[Order David Horowitz’s new book, America Betrayed, HERE.]

It was long recognized in the history of the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) that Christopher Columbus discovered the country in 1498. Upon approaching the island, three hills could be seen, still known as the Trinity Hills. Columbus “had already made a vow to name the next land he discovered after the Most Holy Trinity.” And so “it was that the island, whose original name was Land of the Hummingbird, came to be re-named Trinity, which in Spanish is Trinidad.” Now, an August 20, 2024 report by the Associated Press notes that “Trinidad is redrawing its coat of arms to remove Columbus’ three famous ships”:

Officials in Trinidad and Tobago are redrawing the island’s coat of arms for the first time since its creation in 1962 to remove references to European colonization in a move that many are celebrating.

Christopher Columbus’ three ships — the Pinta, the Niña and the Santa María — will be replaced with the steelpan… Prime Minister Keith Rowley made the announcement on Sunday…. saying the coat of arms would be reconfigured before late September.

“That should signal that we are on our way to removing the colonial vestiges that we have in our constitution,” he said.

Rowley has conveniently forgotten that T&T’s parliamentary democracy was modeled after that of Great Britain. There’s more than meets the eye here than the news that a small Caribbean island is changing its coat of arms. Rowley, who has been prime minister since 2015, is demonstrably hostile to British history, along with anyone or anything that does not serve his far-left political cause, which is a threat to Western interests. He now intends to hold public hearings to determine whether “certain statues, signs and monuments with colonial connections should also be removed.”

Five years ago, I wrote on Jihad Watch:

The death of Islamic State (ISIS) caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi does not mean that the threat from the Islamic State is over. Far from it. The Islamic State’s mission is to advance Islam violently, in accord with the dictates of Islamic theology found in the Hadith and Quran. The Washington Post referred to al-Baghdadi as an “austere religious scholar” and was lambasted for that reference, but that’s one of the things that al-Baghdadi really was…

“One of the biggest recruitment hubs for ISIS in the West” is the Caribbean Island of Trinidad. Adding to the problem, Trinidad is uncomfortably close to Venezuela. Foreign Policy once published a story with the title “In Venezuela’s Toxic Brew, Failed Narco-State Meets Iran-Backed Terrorism,” which addressed “the convergence of narco-trafficking and jihadism in America’s own backyard.”

Venezuela is so close to Trinidad that it can be seen with the naked eye from the Southern and Western coast of the island, and like many Western countries, Trinidad has a problem with unvetted migrants coming in from Venezuela. Trinidad and Tobago is also home to the only jihadist uprising in the Western Hemisphere. In 2015, Retired General John Kelly “warned that Sunni extremists are radicalizing converts and other Muslims in Latin America, adding that ISIS may exploit trafficking organizations in the region to infiltrate the United States.” With Trinidad being a breeding ground for jihadists so close to the US, then-President Donald Trump called Rowley in February 2017 to discuss terrorism, returning Islamic State jihadis, and other security challenges.

In recent news, amid a “campaign of terror” from Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro regime to forcefully hold on to power, Iran’s new “reformist” President Masoud Pezeshkian congratulated Maduro on his so-called re-election win, “saying that Tehran is ready to boost cooperation with Caracas in all fields.”

To locals, there is a historic competition between the mostly black-supported ruling People’s National Movement Party (PNM) and the mostly Indo-Trinidad supported opposition United National Congress Party (UNC). A report in a black-owned newspaper serving New York, New York Amsterdam News, has painted an accurate picture of the historic racial tensions that have long plagued T&T between those of Indian descent and those of African descent. It relates to the “post slavery-emancipation period when the British brought Indian indentured servants from the continent, treated them better than freed slaves,” and the British get the blame for the division, as if Indians and blacks can’t think for themselves to this day. Rowley, like all “progressives,” manipulates the racial divisions to the detriment of the people.

In the wider global scheme however, what Rowley and his PNM are peddling is much worse: friendship with both sides of the red-green axis of evil. Two months ago, the opposition UNC accused the Rowley government of a quiet, “scandalous deal,” using “corrupt and money laundering” Indian businessman Naveen Jindal as go-between to facilitate a covert deal with the Maduro regime to process Venezuelan crude oil. Jindal is on bail in India.

In 2019, the United States Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, Joseph Mondello, called T&T’s support for the Maduro regime “deeply concerning.” Three years later, in 2022, Iran’s late President Ebrahim Raisi told Rowley in a Doha meeting that the Islamic regime was “ready to exchange experiences in oil and gas exploration with T&T, while praising what he deemed the independence of Latin American countries against ‘oppression of imperialist countries.’”

Rowley has compared the revolutionary and self-avowed Marxist organization Black Lives Matter, which focuses less on black lives and more on hatred of white people, to the T&T 1970 Black Power Movement. He also stated in 2020 that T&T “ought not to distance itself from the Black Lives Matter protests happening now in the United States…let us not for one minute believe that we are insulated from that or that it doesn’t apply to us.”

While Rowley is erasing British history from the nation’s coat of arms in the name of shrugging off “colonial” identities, he eagerly embraces Islam. In an Eid speech (never mind the treatment of blacks in the Arab world), he stated:

Trinidad and Tobago was a land of religious diversity and traditions, and it is praiseworthy that people can share with the Muslim community as its members recognise the “omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence of an infinitely loving God” during Eid….We share, too, in your traditions of gratitude to Allah.

Persecuted Christians (including those facing genocide in Nigeria), Yazidis, and victims of jihad terror globally won’t be sharing the same gratitude. Nor will the Israeli victims of October 7. He also continued his “express prayers, from my heart, for those two million-plus followers, who are caught in the struggle in the Gaza, and reaffirm that this Government stands firmly behind the international call for an immediate ceasefire.” Three months ago, Trindad officially recognized the “State of Palestine.”

To Rowley, “diversity” means promoting the interests of Islam, black power, open-door migration and the discarding of Judeo-Christian values, all while corruption explodes. Familiar? Even the UN is now pushing its “climate emergency” agenda among youth in T&T; the 78th President of the UN General Assembly, Dennis Francis, is now back “in his homeland of Trinidad and Tobago as his term comes to an end.”

By now, one can see a far-left political agenda and Rowley’s brazen advocacy to rewrite T&T history in order to exclude its founding and its developmental ties to Britain. The entire education system in T&T was developed and standardized by the UK, before it changed in the 1970’s into a localized Caribbean version.

In a manner similar to Rowley’s (et al) disdain toward Western history, most blacks in the US want reparations for historic wrongs committed by those who are long buried. But they simultaneously want the present-day benefits of American opportunity and freedom, in a country which evolved to see a black president.

As for Rowley, he calls anyone who is against reparations for slavery “morons.”

Dennis Prager made an astute observation: “Every civilization throughout history had slaves: Asian societies, Africans, Native Americans and other Indigenous peoples around the world, and the Muslim/Arab world, which may have had the most slaves of all.” In fact, Arabs are still holding black slaves today — in Algeria, Mauritania, Libya, and Sudan. But facts aren’t the priority of Rowley and other “progressives.”

America needs to watch T&T closely, particularly under the woke Rowley, who is all too eager to serve the powerbrokers of the red-green axis. He has provided fertile soil for it to flourish at the back door of the Americas. Unfortunately, with the U.S. itself under woke Democrat governance, those in power in the U.S. think that Rowley is right where he should be.