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Author Topic: Emancipation Day Thread!!  (Read 11168 times)

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Offline Dutty

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Re: Emancipation Day thread!!
« Reply #30 on: August 04, 2008, 12:03:13 PM »
Throw this BC Pires intervew with Earl Lovelace into the mix.


Talk about a conversation @ cross-currents! Pires angling in one way, Lovelace cutting the wave on a different take.

Funny that you use that analogy as his son is ah real good surfer....must be learn dem skills from he fadder

Only ting is when he refuse to get pin down on the mugabe question..I callin dat a wipeout  ;)
Little known fact: The online transportation medium called Uber was pioneered in Trinidad & Tobago in the 1960's. It was originally called pullin bull.

Offline asylumseeker

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Re: Emancipation Day thread!!
« Reply #31 on: August 04, 2008, 01:48:34 PM »
Throw this BC Pires intervew with Earl Lovelace into the mix.


Talk about a conversation @ cross-currents! Pires angling in one way, Lovelace cutting the wave on a different take.

Funny that you use that analogy as his son is ah real good surfer....must be learn dem skills from he fadder

Only ting is when he refuse to get pin down on the mugabe question..I callin dat a wipeout  ;)

Dude!!! ... Definite wipeout!

Offline ann3boys

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Re: Emancipation Day thread!!
« Reply #32 on: August 04, 2008, 01:50:14 PM »
here's my 2 cents- now worth only about 0.5 cents with inflation running at 11%, and cheese now costing $52 per kg. (my favourite food ;D)
anyhow, kambon wants to insist that all business they ask must agree to pay advertising or just give money to their emancipation efforts. Their efforts are:
1. a street procession. does this mean that the musicians are paid? who gets money from this?
2. booths at the venue to sell merchandise. surely vendors pay for their booths, and they inturn sell merchandise.
3. cultural displays. government pays
4. visits by lecturers who come to tell us about slavery etc. givernment pays.

at the end of the day who goes to these lectures? Maybe 100 people, if so much. they haven't been able to stir any interest in the younger generation in these topics. I can't see how money will help this. young black people (sorry this is a generalisation) are basically uninterested in the past. Most of them are just trying to get through the day. Very few in the 'at risk' areas can think about the future, much less the past.

I guess I sound cynical, but things in sweet T & T are moving slowly. we have some really great young people who do succeed in rising out of this sick society, but they have to also keep a low profile otherwise they put themselves at higher risk.

I'm sorry Mr. Kambon thinks that blackmail (no pun intended) is the way to go, but that's not how you get support- whether clothes or for financial.

Offline Organic

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Re: Emancipation Day thread!!
« Reply #33 on: August 04, 2008, 02:18:41 PM »
here's my 2 cents- now worth only about 0.5 cents with inflation running at 11%, and cheese now costing $52 per kg. (my favourite food ;D)
anyhow, kambon wants to insist that all business they ask must agree to pay advertising or just give money to their emancipation efforts. Their efforts are:
1. a street procession. does this mean that the musicians are paid? who gets money from this?
2. booths at the venue to sell merchandise. surely vendors pay for their booths, and they inturn sell merchandise.
3. cultural displays. government pays
4. visits by lecturers who come to tell us about slavery etc. givernment pays.

at the end of the day who goes to these lectures? Maybe 100 people, if so much. they haven't been able to stir any interest in the younger generation in these topics. I can't see how money will help this. young black people (sorry this is a generalisation) are basically uninterested in the past. Most of them are just trying to get through the day. Very few in the 'at risk' areas can think about the future, much less the past.

I guess I sound cynical, but things in sweet T & T are moving slowly. we have some really great young people who do succeed in rising out of this sick society, but they have to also keep a low profile otherwise they put themselves at higher risk.

I'm sorry Mr. Kambon thinks that blackmail (no pun intended) is the way to go, but that's not how you get support- whether clothes or for financial.

OR CHILD!!
Perhaps the epitome of a Trinidadian is the child in the third row class with a dark skin and crinkly plaits who looks at you out of decidedly Chinese eyes and announces herself as Jacqueline Maharaj.- Merle Hodge

Offline ann3boys

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Re: Emancipation Day thread!!
« Reply #34 on: August 04, 2008, 02:20:33 PM »
correct! :rotfl:

Offline warmonga

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4 million for emancipation celebrations..
« Reply #35 on: July 27, 2012, 01:42:56 PM »
Taken from the newspaper ..
 Did not see the Government bashers put it so here we go..
$4M IS ENOUGH

Kambon pleased as Govt adds another $3 million for Emancipation celebrations

 By Camille Bethel camille.bethel@trinidadexpress.com



Story Created: Jul 26, 2012 at 10:53 PM ECT
(
Story Updated: Jul 26, 2012 at 10:53 PM ECT )


Anger has turned to pleasure as the Emancipation Support Committee (ESC) yesterday received $2 million with another $2 million promised from the State for this year's Emancipation celebrations.
 
Speaking with the Express after receiving the first cheque for $2 million from Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday, ESC chairman Khafra Kambon said he was pleased as the $4 million was what they had asked for.
 
"We have gotten what we requested and we didn't expect more than what we requested. The Minister assured us that he is working on getting additional funds and the Ministry of Arts and Multiculturalism sent us a letter indicating we will be getting $2 million from the Ministry," he said.
 
"This afternoon I enquired at the Ministry and I was told that it (the cheque) was being prepared. So if it doesn't come this afternoon it will come in the morning," Kambon said.
 
On July 24, the ESC held an emergency press conference at the Lidj Yasu Omowale Village at the Queen's Park Savannah in Port of Spain, to announce that it had refused a $1 million cheque from the government for Emancipation celebrations on the grounds that it was not enough.
 
Kambon had charged that the Government had reneged on a promise to include funding for the Emancipation Day celebrations in the annual budget and that the committee was disappointed and angered by the lack of financial support for the Emancipation celebrations.
 
Asked by the Express yesterday about the Committee's accountability for the funds, Kambon said there was thorough accountability by the Committee to the Ministry of Arts and Multiculturalism.
 
"It is very detailed accounting and we have done audited accounts. We have even had someone at the Ministry for about three years working with us on the accounting," he said.
 
This, he said, was what allowed them to know their budget beforehand, and that the Ministry was aware of it.
 
The ESC's total budget, he said, ranged from between $5 million to $6 million , but this did not include the none-cost items, where people volunteer their services and resources.
 
"The basic setup of the village is very expensive—putting up the tents, stage, decor and lights .... and we are not even talking activities yet. Anybody who has a sense of events planning would know that $ 2 million would not cut it," Kambon said.
 
Kambon said the Emancipation activities run from May 25 and last for six weeks, up to the Emancipation week at the Queen's Park Savannah where there are many shows.
 
"Government funding can't cover all of it, but we have been asking for more than they usually give us because it is our 20th anniversary and our 50th year of Independence...we really wanted to do more," he added.
 
Kambon said although the Committee assisted with other festivals, they were unable to do so financially because they were currently operating at a deficit.
 
Commenting on the $4 million in State funds to the ESC yesterday, general secretary of the Maha Sabha, Sat Maharaj, said he was happy for the group, but hoped that the same would be done for Indian Arrival Day next year.
 
"Well I am glad for them that they are able to get all this amount of money, and once the Treasury can afford it we say increase it. We only got $300,000 from the Ministry of Arts and Multiculturalism for Indian Arrival which was in May.
 
"I have no problem with them getting more money because what it will do is set the pattern for us to get more too. We expect that when our turn comes around next year that our figure will be somewhere near theirs," Maharaj said.
Black Lives Matter..

Offline Sando prince

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Re: Emancipation Day thread!!
« Reply #36 on: August 01, 2016, 02:45:19 PM »

Happy Emancipation day to all Trinidadians and Tobagonians!

Here are some photos I see surfacing online
https://www.facebook.com/OPMTT/photos/?tab=album&album_id=301635320188990

Her are some more
https://www.facebook.com/cnewslive/videos/10154293982135610/

Offline asylumseeker

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Re: Emancipation Day thread!!
« Reply #37 on: August 02, 2018, 07:56:45 AM »
Emancipation Day: A time for Reflection
The Nation


The following is an Emancipation Day message from the Chairman, CARICOM Reparations Commission, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles.

“We join annually with communities across the world in marking the moment in which the crime of chattel enslavement was confronted and uprooted from our existential realities. For us, the moment is August 1; other dates are determined elsewhere and officially recognised.

Marking the moment in a celebratory fashion remains necessary despite the despicable nature of the gesture of Emancipation, legislated by Britain in 1838. It was an act in which black peoples were finally defined by Parliament as property, and their enslavers deemed entitled to compensation for property loss.

Today is an opportunity for descendants of the enslaved, and enslavers, to reflect upon the causes and consequences of these crimes against humanity, and in particular their significance on how we live today, and will in the future.

Rising up from the barbarity of bondage, we have dedicated our development energies to the advancement of democratising social values, with a primary emphasis on building societies that are free and fair; upon platforms of multiracialism and multiculturalism.

As descendants, we celebrate the values of human decency left as an additional burden for our ancestors to carry. Every day they imagined would be an Emancipation day. They protected and projected the best tried and tested human values – joys of family life, fine spirit of community living, vitality of food security and material production, moral commitment to equity and justice, and critically the overarching, indispensable importance of freedom as the source of all happiness.

Effectively transcending and conquering the legacies of enchainment, impoverishment and racial denigration continue to elude us. Residual elements of the plantation-based past continue to shape our societies and determine their trajectories.

This year, we find it necessary to litigate the restoration of democratic rights and citizenship, illegally stripped away by the British government from thousands of Caribbean descendants rightfully living in that country since the immigration door was opened to passengers aboard Empire Windrush in 1948.

Last year, evidence of hostility against the Caribbean community by the British state erupted against the background of data, unearthed by historians, showing that the finance bond, by which the British government raised £20 million in 1834 to pay reparations to slave owners, remained active until 2015.

This fact powerfully shows that, for the British state, the slavery world persisted well into the 21st century, putting to rest its argument that “slavery was a long time ago”. These contemporary examples show how the effects of historic crimes still surround our societies. Emancipation for us remains a work in progress and in no way can be considered a distant event that is settled and closed.

It is specifically for these reasons that we celebrate Emancipation day as a moment in which we demand reparatory justice. The Caribbean calls upon the enslaving governments of Europe, and their national institutions, all enriched and empowered by their crimes against humanity, to return to the region in order to participate in cleaning up their colonial mess. The advancement of economic growth is dependent upon it; social justice is dependent upon it; and a 21st century humanity is dependent upon it.

As we confront the future, let us be guided by Sir Arthur Lewis, who stated in 1939 that the 200 years of unpaid labour extracted by the British from the enslaved people of the Caribbean is a debt that must be repaid to their descendants. This is important, he asserted, if we are to have a fair shot at sustainable development. Pushing ahead with a self-emancipatory agenda is critical, but we must do so fully conscious of this broader context of our development efforts.

Blessings to all on Emancipation Day.”

Offline Socapro

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Re: Emancipation Day thread!!
« Reply #38 on: August 02, 2018, 08:02:00 PM »
HAPPY EMANCIPATION DAY TO EVERYONE!
Researched & Written By Ian Socapro Henry

The Emancipation Day holiday was first declared by the T&T government on 1st August 1985 which makes Trinidad & Tobago the first country in the English speaking western world to officially declare the 1st August as an Emancipation Day public holiday 33 years ago.

Most people are unaware that during the 1800's between 1834 and 1845 (for over a decade) T&T had two annual Carnival celebrations; the Pre-Lent Carnival which was referred to back then as "Jamette Carnival" by the upper-classes who generally stopped having their upper-class Mardi Gras Balls after slavery was abolished in 1834 and there was also the Canboulay Celebrations which was a more African style Carnival that became an annual celebration for a period of a decade plus between 1834 and 1845 on 1st August in celebration of the abolition of slavery.

By the way, the word “Jamette” is derived from the French word “diametre” and this referred to the class of people below the diameter of respectability or the underworld. Essentially Jamettes referred to individuals who were part of the urban working class who lived in the barrack ranges of Port of Spain and San Fernando. In a broader context it also included all those who participated in urban Carnival celebrations after slavery was abolished. A description of Jamettes can be found in the San Fernando Gazette of 1871.

Canboulay is a French-Creole word derived from the French term "cannes brulées" meaning burnt cane. Canboulay is a precursor to T&T Carnival and is also the festival where calypso music has its roots. Canboulay was originally a harvest festival at which drums, singing, dancing and chanting were an integral part. After Emancipation (1834), it developed into an outlet and a festival for freed slaves who were banned from participating in the masquerade balls – derived from the European Christian traditions of the colonial elite.

Sometime after 1845 the Canboulay celebrations were moved from the 1st August and fused with the more European influenced Jamette Carnival celebrations which was based on many of the characters that were depicted by the upper-classes at the plantation class Mardi Gras Balls during slavery.

So to a certain extent the Emancipation Day Holiday in T&T is a revival of the original Canboulay celebrations that was started by ex-slaves on the 1st August 1834 to celebrate their perceived liberation from slavery when the Abolition of Slavery was announced in Trinidad by the British Governor at the Governor House in Port-of-Spain on 1st August 1834.

What added more energy to the early Canboulay celebrations in Trinidad from 1834 onwards was the fact that the British Governor to Trinidad tried to announce the implementation of a temporary Apprenticeship system in Trinidad (which was really the continuation of slavery by another name) to last until 1840 but the masses gathered outside of the Governor House protested and sang a kaiso composed on the spot by Congo Bara in French-Creole called "Point De Six Ans" ("Not Six More Years"). The growing crowd outside of the Governor House kept drowning out the Governor's announcement about the proposed Apprenticeship system and would not disperse and they eventually forced the Governor to concede that the proposed Apprenticeship system will not be implemented in Trinidad. However the Apprenticeship system was successfully announced and implemented in all the other British colonies in the West Indies and that system was not officially abolished until 1838. This fact also makes T&T the first British colony to unofficially get rid of slavery in 1834 which was 4 years ahead of the other British colonies.

1834 is thus the more accurate year that truly inclusive Trinidad Carnival started and not 1783 as many of us have been misled into believing. 1783 was the year when the French Plantation class introduced their European style Mardi Gras Masquerade Balls to Trinidad to celebrate the wealth and class elevation they had acquired on the backs of the free labour provided by the majority enslaved African population. It should also be noted that the general enslaved African population were not allowed to take part in the plantation class Mardi Gras Balls during slavery. Most of the plantation class Mardi Gras Balls died a natural death in T&T after slavery was abolished as many European planters decided to migrate back to Europe. Post abolition of slavery the early colonial Police force was actually set up in T&T with its main agenda being the protection of the Plantation classes from any possible or imagined retribution from the former physically enslaved African majority.
De higher a monkey climbs is de less his ass is on de line, if he works for FIFA that is! ;-)

Offline Brownsugar

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Re: Emancipation Day thread!!
« Reply #39 on: August 20, 2018, 05:23:01 AM »
Interesting stuff Socapro   :thinking:....now getting a chance to take a read.....
"...If yuh clothes tear up
Or yuh shoes burst off,
You could still jump up when music play.
Old lady, young baby, everybody could dingolay...
Dingolay, ay, ay, ay ay,
Dingolay ay, ay, ay..."

RIP Shadow....The legend will live on in music...

Offline Deeks

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Re: Emancipation Day thread!!
« Reply #40 on: August 20, 2018, 03:21:00 PM »
Nice one, Socapro. I agree with Brownsugar. And the word "jammette" coming from diametre is what I had read in a book. The piece I read said since the dry river(St.Anns) river was the boundary, inhabitants in and around the dry river(boundary) were jammette. So from Gorge street going east was all jammette. Haha. What a ting!

 

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