Should we remove Colonial Monuments and rename our streets and public spaces? Part II

18 August 2022

By Winston H. E. Suite

Christopher Columbus

Some Have Asked,

Who or what gives me the right to select and identify the names of streets, highways, parks, buildings, squares, open spaces, or the plaques, statues, monuments, or other memorabilia affixed to walls, for removal, on the celebration of the anniversary of our independence of the people and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago from British colonialism and imperialism?

To this, I answer, only those who have suffered as I have.

I speak on behalf of,

It is Europe’s reluctance to even consider admission of fault or even agree that reparation is necessary and must inevitably follow like night follows day. This gives me the causation and the right to use my voice to speak.

It is the continued pain and the need to wash away the agonizing memory of the brutality from deep within the subconscious. But most importantly, it is the continued economic, political, and social disadvantage that we alone as descendants of African Slavery can speak authoritatively about due to our second-class citizenship. And yet it is the persistence of national impotence and the almost impossibility to build a Nation with a lasting heritage of slavery, indentureship, and colonialism that give me cause to speak, to name, and to identify that which gives most continuing pain that others seem unwilling if not unable to identify with. It is the pain in my historical memory that gives me the most cause to do this deed.

I, therefore, ask no forgiveness.

Winston H. E. Suite.

An Unapologetic Descendant of Trans-Atlantic Enslavement.