By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 07, 2025

Last week’s column, “Kamla’s second coming: a blessing”, elicited the following response from my dear friend Oscar D (not his real name): “Dear Pandit Cudjoe: This article has only elicited ambivalence. Your continued provocation by calling Kamla the mother of the nation is superfluous and disrespectful at best. I agree that we must learn about each other’s culture, but is it that Kamla’s ‘progression’ cannot be analysed within any other religious context? [Perhaps in] the context of African religious thought and philosophy?”

Oscar D does not say to whom it is “superfluous and disrespectful” to call Persad-Bissessar “the mother of the nation”. I am not sure if he is speaking on his own behalf or reflecting an African-centred exceptionalism that many believe is the real voice of the nation?

On April 20, 2020, the then prime minister outlined his “Conceptual Framework for the Formulation of the Road Map for Trinidad and Tobago Post Covid-19 Pandemic”. I objected to the absence of a UNC voice on a committee that was supposed to draw on the “collective action and strong collaboration among all sectors of the economy and segments of the society”.

I asked: “How can we achieve such a noble objective when duly elected representatives of the people, consisting of about 40% of the electorate, are excluded from this committee? It is a serious lapse in judgment to exclude the Leader of the Opposition and some of her colleagues from this committee. The Leader of the Opposition should have been one of the co-chairmen of the Road Map Committee if the PM wanted the fullest buy-in of the Indian community.”

In 2020 Indo-Trinidadians consisted of about 38% of T&T’s population. A mathematician from Wellesley College and a statistician from William Paterson University in New Jersey extrapolated from T&T’s census data that in 2030 Indo-Trinbagonians would consist of about 44% while Afro-Trinbagonians remain at about 38%.

Since many Afro-Trinbagonians went over to UNC in the last election, it might be nice to know on whose behalf Oscar D speaks?

Oscar D’s notion that we can understand Persad-Bissessar by using African religion and philosophy misses the point about interpreting political or theological texts or practices. When I teach Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart or Chigozie Obioma’s An Orchestra of Minorities (both Nigerians), I remind my students that these novels are best understood through an understanding of Igbo philosophy and cosmology.

This is why Obioma outlined a chart of Igbo cosmology at the beginning of his novel and ends with the instruction: “An Orchestra of Minorities is a novel that is firmly rooted in Ibgo’s cosmology, a complex system of beliefs and traditions that once guided—and in part still guides—my people.”

This does not mean an English reader cannot enjoy the intellectual richness of Things Fall Apart or An Orchestra of Minorities. They do. However, one can better understand these texts if one understands Igbo cosmology. I made a similar case for VS Naipaul—that is, the important role Hindu philosophy plays in his fictional works in my book VS Naipaul: A Materialist Reading.

On January 29, 2011, after Persad-Bissessar became Prime Minister, I made the following statement at a GOPIO conference of multiculturalism. “Many Indo-Trinidadians are unwilling to accept Dr Eric Williams as the Father of the Nation…However, we must do so if we wish to develop a collective identity. Any society that aspires to a cohesive national entity must be willing to accept all of its history, not just parts of it…Dr Williams is considered the father of our nation because he was the leader of the nation when it was founded—regardless of his race.”

I make a similar case when I describe Persad-Bissessar as “the mother of our nation”. She must be considered the “mother of our nation” because she was our first woman prime minister and repeated that feat—something no one else has achieved. The country adores Williams. It will learn to love Persad-Bissessar and the special gifts she brings to that office. We owe our two political pioneers such reverence.

This brings me to Persad-Bissessar’s Indian Arrival speech in 2010: “Many of you…will take great pride that a woman of East Indian descent is today the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. But while I acknowledge the right for such a perspective to exist may I humbly say that I would rather the nation feel the pride that one of the descendants of our collective experience of hardship and sacrifice today represents their realisation and longing for a better life and freedom.”

I honour this expression of belongingness, sacrifice, and tenderness when I embrace Persad-Bissessar as the mother of our nation. In God’s good time we will accept this important dimension of our historical legacy.