Weighing in on government’s decision to have the steelpan replace the three ships of Christopher Columbus on the Coat of Arms, Opposition Leader Kamla Persad Bissessar says the Prime Minister has entered what she describes as a “dangerous territory” of using painful historical events for general election campaigning. 

The Opposition Leader warned against a “sanitizing of history”, saying there’s importance in teaching the nation’s true past, including “the good and bad of all our historical figures.”  

Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley announced the change while speaking at a PNM special convention on Sunday night. At the time, he said the legislative change would be pushed forward with the Parliamentary majority, adding that the decision is likely to take effect by September 24th (Republic Day) with a 6 month transition period for all official documents. 

Persad-Bissessar, meanwhile, in a statement on Monday, said: “Politicians erasing history by removing symbols and changing names as disingenuous political strategies will not improve or change citizens’ understanding of our history, which has primarily been written to be pro-European. The nation’s true history should be taught in our schools, and it should provide the good and bad of all our historical figures of both pre-and post-colonial periods.”

She added, “We have been an independent nation for 62 years, creating our own development policies, legislation, societal strata, and political systems. Our collective actions as a people over the past 62 years have created our present conditions and will dictate the future. We cannot continue deflecting and blaming the colonial powers and 500-year-old dead men for the mistakes and wrongs that we have committed against each other since independence.”