By Johnny Commansingh
Friday, August 01, 2025, was celebrated as Emancipation Day in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T). Around this time, Emancipation Day in T&T has deep tones in the air about freedom, but is it temporary freedom or permanent freedom?
Now we need to know the true meaning of Emancipation. Emancipation at the foundational level, is freeing someone from the control of another; it is liberation and release.
Emancipation Day is a major national festival in T&T. According to the National Library and Information System Authority (NALIS) “On August 01, 1838, full freedom was granted to the slaves. In both Trinidad and Tobago, many of the ex-slaves moved off the plantations. They did not want any reminders of their former masters.” In T&T, many descendants of ex-slaves are still struggling to be emancipated, living way below the poverty line.
The observance of Emancipation Day was declared a national holiday in 1985 and is celebrated on the 1st August each year in T&T. However, in my opinion, I would be very cautious to use the statement “full freedom” as cited by NALIS. I am also of the view that enslaved Africans always had that full freedom riveted in their souls but there was a political/economic system that tried to wrest that freedom away from them. They had that burning internal freedom. Some Africans, while on the slave ships during the “Middle Passage”, preferred to jump overboard rather than to be enslaved. It was that freedom that they desperately needed to express, hence the creation of the steelpan as the national instrument of T&T. Although the colonialists made slaves of them, they never thought of themselves as ‘slaves.’
Skin colour became an issue for the ‘white’ colonialists. They envisaged that people with melanated skin were inferior, even to this day! Jack Watson in his textbook titled: The West Indian Heritage—a History of the West Indies stated: “Throughout most of the history of the West Indies, white came to be associated with wealth and privilege. Not to be white became a ticket to servitude or, at best, second-class status…” Has it changed? Listen to what Dr Myra Gordon, Psychologist and Psycho-historian/Faculty Advisor to the Black Student Union—Kansas State University, revealed in my anthology titled ‘Show me Equality:’
“We have in the poetry of Coomansingh, naked in-your-face-truths that political correctness prefers to parade around in Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes…yet Americans are the only ones who created chattel slavery. Many people say, ‘Look forward, forget the past.’ Oh, how easy this would be if the past were not still defining the present…his work is poignant, angry and impactful…lest we forget.”
This date of emancipation in August marks the day that enslaved-Africans throughout the British Empire were finally liberated from the bondage of slavery. What is the real definition of slavery? Slavery is the practice of forced labor and restricted liberty. It is also a regime where the slave owners could force the slaves to work and limit their liberty. Some forms of slavery existed as punishment for committing crimes or to pay off debts. Was this emancipation the freedom from all kinds of slavery? Nevertheless, the question remains: freedom from what and from whom? I will still ask the question: Are the people of T&T truly free from the British Empire and the bondage of slavery?
What is this freedom that we celebrate? Is it an ephemeral freedom? Is it a freedom that is hidden, shut down or rejected during the whole year, and then we wake up on emancipation day, dress up in a dashiki and wrap ourselves in kente cloth to show the world that we are free? We beat drums, shake ‘shak-shaks’ (maracas) and gourds, parade and dance in the streets in a celebration for a few hours. Nothing is wrong with the celebration; nothing at all! However, let us look further afield. Do we have food security in T&T? Are we self-reliant? Are we healthy? Are we living together in peace? Is racial discrimination and segregation still plaguing our society? Is every creed and race finding an equal place in T&T?
Let’s be serious and really think about our situation. Do we have economic freedom? Are we still slaving in bondage? Are we still struggling to survive in a mercantilist system that was imperceptibly set up for us by the colonialists? As an officer in the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) once informed me, the staple food of T&T is wheat flour, not rice, not ground provisions (root crops) and bananas. He pointed out that we eat flour in the morning, flour mid-morning, flour at lunchtime and flour for dinner. Where is this flour coming from? Have we changed? Are we still in still in manacles and chains of mental slavery? We could wear a whole bolt of kente cloth and all the dashikis in the world, but that has nothing at all to do with freedom. We could ragingly and vociferously preach as did the young politician in the T&T parliament that “massa day done” but does it mean that we are free?
While I was a geography lecturer at Kansas State University (K-State) a person from Cameroon gave to me a dashiki with an embroidered hat and all. I could have dressed up in African garb on Emancipation Day. I could have donned another dashiki that I received from a student from Ghana or the gift of a dashiki my Kenyan colleague, a professor of economics, presented to me, but I chose not to. This was simply because, in my opinion, we in T&T and the Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are not yet truly emancipated. If we are so free, and still repudiating our colonial masters, I still wonder why some emancipated people are still wearing the ‘western cut suit and bias cut necktie’ and not dashikis, kente cloth, Nehru jackets and kurtas. I’ll leave this thought right here. Sorry about the digression.
In my relationships with some students and professors from Africa, I even learnt to speak a little Ashanti and Kenyan Swahili. The Swahili words, jambo, jambo, tuonane baadaye, asante sana, Bwana and Yesu nacupenda mean a great deal to me, but does it mean that I am emancipated? Emancipation goes far beyond the parameters of a language, a religion, magic, art, music, dress and cuisine. That’s why I am in full appreciation of Bob Marley’s last song. His rendition of Redemption Song before his passing took the world by storm.
Just imbibe the lyrics presented here:
“Old pirates, yes, they rob I; sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took I from the bottomless pit.
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the all mighty.
We forward in this generation triumphantly.
Won’t you help me sing these songs of freedom
Are all I ever have: Redemption songs, redemption songs.
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
‘Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look
Oh! Some say it’s just a part of it:
We’ve got to fulfill de book.
Won’t you help me sing these songs of freedom
Are all I ever have: Redemption songs, redemption songs, redemption songs.”
The line that strikes me most in this song is “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds.” Mental slavery is what hinders us most! Mental slavery restricts. Mental slavery impedes. Mental slavery stymies resolve. Mental slavery elicits depression and inactivity. Mental slavery will keep anybody and any country down! I always resort to what I learnt from the book: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. In there, he said: “The way we see the problem is the problem.” In his book, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Deepak Chopra advocated: “All problems contain the seeds of opportunity, and this awareness allows you to take the moment and transform it to a better situation or thing.”
Although many states are independent they are still in the clutches of colonialism and now suppressed by neo-colonialism. Tell me if we are still not dependencies when we look out the window to see who is bringing bread. After the Genoese navigator, Christopher Columbus re-discovered the ‘West Indies,’ cultural imperialism took its toll on the indigenous peoples, who were wiped out in less than 50 years. Then came the enslaved Africans who were brutally treated to increase the coffers of the white masters. NALIS continued:
“As a means of maintaining absolute control, the slave masters tried to destroy every aspect of African cultural, social and religious traditions, and impose a Eurocentric value system on the slaves. Everything African was perceived as being heathen, backward and evil. In spite of these attempts to destroy an entire culture, some aspects of African culture have survived. Today, the African influence is still present in music, dance, food, religion, language, handicraft and place names in Trinidad and Tobago.”
The colonists came and I reiterate, they pillaged and plundered, raped, and rent asunder these poor Caribbean colonies. They took what they wanted and left the Caribbean region in want and destitution, struggling to survive in a mercantilist system. We are still producers of raw materials that the colonists take and refine, and then sell their refined products back to us at higher rates. Moreover, the tourist industry has captured many Caribbean states. So now our former masters can come on over for us to sing, dance, cook and be kind and hospitable to them for a few dollars and cents. There is a calypso that explains the situation. We are subjected and expected to “…dance for the tourist; wine for the tourist.” Maybe not as mindful about what she was saying, one of my professors used the term ‘natives’ to describe those ‘people on the islands’ while the term ‘citizen’ was reserved for the tourists coming from ‘More Developed Countries’ (MNCs).
To tie off this topic about emancipation, I will not hesitate to add that T&T is still in the throes of the parturition phase of emancipation. Living together in peace and harmony is one of the signs, one of the fruits that emancipation proffers. Case in point, I spent about two weeks in Antigua and was astonished! On a bus ride around the island, there was something impressive that I witnessed in the landscape. I could have counted on my ten fingers the houses and buildings that exhibited burglar-proofing with steel fabrications, and I stood in my shoes like Solomon Grundy and wondered. Yesterday I travelled from the Churchill Roosevelt Highway to the Eastern Main Road via Mausica Road in T&T. I turned to my wife and said: “I have not seen one house or business place without burglar proofing on this road.”
What a travesty. Clearly, it reeks of instability and the development of underdevelopment. You may want to ask: What is preventing real emancipation in T&T? NALIS has the last word in this discourse:
“In Trinidad, the pursuit of real emancipation, extending beyond the historical abolition of slavery, is hindered by a complex interplay of factors, including lingering colonial mentalities, socio-economic disparities, and ineffective governance. These challenges manifest as societal silence, apathy, and a disillusionment with institutions, hindering progress towards a truly liberated society.”
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