By Prior Beharry
TRINIDAD and Tobago has not yet received full emancipation.
This was the message of President Paula-Mae Weekes on the occasion of Emancipation 2022.
She said, “We commemorate Emancipation Day today fully aware that although our ancestors discarded their chains, we have yet to achieve emancipation in full. Let us pay tribute to and learn from their many struggles and sacrifices and be faithful stewards of the freedom for which they fought so earnestly.”
In a brief history of emancipation, President Weekes said the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act (1833) in the British Parliament was the triumphant outcome of continuous and unrelenting challenges to the heinous institution of African enslavement.
She said, “The declining profitability of sugar and unfree labour, the growing anti-slavery movement in Britain and critically, the constant acts of resistance and revolt on the part of the enslaved brought the institution to its knees and, in the words of Dr Eric Williams in his seminal work, Capitalism and Slavery, ‘In 1833, therefore, the alternatives were clear: emancipation from above or emancipation from below. But Emancipation’.”
President Weekes said, “At the core of the emancipation narrative is the human desire for freedom and the refusal to accept anything less. When on 1 August 1834, the enslaved realised that they would be subjected to six years of ‘apprenticeship’—slavery by another name—they refused to accept it and resisted in various forms until the system was brought to an early end.
“Their long road to full emancipation is a powerful reminder that determination, resilience, courage and unity can overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles, and that with sustained and resolute action, change is always possible, even if it is not achieved overnight. They are demonstrable examples of the tenacity we need to keep pressing forward even if victory must be incremental, in order to achieve better for ourselves and our country.
“As Trinidad and Tobago contends with varying social ills, we would do well to emulate the passion, cooperation and unremitting activism of the enslaved. As a people whose short history is littered with long, bitter campaigns against oppression, these ought to be values nurtured and upheld by every member of the national community.
“Let us be guided by common goals, make the necessary sacrifices and remain committed to our cause.”
