On August 22, speaking at the opening of Carifesta XV in Barbados, the island’s Prime Minister, Mia Mottley, in describing it as a commitment to Caribbean unity, proudly announced, “One of the things that pleases my government is that it signed an agreement to purchase the historical records of Banyan Productions out of TT [Trinidad & Tobago].” The announcement was a shock to many Trinidadians, who have now sadly concluded that their Government bungled on securing a national heirloom.
Banyan Ltd was co-founded in 1974 by Christopher Laird, Dr Bruce Paddington and the late Anthony Hall. The Trinidadian film and television company produced innovative and entertaining programmes which were aimed to both inform and reflect Caribbean people and culture.
The high-quality documentary projects captured the history and traditions of numerous Caribbean territories, resulting in one of the most wide-ranging archives ever compiled of Caribbean thought and creativity. This treasure trove includes over 2,000 video files (which are documented in over 15,000 searchable records in the Banyan database), over 400 edited programmes, and 1,600 files of unedited and raw footage.
Ten years ago, the four-year digitisation process of these invaluable holdings of rare footage into a comprehensive database was completed with the assistance of the National Library and Information Services of Trinidad and Tobago (NALIS), York University of Toronto, Canada, and the Alma Jordan Library at The UWI campus in St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.
The various categories of the archive include Caribbean festivals and rituals, theatre, extensive interviews with leading cultural personalities (several of whom are now deceased), Carifesta, cultural practices, dance, steelband, calypso, Carnival, agriculture, politics, indigenous peoples, visual arts, and miscellaneous. This collection, which has served as the perfect companion to the Caribbean Literature Collection, ensures Caribbean figures, such as writers like Derek Walcott, VS Naipaul, CLR James and George Lamming, calypsonians Roaring Lion, Lord Kitchener, Mighty Sparrow and David Rudder, and filmmakers Euzhan Palcy, Horace Ové and Perry Henzell will remain with us, and not suffer a similar fate as their predecessors who have been reduced to just names from the past.
Laird, an octogenarian, had been trying for a long time to find a buyer for the Banyan Archive, which by 2019 had lost its home — a purpose-built, environmentally-controlled vault constructed with private resources, and had been forced to relocate the physical tapes to the National Archives. In 2022, at the T&T Film Festival, the chairman of Trinidad’s National Gas Company (NGC) announced that the company would acquire the Banyan collection — a promise which never came to fruition. Overtures to The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, and NALIS also drew blank interest.
Despite disappointment at T&T’s lack of commitment, the retired founders, now unable to maintain the archive, strove to keep the collection in the Caribbean. Their pitch to potential buyers noted they would “benefit tremendously by having exclusive and unfettered access” to a resource of “irreplaceable, high quality and award winning” Caribbean content.
Laird encountered the Barbados Prime Minister during his induction into the Caribbean Broadcasting Union Hall of Fame on August 19 where he broached the subject of the Banyan Archive. Mottley then invited Laird to a meeting the following morning at 10 a.m. Fifteen minutes later they were shaking hands on a deal, and, “Within 24 hours of her team working with our solicitors, we signed an agreement,” Laird stated. In an interview with the T&T Newsday, Laird declared the conversation with Mottley was “extraordinary, vital, visionary and empathetic”.
The acquisition cost has not been disclosed but the T&T Guardian newspaper, in an article titled “NGC’s failure to execute Banyan archive plan left door open for Bajans — source”, published on August 26, stated, “Guardian Media has seen a copy of Banyan’s proposal to the T&T government, which sought US$250,000 for the full archive, including compressed and uncompressed formats and all rights” in perpetuity.
The document emphasised the cultural urgency, noting it was “the only available resource with which it is possible to see moving pictures of Caribbean festivals, luminaries, artists, writers, performers and ordinary citizens, some born over 100 years ago”. Errol Fabien, a Trinidadian cultural activist and television host, who has worked with Banyan since 1985, responding to concerns raised by Trinidadians over the sale, noted that without Mottley’s intervention, the material risked being discarded.
Here in Guyana, this scoop by the Barbadian Prime Minister, which demonstrates her vision and decisiveness, has only served to highlight past shortcomings in both the current and previous administrations. Caricom headquarters are located here, yet no one in Foreign Affairs heard Banyan’s pleas — shouts might be more appropriate — for help?
Grandiose plans have been announced for a state-of-the-art museum and arts centre, leaving one to speculate as to how the opportunity to purchase this archive, the perfect cornerstone for such an institution, managed to slip through our palms. Our desire to be the centre for the arts in Caribbean will, for the time being, remain nothing more than wishful thinking.
On Monday, September 1, the Barbados government formally completed the acquisition of the Banyan Archive, thus ensuring its preservation. The strategic move places Barbados as a leader in cultural stewardship at a time when questions of heritage and regional identity abound.
Hats off to Mia Mottley and the government of Barbados for their instantaneous grasp of the inherent value of these archives of Caribbean culture and the absolute necessity for them to stay within the region, as opposed to winding up in the storage rooms of far-flung universities, like the works of many noted Caribbean contributors. It is important to note that Google had expressed an interest in purchasing the archives.
“And we in Barbados are committed to making those archives available to all Caribbean people,” Mottley stated. “Because at the end of the day, whether it’s going to watch George Lamming give the eulogy of Maurice Bishop, or whether it’s the 40 tapes we have of Carifesta 1981 [hosted by Barbados], or whether it’s elements of masquerade across the region, or interviews from the northern into the southern Caribbean…those archives will give the opportunities to our young people to build upon this and to create even more for us as a people.”
No doubt, future generations will be very thankful for this priceless gift.
— Reprinted from Stabroek News
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