This week we said farewell to iconic Caribbean historian Professor Brinsley Samaroo. Although well into his 80s his vitality to the last moments was recognised by his peers, many of whom seemed still in shock that they did not think he could die.
He did. And it is likely that much of his work will die with him. When we lose an intellectual, a thinker and a doer, as Professor Samaroo was, so integrated into his community, we lose not just a person – friend, father, husband, colleague as the testimonials rolled out at his memorial. Dr Samaroo took with him his encyclopaedic knowledge and experience. While he shared this freely and fervently across communities not only in academia but with the grassroots, the casual good natured approach to his intensely academic enquiry would be hard to replicate. He was well known to hang out in places many of his colleagues would shy away from so he can tap into grassroots wisdom.
Professor Samaroo has been a guiding hand at times in my own process. Though I was never in his class, I was a student and consulted with him through not just my academic work but also in work with communities and in the cultural sphere. And that is beyond my early coverage of his political life as Minister of Local Government as a journalist, which exposed me closely to the internal operations, the gaps in the systems of governance, the skews between central and local governance that continue to this day. He remains one of the few who entered the political fray and did not emerge severely scarred and damaged from the experience with his reputation as a statesman fully intact.
Indeed, I wished my schedule allowed to have taken him up on his open invitation to be a part of his regular country hangout. On one outdoor tour of the Nariva Forest as I characteristically strayed engrossed in an observation that most on the beaten track had missed, he patiently waited for me to return to the group and without the regular complaint I receive from others.
He is the last few of a generation of a academia who remained connected to the grassroots, and who understood the value of field work, in the literal field, although even decades after his retirement, he was also a constant fixture at the UWI West Indiana Library, so much so that his protege and successor Professor Brereton recommended a plaque be set on that desk in his honour.
That aside, there was another consistent lobby emerging from the eulogisers at his funeral – for retrieval of and continuation of his work on the Sugar Museum which was unceremoniously truncated. The physical and visual representations through a museum of the experience of Indentured Immigrant Labourers would have completed the vast knowledge bank of research he has left for next generations, and a the culmination of his historical research on the immigration of Indian labourers across the diaspora.
But shortsighted politics is one of the minefields we continue to have to hop, skip and jump over for personal as much as professional survival, in a region that has cultural elimination embedded in its socio-cultural and historical DNA. It is but another manifestation of the neo colonial mentality that washes over us as waves of tsunami just when we think we are making strides forward in our still psuedo Independent States lodged in political systems and institutions and the people who come to inhabit them.
New Age of Erasure
Aligned to that, in the internet age, I have myself had to confront the challenge of students who boldly proclaim, ‘Miss, I don’t do libraries.’
The tragedy of that statement, I would try to unload. For us in the Caribbean, and I daresay much of the developing world, much of our knowledge still reside in people and places and not in the formal libraries and museums for reasons like that which I outlined above. So if we are growing a generation who is grasping at knowledge on the internet where the greater part of our knowledge, information and cultural history is relatively non existent, we have to come to grips with the looming reality of what I called ‘cultural genocide, in a recent interview with ICTPulse. (See Highlights Below)
As I do so, I thank Michelle Marius for her interest and connection to the issue. She clearly took the time to research the topic to engage with me in a meaningful discussion that drew out some of the issues.
Highlights of threats and opportunities
This is the highlights of the interview. As I prepare a full video illustrating these in greater detail, you can listen to the full episode of the interview highlighting the threats and opportunities for cultural heritage and the challenges facing education in the digital age in this interview with ICTPulse this link here.
About Dr Kris Rampersad
Dr Kris Rampersad is an independent creator, educator and sustainable development consultant and educator resuscitating the planet for the digital age.
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