GILLIAN LUCKY

As we get near­er to the sig­nif­i­cant day that marks 50 years since we gained In­de­pen­dence, I en­cour­age all cit­i­zens to read two speech­es, both de­liv­ered by the late Dr Er­ic Eu­stace Williams, which clear­ly ar­tic­u­late the vi­sion of the man who is cor­rect­ly called the "fa­ther of the na­tion." The first speech (which will be re­ferred to ex­ten­sive­ly in this ar­ti­cle) was made at the Queen's Park Oval on the eve of our In­de­pen­dence, and was ad­dressed to the youth of the na­tion, in whose "lov­ing and ten­der hands" Dr Williams en­trust­ed "the fu­ture of the na­tion" and in whose "in­no­cent hearts the pride of our na­tion was en­shrined." The sec­ond speech re­ferred to was de­liv­ered over the ra­dio on Au­gust 31, 1962, the first day of our In­de­pen­dence and it will be the sub­ject of my next ar­ti­cle. Both ad­dress­es are mas­ter­pieces and can be used as bench­marks to de­ter­mine whether we have met, sur­passed or failed the ex­pec­ta­tions of those who chart­ed our des­tiny. Any in­di­vid­ual who leads an or­gan­i­sa­tion or a move­ment is sup­posed to com­mu­ni­cate ef­fec­tive­ly to all stake­hold­ers about the goals and as­pi­ra­tions of the par­tic­u­lar en­ti­ty, with di­rec­tions and sug­ges­tions for achiev­ing the ex­pressed ob­jec­tives.

The leader of a coun­try can be likened to the CEO of a cor­po­ra­tion and there­fore it is im­per­a­tive that all who be­long to the or­gan­i­sa­tion are fa­mil­iar with the vi­sion and mis­sion state­ments of the en­ter­prise. Dr Williams must have re­alised that his mes­sage had to fall on fer­tile soil and that young peo­ple at the time, whether they were aware of it or not, were liv­ing in ex­cit­ing times. All lead­ers need ready, will­ing and ca­pa­ble fol­low­ers and so it was im­por­tant to tar­get the youth and en­sure their "buy-in" to the tran­si­tion from be­ing a colony to be­com­ing an in­de­pen­dent na­tion. In­de­pen­dence meant that we would have to find peo­ple from our cit­i­zen­ry to fill va­cant po­si­tions in the po­lit­i­cal field and in the pro­fes­sion­al are­na. His open­ing sal­vo spoke to "go­ing lo­cal"' and drove home the point that our young na­tion would have to nur­ture and pro­duce sons and daugh­ters of the soil who could live up to the task of tak­ing the coun­try for­ward. Gain­ing in­de­pen­dence meant de­vel­op­ing and en­cour­ag­ing lo­cal tal­ent and build­ing our par­tic­u­lar brand. The au­di­ence was re­mind­ed that the coun­try was march­ing for­ward and that there was no turn­ing back. Hav­ing de­cid­ed to break away from the con­trol of the mighty Great Britain, there was no op­tion to re­turn to her em­pire in the event that we proved un­ready to go on our own.

There was on­ly one choice avail­able-to march con­fi­dent­ly for­ward and prove our abil­i­ty to man­age our af­fairs hon­est­ly, com­pe­tent­ly and at all times, in the best in­ter­est of the na­tion. The youth were warned that it was their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to take the na­tion for­ward and if they failed to do so they would have "be­trayed and jeop­ar­dised the na­tion." Dr Williams en­sured that af­ter is­su­ing such a stern warn­ing, he pro­vid­ed those who car­ried our fu­ture in their hands with the na­tion­al watch­words: Dis­ci­pline, Pro­duc­tion and Tol­er­ance. Each word car­ries a mean­ing spe­cif­ic to the oc­ca­sion of at­tain­ing in­de­pen­dence. The word dis­ci­pline means that we should not suc­cumb to the temp­ta­tion of putting self-in­ter­est be­fore the wel­fare of the coun­try. Pro­duc­tion in the work­place would en­sure that we are ful­fill­ing our true po­ten­tial and not liv­ing off the hard work of oth­ers. The du­ty of each cit­i­zen is to con­tribute mean­ing­ful­ly so that we do not waste re­sources.

We are a mul­ti-cul­tur­al so­ci­ety with cit­i­zens of var­i­ous creeds and races. Such di­ver­si­ty called for the young peo­ple at the ral­ly "to ed­u­cate your par­ents, teach them to live to­geth­er in har­mo­ny. The dif­fer­ence is not race, or colour of skin, but mer­it on­ly, dif­fer­ence of wealth and fam­i­ly sta­tus be­ing re­ject­ed in favour of equal­i­ty of op­por­tu­ni­ties." In oth­er words, we have to dis­play tol­er­ance and show re­spect for all who com­prise our so­ci­ety. While Dr Williams ad­dressed the crowd, I hope that the young peo­ple grasped the sig­nif­i­cance of his se­ri­ous mes­sage. His words were not that of a shal­low cel­e­bra­tion but more in tune with an aus­pi­cious event that marked the birth of a new na­tion filled with hope and promise. The fi­nal re­minder to the youth that they "car­ry the fu­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go in their school bags" spoke to the im­por­tance of ed­u­ca­tion and the need for an ed­u­cat­ed so­ci­ety in or­der to pre­serve our democ­ra­cy. I wish I could have been there when this speech was de­liv­ered-to seize the mo­ment and breathe the air of ex­cite­ment. For­tu­nate­ly, the speech was record­ed, so fu­ture gen­er­a­tions, like me, could read and un­der­stand the mes­sage from this dis­tin­guished man.