TELLING THE TRUTH

I had deliberately stayed out of the debate about the "fifty most important people" because (full disclosure here) I felt that the contribution of my uncle, Bobby Montano, was probably the single most important contribution to T&T's development in the last 100 years. I couldn't believe that nobody thought to highlight it or even mention it. Maybe I should have. I certainly could have ... easily. But I have always felt a certain reticence in blowing my own or my family's trumpet and I thought that at the very least that serious commentators and persons who genuinely care about T&T might have done so.

But now that the fiftieth anniversary celebrations are over and no one has "stepped up to the plate" I feel that at the very least I should use this space to bring to the attention of anybody who really cares about this little country and its history, something that has been completely overlooked.

What am I talking about? In two words: Point Lisas! The development of Point Lisas was the brain child of my uncle who led the South Trinidad Chamber of Commerce and pushed it ... hard! At first, the Williams led administration wouldn't "take the height" of the south based businessmen who used their own time and their own money to get the idea off the ground. Dr. Eric Williams simply wasn't imterested! It was only after everything had been planned and a way forward had been mapped out that the Government moved and took over Point Lisas. (And by the way, ask people like Bobby Montano, Krishna Narinesingh and Sydney Knox how the Government came to take over PLIPDECO as the Point Lisas Development Company Limited is called. That story will almost make you cry with the unfairness of it all!) Incidentally, would you believe that most young people now believe that it was Eric Williams who thought up Point Lisas?!

But the story of Point Lisas is not being told and neither is there sufficient recognition of those who pushed it. And without the development of Point Lisas we wouldn't be anywhere near the development that we are at today. It is the single most important story coming out of Trinidad & Tobago in the last 100 years and has impacted all of our lives in a most positive way.

Instead, we read of "fifty greats" like, for example, musician Roy Cape. Now, I have always liked the music of Mr. Cape, but are we seriously saying that his music was of greater importance to T&T than the development at Point Lisas?  And if you say that is not the point, that music and the arts ought to be recognised as well, I will reply that I couldn't agree more, but that the operative words in that sentence are "as well". And, incidentally, this is NOT to be construed as a criticism of Mr. Cape.

We need not only to be aware of our history but why it is so important that we get it right ... now! Put another way, we need to be truthful.