bigdrumnation

Reading Time 8 mins April 4, 2023 “I later realized that [Dr. Williams’s] political interest was not in relieving the victims of capitalism and slavery but in quelling all threats to his authority and the State.” As an officer in training at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst (RMAS), in Camberley, England, from 1965 to 1967, I wrote love songs to Lorna and poetry to Claudette in the middle of the harshest winter during mock battles on the Salisbury plains. The rapid bursts of machine gun fire were music to my poetic mind. A guava flower out of season a poet trained… Read More »FROM LAVENTILLE THROUGH SANDHURST TO STAR DUST: Beyond The 1970 Mutiny*–David Brizan

Reading Time 13 minsApril 4, 2023 “Agriculture will become the People’s Army’s primary role in peacetime. The Army’s barrack room becomes the nation’s countryside.”   Mr. President and Members, after having heard about the dehumanization, suffering, and oppression that led to the Regiment’s collapse, I am going to talk about a People’s Army. What I mean by it, and why all Third World armies will inevitably become People’s Armies. Immediately upon speaking about a People’s Army, some will jump and say I am proposing a Mao Tse Tung type of Army. I am not; I am suggesting an army relevant to… Read More »1970 Court-Martial Speech: “Here I Stand!”*–Ex Lieutenant Rex Lassalle

Reading Time 4 mins  April 4, 2023 “…For [East] Indian Trinis, it meant no longer being ashamed of carrying ‘roti in paper bag’ for lunch!” –From a February 2023 conversation with a distinguished East Indian about the impact of 1970 on our lives. In a sense, this thought sums up the moral and cultural meaning and impact of the 1970 Uprising in T&T on the people of T&T and their identity.    From an aerial view, 1970 was about which path and direction Trinidad & Tobago should proceed. It was a conversation that had enveloped the thinking population for over two decades… Read More »Part 2: Reintroducing Ex-Lieutenant Rex Lassalle–Roger Toussaint

Reading Time

Reading Time

Reading Time 8 mins The Alphabet Ones By Rex Lassalle They project history and April 70 narratives Based on dumb, idiotic soldiers Just there to be given orders They then follow Never was in a barrack room. Never knew Teteron barrack rooms. Where Fanon & Debray were discussed Giap & Ho Chi Minh were heroes Never knew they knew Dien Bien Phu As was Lumumba and his fate These things were known Plus, many relatives suffered racism abroad. Read Soul On Ice Read The Wretched of the Earth Read Black Skin White Mask Read Che Guevara Those dumb soldiers will… Read More »Indigenous Uprising—Rex Lassalle

Reading Time 11 mins February 26, 2023 I. Prologue: ‘A Source of Authenticity’ “I think every poet of any modesty hopes to make just a small contribution to the sound of the world’s hum.”–Derek Walcott “Ah fraid he jail me like he jail Rex Lassalle.” –Chalkdust, “Ah ‘Fraid Karl“ “The Commonwealth Court Martial was my 3rd Court Martial… I never accepted the Colonial narrative that was its dominant feature and openly challenged it when… BS came up.” –Rex Lassalle, February 6, 2023 Who,  then, is this man Rex Lassalle? And from which source springs his hope? Though he says that he only started writing… Read More »In Conversation With Rex Lassalle On 1970 And Beyond*–Winthrop (troppy) Holder

Reading Time 5 minsFebruary 26, 2023 Last year, in the lead-up to the 60th Anniversary of TT’s Independence, many media discussions and promotions focused on the significance and achievements of the occasion and history and assessing the Independence and nation-building experience. Inevitably, the 1970 Revolution came up. Different views assessing significant development varied from describing it as a dark period to a negative in the Independence journey. Some even equated it with the July 27, 1990, attempted coup. One host, however, said that 1970 must be seen as a positive experience for our young independent country because it brought about several positive changes,… Read More »BEYOND 60 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE: 1970 IN PERSPECTIVE–Clyde Weatherhead

Reading Time 4 mins February 26, 2023 “[I]t was the soldering officers led by Rex Lassalle and Raffique Shah who impressed me the most and a source from which I later drew the courage to take on the powers that be in the fight for progress, justice, and equality.” The explosion of mass protests in T&T in Feb 1970 was precipitated by the violent arrest and expulsion of West Indians at Sir George Williams University in Canada, the Walter Rodney riots in Jamaica, the anti-colonial liberation struggles raging across Africa, Indo-China and Latin America, the Civil Rights Movement in the… Read More »Reintroducing Former Lieutenant Rex Lasalle–Roger Toussaint

Reading Time 3 minsFebruary 28, 2023   “A Trini have a funny, funny way of forgetting, Their History to them like don’t mean nothing.” –Brother Valentino, “The Roaring 70s. Fifty-three years after the February 1970 Revolution, it is still under contention, as it should be. Was it merely a change in consciousness that shook the pillars of society, or was it a fluttering shadow snuffed out by the government of the day, never to rise? Was it a transformative event that lit a flame in our continuing quest to be truly free? Can the trigger be reduced to a singular… Read More »Special Issue Marking The 53rd Anniversary Of The 1970 February Revolution in Trinidad & Tobago–BDN Editors