WHY ARE MUSEUMS IMPORTANT?

 There are three questions about museums -

1) What are they for?

2) How do they tell society's stories?

3) Who gets to decide?

I think that the answer  to the first question is rather obvious. Museums are for telling and recording our history. In so doing they must strive to be accurate and to record our stories as completely as possible

In answer to the second question I think that our national museum does a very poor job of recording our history. The history of Trinidad can be divided into 6 parts: (a) before the Spanish; (b) after the Spanish and before the English; (c)  the English colonization, slavery and indentureship; (d) after slavery  and indentureship and before independence; (e) the union with Tobago and Tobago's history; (f) after independence.

Our national museum does not adequately tell or explain any of these stories - and in failing to do so, in fact does a tremendous disservice to the country. History is important. History explains who we are and where we came from. For example, do people generally know why the town of Sangre Grande is called Sangre Grande? (The answer lies in our history -  "sangre grande" means much or great blood in Spanish. After the Spanish came they enslaved the local Amerindians who rose up in revolt. A terrible battle took place where the town is presently,  and almost the entire Amerindian population was wiped out.)

Incidentally, the Caribs were a warlike people who largely came from South America. Most of the Caribbean Amerindians were in fact Arawaks a peaceful tribe who had no word for 'war' in their language. You could argue that the word  "Caribbean" is in fact a misnomer of our area - but that is a whole other story

I don't know the answer to the third question except that the directors of the national museum are appointed by the Government. Isn't it time that we did something positive about the national museum?

ARE YOU BETTER OFF THAN YOU WERE A YEAR AGO?

 Let's call a spade a spade. Politics in Trinidad is race driven; it shouldn\t be, of course, but it is. Both politival parties are hopelessly driven by race  and not by ideas or policies. Basically, they both say that "we can do it better than them".  There are very few policies (if any) that are driven by policies .

Let me prove it to you. Quickly. What are the main POLICY differences between the PNM and  the UNC? Aaah ! You had to think about that one, didn't you? So? How do you choose who you are going to vote for? For some people the thinking is that "they (whoever "they"  are) have screwed up so I'll give the other guys a chance." Unfortunately, these people are in a minority - a minority who can make a difference because the Indians and the Africans are almost evenly divided. But I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that none of them can tell me what the POLICY differences are between the two parties.

In other countries (e.g., Canada the U.K., France, etc.) the competition is always between ideas and policies. But here i good old T&T we elect our political leaders because they are black or Indian and we conveniently ignore the fact that there i only one reason for politics - one reason for government: and that is to make life better for the people.