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..Dr Rampersad calls on PM, Pres in her mission to protect T&T’s national heritage
Published:
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Dr Kris Rampersad
An online petition has been started by heritage educator, author and researcher Dr Kris Rampersad as well as open letters to President Anthony Carmona and Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar calling for the safeguarding of T&T’s natural heritage, the “other Magnificent Seven of the South.”
“It is something of a suicide pact if a state opens the doorway for destruction of its natural heritage without proper safeguarding as it is for an activist to embark on a fast to the death,” said the outspoken Rampersad, who refused at this time to specifically name the other Magnificent Seven given the sensitive and exclusive nature of her research.
Evidence of what may be clues to the ‘missing links’ in the story of human history and evolution may lie in south Trinidad are in danger of disappearing by negative development actions, she said. Rampersad has been piecing together the comparative pre-and post-colonial heritage of T&T in the context of the Caribbean, South America and its global connections.
She is also the T&T representative on the Unesco Executive Board in Paris and chair of the National Commission for Unesco. An independent multimedia journalist, Rampersad is also a Unesco/Commonwealth/Caribbean trained heritage educator, and member of the scientific committee of the International Culture University and the International Institute of Gastronomy, Culture, Arts and Tourism.
Rampersad has written an impassioned letter in her blog Demokrissy (www.kris-rampersad.blogspot.com) to Carmona and Persad-Bissessar to safeguard these valuable heritage elements in their home districts of south Trinidad, which she calls “The Other Magnificent Seven”—of south Trinidad/South America/Global South and the globe.
She said these efforts must be part of and contribute to a holistic approach to reviewing and revising misrepresentations of the islands in national symbols as the Coat of Arms and the National Anthem. The open letter calls on the President and Prime Minister ‘to lead’ in safeguarding the endangered and neglected heritage including these valuable assets which she claims have outstanding universal value.
The blog which is receiving the thumbs up across her extensive social media network, has inspired a Change.org petition to Carmona and Persad-Bissessar (http://goo.gl/EEzSc6) calling on them to act now, before all is lost.
Banwari site and other Magnificent Seven of the South Rampersad, who is the author of the first book on Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Through the Political Glass Ceiling, that maps the PM’s journey from rural Trinidad to Prime Ministership from speeches, said the letter was inspired by her own impulse to act because it was the responsibility of citizens to motivate and encourage public officials to act in the best interests of the country.
She said, “While a responsible citizenry has a duty to hold officials to account, we also must take responsibility for our actions that impact how authorities may react or act.
“There has been an increasingly hyped national environment that makes it almost impossible to recognise what is empty noise and what may be constructive criticism. “It is on us to find the tone to make the authorities listen. I hope my blog achieved that.”
Speaking to the Sunday Guardian on her way to the biannual Unesco Board meeting in Paris, Rampersad said unplanned and unchecked development actions can cost us valuable evidence contained not just around the Banwari site—the 7,000-year-old humanoid skeleton discovered in 1968—but of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ elements that span across the entire peninsula for southeast to southwest Trinidad.
Much focus on PoS and city heritage She said there had been much focus on Port-of-Spain and the city heritage that included the seven European-styled buildings in disrepair, but the fundamental and valuable heritage of global scale importance have been overlooked as part of general neglect in development planning for the South.
“Maybe that has been a good thing and it has allowed these assets to remain undisturbed, but development focus in this district now means we have awakened a sleeping giant, and we must pause, take actions to secure and safeguard, document and explore what really we are sitting on before we allow what may be another course of development.”
She said focus on heritage had contributed to enhancing national revenue, employment and substantially diversifying economies of many countries which is why so many hanker after being admitted to the Unesco World Heritage lists or any of the recognition Unesco offers on the global value of tangible and intangible heritage.
“But there are steps to be taken which we have not been entertaining,” she said, claiming her research included interviews and examination of oral and literary culture, maps, comparative charts and other evidence from across more than 50 countries. Rampersad said, “The traditional confrontational stance between development and conservation has resulted in a kind of public fear and deafness.
“One such I have encountered, apart from a general apathy and indifference to act, is the erroneous belief that the operations of the oil sector or Lake Asphalt may be negatively affected. “This is very far from the truth as the model I am developing has a central place for the oil sector and other industrial heritage.”
Win-win model
She said that there was an absolute win-win model that had been workshopped at various regional Unesco and other forums and to senior officials of the World Heritage Centre, all of whom had urged and were eager to see us step forward. Rampersad said that will be quite a breakthrough for many other societies also trying to strike the balance between meeting the needs of growing populations while conserving for the future.
“I have many examples of our working successfully with governments, industry and communities to find the perfect fit between what has traditionally been seen as competing actions. “As a small island, T&T with its wealth of human, natural and industrial financial, intellectual and other resources is ideally positioned to impact on and make a difference on the world’s drive for sustainable development.”
Rampersad said that she feared that “the trigger effect of one kind of development to others can now destroy valuable evidence that has not been thoroughly investigated and so unless we move to safeguard them and establish parameters where this can co-exist with development, we stand to lose a legacy that is of value to not just us in the islands, in the region, but also in defining and establishing our pre-and post-colonial connections to the world.
“We have the resources, financial and human and intellectual to position T&T as a model small island nation that effectively strikes the balance between development and conservation—that was the goal of the recently held United Nations Summit which Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar attended. “So I am asking the President and the Prime Minister to lead us and take the necessary steps to do this.”
What is Wrong with this picture: Heritage & The Trinidad & Tobago National Coat of Arms
The Deficit of Curious - the Other Magnificent Seven of the Global South
Open Letter to President Anthony Carmona and Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar
Honourable Leaders, Your Excellency Mr President and Dear
Prime Minister,
I againinterrupt
my writing of Letters To Lizzie - tete-a-tete correspondences to Her Majesty
Queen Elizabeth II on explosive matters of our common interests, history and
destiny based on 500 pieces of accumulated outstanding universally valuable
pieces of evidence - to write to Your Excellency, Mr President and your
honourable self, Madame Prime Minister, citizen to citizen: me as a citizen and
a daughter of South Trinidad and to you also as a son, Mr President, and a
daughter, Madame Prime Minister, of South Trinidad; to you both as our First
Citizens and simultaneously as respective holders of the highest offices in our
land and as our leaders to whom have been entrusted the fragility of - be it
burden or boon, mantle or mission, yoke
or instruments of liberation - the hopes and the dreams and the aspirations of
our nation... For more contact lolleaves@gmail.com
‘T&T world heritage status at risk’
...fiddling while Rome burns, political imbroglio
leaves custodians mum
Published:
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Dr Kris Rampersad
The Banwari archeological site is not yet a world heritage site and its potential
to become one is in jeopardy with “unchecked and undermanaged development
initiatives.” Speaking from Paris where she is attending the meeting of the
biannual Unesco executive board, heritage educator Dr Kris Rampersad said
misinformation was being bandied about concerning T&T’s world heritage status.
“No one, on any side, has taken the time to check the information being presented,”
she said.
Rampersad, who is a Unesco-Commonwealth trained heritage facilitator and
the Unesco focal point for World Heritage in T&T, told the Sunday Guardian it was
unfortunate the issue is being politicised and has become something of the rope in the
tug of war between the State and the Highway Re-route Movement.
“That prevents the consensus building and nation building that occurs around a
country’s preparation for world heritage status. I remain flabbergasted that with the
significance and potential of heritage as a core growth sector as the alternative to
petroleum and our best bet for diversification, that these most valuable timeless assets
and heritage, in general, remain so low on the national action agenda,” she said.
Rampersad has been blogging about what she calls “The Other Magnificent Seven
of south Trinidad/South America and the Global South” and has written to President
Anthony Carmona and Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar (goo.gl/Um7YkU)
asking them to take the lead in securing these assets which hold enormous value for
T&T’s economic diversification, its knowledge economy, and its place in our global
In her latest Demokrissy blog post, The Politics of Disempowerment, Rampersad noted
that while she has received encouragement and agreement by various sectors,
some key custodians and line agencies of heritage have gone mum because the
elements in focus are in the districts earmarked for the controversial highway extension, also the home districts of the President and the Prime Minister, and they do not want to get embroiled in what
may be interpreted as the hype around the highway.
“Trustee organisations and officials just don’t want to get embroiled, so it’s a case
of fiddling while Rome burns.” That has also been the fate of a change.org petition
(goo.gl/tNAwm6) in circulation on the issue, said the outspoken Rampersad, who is also an author and independent multimedia journalist.
“The fact is that neither the site, nor any of the several unique invaluable heritage elements of south Trinidad are secured in world heritage terms so as to facilitate them acquiring world heritage status as they are. “Banwari is not a world heritage site as is being claimed. It is on a tentative list which is a list that includes items states submit that they intend to prepare for such status.
“The concept being promoted of the site—the half-acre plot of where the skeleton
remains were found—is itself erroneous, as a heritage site involves broader
association of factors. We have not yet done the investigations nor groundwork
that will consolidate the scope and value, though my preliminary independent research
suggests that it is just the tip of the iceberg of more fundamental discoveries that could
substantially revise how this region’s evolution and migration among others have been
viewed.”
Rampersad said heritage was not a footnote in national development.
“It is likely to be the lifeline to which we would have to turn in the next two decades when the oil dries up.
A Global legacy Pls sign, circulate and share Open Letter to PM Kamla and President Carmona Safeguarding the Other Magnificent Seven of #TTGlobalSouth the link between island and continental American South. They are a universal legacy pls sign the petition. Details of what’s at stake in the link http://goo.gl/EEzSc6and in the blog: DemokrissyThe Deficit of Curious - the Other Magnificent Seven of the Global SouthOpen Letter to President Anthony Carmona and Prime Minister Kamla Persad-BissessarLet's discuss ways forward
We all know about the Magnificent Seven, the seven European-styled buildings in various stages of disrepair around the Queen’s Park Savannah in our capital city, the seat of our administration, of power and of our influence and those who purport to have influence and power, and which has attracted attention and fame over the last near half a century. Mr President, Madame Prime Minister, as a child of the south, I understand - indeed I do, how could I not - the ignominy, the sense of invisibility, the lack of investment, and the deficit of curiosity about South of the Caroni that seemed to drive those who possessed the seat of power in the far off capital city. I speak of the districts that hold your birthstrings, and mine, as it does the 7000 year old ancestor we have named Banwari found in the year I was conceived and largely since ignored into ignominy in a place that purports to be our highest seat of learning; and the even more ancient genetic matter of the Pitch Lake; the land that nurtured us with food from its soil, and milk from its mammals; that fed your imaginations to reach and to excel and to aspire and to achieve the highest offices of the land, that remain ignominous, unaccounted in recounts and recalls of national excellence. What about the Other Magnificent Seven of ancient and modern Trinidad and Tobago, lie in quiet repose, undisturbed until now by the threat of bulldozers and an impetus that we want to call development. They are right there, in the southern districts of Trinidad that nurtured us – you, Citizen President Carmona, and you too, Citizen Kamla and me too. But we remain uncurious. They are waiting for us to identify them, claim them, sound their greatness to the world.