonial past for modern shortcomings, and there was praise for the British leaving behind a 'prosperous, functioning country'. Yet, almost simultaneously, a separate message delivered to her political base offered a deeply empathetic, highly detailed commemoration of ancestral hardship, and called on UNC leaders to back up 'finesse and diplomacy' with 'steeliness and savagery' when defending UNC members. This stark disparity in tone exposes a persistent and dangerous weapon in regional politics: a selective focus on historical memory used to foster ethno-supremacy and divide a multiethnic electorate. While the Prime Minister did not explicitly use the word 'forget', her instruction to move past our colonial origins carries the clear functional implication that the enduring impacts of chattel slavery should be brushed aside. To suggest that Trinidad and Tobago was merely handed a smooth-running paradise in 1962 effectively minimises the brutal realities of systemic colonial exploitation that defined the Afro-Trinidadian historical experience. By demanding that the wider nation move past this era, while selectively romanticising and invoking the generational trauma of another group, her rhetoric creates an undeniable historical double standard. The functional contrast is glaring: one group's historical pain is treated as an obsolete excuse to be dismissed, while another's is elevated as an eternal battle cry. This is not an argument against remembering Indo-Trinidadian history; it's quite the opposite. The tragedy of this approach by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar is that it bastardises genuine historical reverence. The Indo-Trinidadian journey is undeniably rich, dignified, and central to our national identity. The arrival of the Fatel Razack on May 30, 1845, ushered in over 147,000 Indian indentured labourers whose perseverance shaped the fabric of our country. Their history, marked by the enduring jahaji bonds formed on ocean voyages, the retention of sacred Hindu and Muslim traditions like Divali and Hosay, the transition from estate barracks to land ownership, and the creation of iconic culinary staples like doubles and roti, deserves profound honour. Preserving this heritage is a triumph of human resilience. However, when political leaders co-opt this sacred ancestral legacy, transforming a story of survival into a partisan rallying cry of 'peace or total war' against political rivals, they weaponise heritage. History has repeatedly shown us the devastating cost of politicians who leverage tribal loyalty and ethno-supremacist rhetoric to maintain power. Leaders who speak of 'savagery' to defend a specific political family, while painting rival socio-political institutions as objects of hatred, push a delicate twin-sun society towards dangerous polarisation. Trinidad and Tobago cannot survive on a diet of competitive victimhood or ethnic triumphalism. Slavery and indentureship were two distinct branches of the same colonial economic engine designed to divide and conquer labour. The ancestors of both Afro- and Indo-Trinidadians endured unimaginable exploitation so that their descendants could inherit equal citizenship, not perpetual conflict. When platform speeches signal that one group's history must be erased while another's must be militarised, they betray the very definition of Independence. True statecraft requires an embrace of our collective history, acknowledging the deep scars of all our ancestors without minimising one to elevate another. If we are to build a stable and prosperous nation, our citizens must reject the divisive dog whistles of ethno-supremacy and demand leadership that unifies rather than fractures. If Trinidad and Tobago is to remain stable and prosperous, we must reject the politics of ethnic division and demand leadership that brings our communities closer together. Our ancestors did not endure generations of hardship so that their descendants could spend another generation fighting over which history matters more. Independence should have given us one nation, not competing tribes. We owe our ancestors remembrance. We owe our children something even greater: a Trinidad and Tobago in which every community can remember its history without being taught by its leaders to hate another. Jessel Mahase