April 21, 2019 – Coincidence?

Makandal Daaga and some of the NJAC Leadership in 1970

Today, April 21, 2019, Christians in TT celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
On this date, citizens of TT also mark the 49th anniversary of the declaration of the state of emergency in 1970 which was a major tool of the Williams government to crush the 1970 Revolution.
Today, we remember the army mutiny which began that morning. We also remember the roundup and detention of scores of detainees who were targeted by the state as the leaders of NJAC and the 1970 Revolution.
We also recall, on this occasion, how the youth of this country rose up in the most powerful challenge to the governance status quo since the Butler Riots of 1937.
Only 8 years after Independence in 1962, the population, disappointed at the failure of the promise of Independence to materialise. The symbols of Independence were there, but, the essence was not.
The economy was still vastly owned by foreign interests, the promised access to jobs didn’t happen. The economy was in recession due to declining oil prices. The country was still dependent on the energy sector and the scandals were mounting in big state-funded projects.
Even, the optics of the employment in the banks and other sectors remained visibly unchanged. The masses of black people felt excluded and discriminated against.
The majority of the population were disappointed and discontent.
1962 - Significant Beginning of Project Independence
The year 1962, was the beginning of Project Independence for this country.
On the one hand, it was the nation-building project led by the PNM with Dr. Eric Williams at the head.
Williams declared “Massa Day Done”, but, pursued the same old industrialisation by invitation policy that began under colonial rule. Huge investments in capital intensive industries enjoying tax breaks under pioneer status produced profits for their owners.
They failed to create jobs for the unemployed youth
On the other, in 1962 another process, called Project Independence, began with the participation of scores of this nation’s best intellectuals, artists, social workers, professionals and ordinary citizens in an organisation, named Pegasus, founded by Geddes Granger (later Makandal Daaga).
Pegasus had several sector specialist committees, Arts and Culture, Sports, Social, Project Port of Spain and Project Independence. It also established several branches in communities across both Trinidad and Tobago.
Out of this first organisation for people-driven development of this country came several activities and project plans including:

• Debates and panel discussions involving the country’s finest minds on topics ranging from local to international developments
• The introduction of a Model United Nations involving secondary school students
• The first ever National Awards at Independence time in 1966 at Queen’s Hall following up on its Cultural Awards begun several years earlier
• Free concerts at the Town Hall featuring the cultural contributions of the various ethnic groups for the creation of a unity of spirit among TT’s citizens
• Plans for:
  • A National Stadium for which land was offered by the Trincity Development Company
  • A national sports policy
  • A National Arts Centre proposed for the Princess Building Grounds
  • A Port of Spain Plan aimed at redesign and reconstruction of the nation’s capital city
  • Proposals for the development of a national social development programme
• Project Independence with the objective of fostering a sense of National Purpose. “National purpose must precede and influence sectional interests and this alone will lead to resolute endeavour on the part of all individuals and groups to work for the general welfare, development and happiness of the whole nation of Trinidad and Tobago” – Pegasus Introductory paper to Project Independence.

All of the plans and projects developed by Pegasus, were taken over by the Government and frustrated or abandoned.
Many years later, a national stadium was built in Port of Spain, NAPA was built on the same site proposed by Pegasus for the National Arts Centre and the city of Port of Spain is yet to be revitalised in the way Pegasus envisaged.
Our nation-building project was reclaimed in 1970 as there was a renewed demand for Power to the People.
1970 was a call for another movement for the people to design the future development of the nation as Pegasus had begun to do in 1962.
Just as the work of Pegasus was usurped by the Williams government in the 1960’s, so too, the demands of the people in 1970 were taken over by the PNM and turned into its own programme which never met the expectation of the people.
Project Independence in the hands of various governments since has been characterised by a series of booms and busts, an economy never restructured for diversification promised by Williams on the even of Independence in 1974.
The people had a taste of deciding their own future and the nation’s future in the work of Pegasus and still demand their role in decision-making on all matters affecting their lives and the future of Trinidad and Tobago.
Forty-nine years after 1970, the National Purpose is still to be realised.
 
Clyde A. Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for the
Realisation of the National Purpose
Through Democratic Renewal to
Empower the People
 
21 April 2019

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