In­de­pen­dence Day is one of those rare oc­ca­sions when pol­i­tics usu­al­ly gives way to pa­tri­o­tism.

For us here in Trinidad and To­ba­go, Au­gust 31 marks that defin­ing mo­ment, 64 years ago, when the na­tion emerged from British colo­nial rule and as­sumed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for its own fu­ture. It is a day tra­di­tion­al­ly re­served for cel­e­brat­ing a shared na­tion­al iden­ti­ty and reaf­firm­ing a col­lec­tive com­mit­ment to the Re­pub­lic. It is al­so a time when par­ty colours re­cede and the red, white and black of the na­tion­al flag take cen­tre stage.

That spir­it of uni­ty is es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant to­day as T&T con­fronts sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges, in­clud­ing crime, eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, so­cial in­equal­i­ty and the need for in­sti­tu­tion­al re­form. None of these is­sues can be ef­fec­tive­ly ad­dressed with­out co­op­er­a­tion across po­lit­i­cal, eth­nic and so­cial di­vides.

It is against this back­drop that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­ci­sion to is­sue two sep­a­rate In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sages must be viewed as a missed op­por­tu­ni­ty. One of those mes­sages was aimed specif­i­cal­ly at mem­bers of her Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress fam­i­ly, whom she de­scribed as “the most im­por­tant peo­ple to me”.

While there is noth­ing im­prop­er about a po­lit­i­cal leader com­mu­ni­cat­ing with par­ty sup­port­ers, In­de­pen­dence Day oc­cu­pies a unique place on the na­tion­al cal­en­dar. It is a na­tion­al ob­ser­vance in­tend­ed to unite all cit­i­zens, re­gard­less of po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion, with the coun­try’s leader ex­pect­ed to set a tone that em­braces every­one.

The Prime Min­is­ter has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained that she gov­erns for all Trin­bag­o­ni­ans, not on­ly those who sup­port her par­ty. A sep­a­rate In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage di­rect­ed at par­ty loy­al­ists there­fore ap­pears dif­fi­cult to rec­on­cile with that prin­ci­ple. While her re­marks may have res­onat­ed with sup­port­ers, they al­so risked cre­at­ing the per­cep­tion that par­ti­san loy­al­ties were be­ing el­e­vat­ed above na­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

Fur­ther­more, ref­er­ences to his­tor­i­cal griev­ances and dis­crim­i­na­tion may re­flect gen­uine ex­pe­ri­ences and de­serve thought­ful dis­cus­sion. Yet In­de­pen­dence Day should be an oc­ca­sion for na­tion­al re­flec­tion and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. Fram­ing such is­sues through a par­ti­san lens risks deep­en­ing di­vi­sions rather than fos­ter­ing mu­tu­al un­der­stand­ing.

Sim­i­lar­ly, lan­guage urg­ing sup­port­ers to em­brace “peace or to­tal war” and dis­play “stee­li­ness and sav­agery when re­quired” in­tro­duced an un­nec­es­sar­i­ly con­fronta­tion­al note in­to a cel­e­bra­tion of na­tion­al achieve­ment. Such rhetoric may have a place in po­lit­i­cal cam­paign­ing, but it sits un­easi­ly along­side the ideals of uni­ty, in­clu­sion and com­mon pur­pose that In­de­pen­dence Day is meant to em­body.

The chal­lenges con­fronting Trinidad and To­ba­go can­not be over­come by any sin­gle par­ty, eth­nic group or so­cial class. Progress re­quires trust, co­op­er­a­tion and a shared com­mit­ment to the na­tion­al in­ter­est. In­de­pen­dence Day of­fers lead­ers a valu­able op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­in­force that mes­sage and in­spire cit­i­zens to look be­yond their dif­fer­ences.

By us­ing Au­gust 31 to ral­ly sup­port­ers and crit­i­cise per­ceived op­po­nents, the Prime Min­is­ter missed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to unite the coun­try around a com­mon vi­sion. True in­de­pen­dence means more than self-gov­ern­ment. It re­quires a will­ing­ness to bridge the po­lit­i­cal, eth­nic and so­cial fault lines that have too of­ten con­strained na­tion­al progress.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, the Prime Min­is­ter must de­cide whether her fore­most re­spon­si­bil­i­ty on In­de­pen­dence Day is to speak as a par­ty leader or as the leader of the na­tion. On this most na­tion­al of oc­ca­sions, Trinidad and To­ba­go de­served the lat­ter.