Another case of “cancel culture” comes from Central America, to be precise from Trinidad e Tobago, one of the island states in the Caribbean Sea, a few kilometers from the coast of Venezuela. The two islands (Trinidad is the name of the larger one) were Discovered by Christopher Columbus on the occasion of his third voyage, between 1498 and 1500, in which he pushed further south than his previous explorations and reached the northern part of present-day South America. A Spanish possession until 1797, since then Trinidad and Tobabo has been an English-speaking state, part of the Commonwealth and independent since 1962. It was in that very year that the United States was created an official coat of arms, depicting among other things the three caravels of the Genoese navigator (the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria), with the motto “Together we aspire, together we achieve”. Here, recently Keith Rowley, prime minister of this state of one and a half million inhabitants that has been a parliamentary republic since 1976, has decided that the time had come to cut ties with the colonial past, indulging in the woke culture that has even led in the neighboring United States to the demolition of statues and monuments dedicated to Christopher Columbus.
Trinidad and Tobago: New Coat of Arms with Steelpan, Farewell Columbus
The announcement had already been made in August 2024, but the government took 6 months to approve the law, also to have the opportunity to replace the old symbol from the flags and institutional material. new coat of arms, wanted by Prime Minister Rowley after consulting with the party, instead depicts the saucepan, a percussion instrument made from metal cans and invented right in Trinidad and Tobago by the slaves Africans. The choice fell on this typical drum precisely to enhance the local culture, to the detriment of a memory of colonization, which for all of Latin America is still an open wound because it is linked precisely to usurpation and slavery. "Colonization - said Rowley, who is African-American - was only good for Europeans, certainly not for the people deported from Africa who worked for 250 years without being paid". "You can't change the past, it's true - added Gelien Matthews, professor at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago - but we can choose the symbols to inspire us. Columbus's ships are part of our history, but they do not represent who we are. They should appear on the coat of arms of Spain if anything, not on ours".
Controversy and criticism over the new coat of arms of Trinidad and Tobago
However, the decision has caused a lot of discussion and it was not shared by everyone. The Prime Minister is in fact criticized for having acted impulsively, without asking the opinion of the citizens through a referendum, on a question that concerns the identity of all Trinidadians. Not all of them are of African origin, in fact about 50% of the population is indigenous and has little to do with the steelpan, invented by blacks while the Indianswould be better represented by the tassa, another percussion instrument imported from India. However, historians object, at least the steelpan is authentically Trinidadian and is played today by everyone, even whites, while the tassa is originally from the Persian Empire. Finally, there is another type of criticizes aimed at the new coat of arms: according to many, it would simply be gross.
