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CCNTV6
  • 1 year ago
Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley is firing back at the Opposition, for comments made regarding the inclusion of the steelpan on the Coat of Arms. The Prime Minister believes that the national instrument is a symbol of true unity and is puzzled, as to why anyone would think differently.
Transcript
00:00Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley is taking a tune on the opposition leader
00:05who said the replacement of Columbus's three ships with the seal pan on the
00:09coat of arms may give way to divisiveness.
00:13The big issue is the ships that Columbus will lose on our emblem.
00:17That is the important issue.
00:20And of course accusatory, accusing the PNM of using our emblem for political gimmickry.
00:29He explains to his audience in Lahoketa why another instrument cannot be,
00:35as some suggest, a national instrument.
00:38Indigenous, if you go into the Oxford dictionary or any good dictionary,
00:43you will see it comes from the Latin word indigenous.
00:47And it means originating or occurring naturally in a country or a region.
00:57The seal pan is qualified by that description.
01:01It originated here.
01:04The tabla is not an originating instrument here. It came from India.
01:09Dr. Rowley says he is aware of the divisive conversations taking place online.
01:14Go on Facebook. Endless race talk. Endless race talk.
01:20Go in the papers. You will see them sneaking in there trying to send that race talk too.
01:25That seal pan is African and other less descriptive words.
01:29But the PM stands by his position that the seal pan is as national, interracial and intercultural as any other emblem.
01:39Guinness Cavaliers, led by Bobby Muhammad, is the youngest conventional band panorama winner.
01:46Won in 1965 and 1967.
01:51So the youngest person who ever led a band panorama victory was an East Indian.
01:56So we're coming to tell me now that if you name the pan as our national instrument,
02:02it will be divisive because the Indian population will feel as though they're left out.
02:07There is no other true symbol of unity, the PM says,
02:11noting that Jit Samaru and the Samaru family were the resident band at state-owned Hilton Trinidad for 25 years.
02:20Jit Samaru leading renegades won the only hat trick of panorama.
02:27They won nine panorama titles.
02:30And you want to come and tell me that if we accept seal pan as the national instrument,
02:36that excludes the Indian population?
02:39Anybody saying that, either wicked or they're ignorant, they don't know the history of this country.
02:45He even lists the living icons.
02:48I have not even mentioned yet Exodus, led by Ainsworth Muhammad,
02:56taking Exodus to city after city in Japan, year after year.
03:01Dr. Rowley urges the population to stop listening to misleading voices.
03:06If you don't want to support the PNM, say you don't want to support the PNM.
03:10You're right, but don't try to rewrite this country's history.
03:14And don't listen to anybody in the university who have done no research,
03:17and sitting down there talking foolishness.
03:20It is time to come together, he says, and despite hard times,
03:24to embrace and celebrate the good that exists in TNT today.
03:30Seal pan is of this nation. Seal pan is ours, and we must claim it.
03:37Ravishi Tiwari, Rupnirain, TV6 News.
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