African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go are ac­tive­ly about eth­nic own­er­ship, po­lit­i­cal le­git­i­ma­cy and na­tion­al iden­ti­ty, hot­ly and per­sis­tent­ly con­test­ed. There is more com­fort when the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is in pow­er; greater anx­i­ety when the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is in pow­er. Re­cent events and de­vel­op­ments make this clear.

The African dilem­ma in T&T is nav­i­gat­ing post-colo­nial pow­er, eth­nic po­lit­i­cal ri­val­ry and so­cio-eco­nom­ic dis­place­ment con­stant­ly and all at once with­in a dual eth­nic po­lit­i­cal par­ty sys­tem in a mul­ti-eth­nic so­ci­ety, now that hege­mon­ic pow­er has re­ced­ed.

With unas­sail­able rule for 30 un­bro­ken years by the PNM, Afro-Trinida­di­ans en­joyed eth­no-po­lit­i­cal hege­mo­ny from 1956 to 1986. The Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) broke this mo­nop­oly, but did not han­dle the eth­no-po­lit­i­cal equa­tion in gov­ern­ment and par­ty well and that fa­cil­i­tat­ed the cre­ation of Club 88, which evolved in­to the UNC, which in­her­it­ed the core In­do-Trinida­di­an base of the Unit­ed Labour Front and the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Labour Par­ty be­fore it.