AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

Re­porter

The mid­night hour that sig­nalled T&T’s in­de­pen­dence has been re­count­ed count­less times. But the road to that his­toric mo­ment was paved long be­fore the clock struck twelve, shaped by a re­lent­less se­ries of meet­ings, metic­u­lous plan­ning and com­mit­ment.

In the weeks be­fore the na­tion­al flag was raised for the first time as an in­de­pen­dent na­tion, T&T Pre­mier Dr Er­ic Eu­stace Williams worked as­sid­u­ous­ly to achieve this goal. Fol­low­ing the col­lapse of the West In­dies Fed­er­a­tion in 1962, Dr Williams saw no need to pro­long any at­tempt to seek in­di­vid­ual in­de­pen­dence for the coun­try he led. Want­i­ng to shed 165 years of British colo­nial rule re­quired meet­ing, work­ing with and, of course, con­vinc­ing mem­bers of the British Gov­ern­ment.

Along with sev­er­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Williams was tasked with pre­sent­ing a de­fin­i­tive case for our in­de­pen­dence from Great Britain. In Ju­ly 1962, dur­ing a House of Com­mons de­bate, the then Un­der-Sec­re­tary of State for the Colonies, Hugh Fras­er, ex­pressed con­fi­dence that T&T would be­come some­thing much larg­er than just an­oth­er new­ly in­de­pen­dent coun­try.

“I be­lieve it is pos­si­ble that there should emerge in Trinidad a suc­cess­ful mul­ti-racial so­ci­ety, which may be an ex­am­ple to many oth­er peo­ples with the same sort of sit­u­a­tion through­out the world,” Fras­er told his col­leagues.

“Dif­fi­cul­ty though the sit­u­a­tion may be, I think we can per­mit our­selves some con­fi­dence in this re­spect.”

How­ev­er, there were some con­cerns. Ac­cord­ing to a Trinidad Guardian re­port in 1962, Britain’s Labour op­po­si­tion ques­tioned whether T&T’s econ­o­my was per­haps too de­pen­dent on oil, and whether a new­ly in­de­pen­dent na­tion could suc­cess­ful­ly di­ver­si­fy its rev­enue streams.

But there was wide­spread recog­ni­tion that few peo­ple were bet­ter po­si­tioned to tack­le those chal­lenges than T&T’s own leader, Dr Williams. The In­de­pen­dence Bill passed its sec­ond read­ing with­out op­po­si­tion, fol­low­ing a sim­i­lar bill for Ja­maica weeks ear­li­er.

In­de­pen­dence Fever

In the days lead­ing up to Au­gust 31, 1962, an “In­de­pen­dence Fever” swept across the twin-is­land na­tion, set­ting the stage for the birth of a new state.

On the night of Ju­ly 13, thou­sands of ju­bi­lant Trin­bag­o­ni­ans swarmed the un­fin­ished ter­mi­nal build­ing at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port to wel­come Prime Min­is­ter-des­ig­nate Dr Er­ic Williams and his team back from con­sti­tu­tion­al talks.

The un­of­fi­cial mot­to of the oc­ca­sion was “A Na­tion is Born.”

A Trinidad Guardian re­port high­light­ed one plac­ard car­ried by the Laven­tille Youth Move­ment. Writ­ten in Latin, it trans­lat­ed to: “From pos­si­bil­i­ty to re­al­i­ty; to the brave and faith­ful, noth­ing is dif­fi­cult. If God be for us, who can be against us? I came, I saw, I con­quered.”

The work had tru­ly on­ly then be­gun.

A new coun­try need­ed sym­bols and em­blems, mean­ing the colours and de­sign of the na­tion­al flag and Coat of Arms had to be set­tled. The Col­lege of Arms, along­side the lo­cal In­de­pen­dence Com­mit­tee, worked to ap­prove the orig­i­nal Coat of Arms, de­signed by artist Carlisle Chang and de­sign­er George Bai­ley, along with the na­tion­al colours for the flag: red, white and black, rep­re­sent­ing the el­e­ments of fire, wa­ter and earth. These de­ci­sions were made af­ter re­view­ing sub­mis­sions and sug­ges­tions of­fered by mem­bers of the pub­lic.

The na­tion­al flower was al­so cho­sen, the flam­ing wild poin­set­tia, known as Trinidad’s pride, the [dou­ble] Cha­co­nia.

Once these choic­es were fi­nalised, streets and build­ings were paint­ed and dec­o­rat­ed. With the na­tion’s colours and the Cha­co­nia promi­nent­ly dis­played in flo­ral dé­cor, T&T pre­sent­ed a strik­ing pic­ture to the rest of the world.

Build­ing a na­tion

Prepa­ra­tions for In­de­pen­dence Day ex­tend­ed far be­yond flags and fes­tiv­i­ties. Is­land-wide fetes were planned and com­pe­ti­tions were held, with prac­ti­cal­ly any­thing be­ing done to com­mem­o­rate the na­tion­al ac­com­plish­ment.

An In­de­pen­dence Ca­lyp­so Com­pe­ti­tion was held for songs re­flect­ing the spir­it of in­de­pen­dence and na­tion­hood, with a first prize of $1,000. Lord Bryn­ner won the in­au­gur­al com­pe­ti­tion and was crowned the 1962 In­de­pen­dence Ca­lyp­so King.

At the same time, weight­i­er state mat­ters were be­ing con­sid­ered and set in mo­tion.

The first sol­diers of the T&T Na­tion­al Guard be­gan their tem­po­rary stay at the Po­lice Bar­racks. Among them were non-com­mis­sioned of­fi­cers and for­mer mem­bers of the West In­dia Reg­i­ment who had spent years sta­tioned in Ja­maica be­fore the col­lapse of the West In­dies Fed­er­a­tion.

With T&T’s im­pend­ing in­de­pen­dence, sev­er­al of these men were re­called in­to ser­vice as the found­ing mem­bers of the new Na­tion­al Guard. Bills were al­so de­bat­ed and passed to es­tab­lish the le­gal frame­work of an in­de­pen­dent state, in­clud­ing the land­mark T&T De­fence Bill.

But or­di­nary cit­i­zens were not left out, be­ing giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­vest in the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic fu­ture and de­vel­op­ment.

In Ju­ly, the Fi­nance Min­is­ter ANR. Robin­son an­nounced ‘In­de­pen­dence Bonds’. The bonds were is­sued in de­nom­i­na­tions rang­ing from $10 to $1,000, with the promise that mon­ey in­vest­ed would dou­ble af­ter 12 years. The in­ter­est rate be­gan at three per cent and rose to near­ly nine per cent, av­er­ag­ing about six per cent over the full term.

Roy­al­ty, well-wish­es

and VIPs

Amid this lo­cal flur­ry, T&T was not sim­ply prepar­ing for in­de­pen­dence. The small na­tion was prepar­ing to re­ceive the world.

More than 30 coun­tries were ex­pect­ed to send of­fi­cial rep­re­sen­ta­tives, with 169 dis­tin­guished per­son­al guests of Prime Min­is­ter-des­ig­nate Dr Williams ar­riv­ing to wit­ness the oc­ca­sion. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Cana­da, Cu­ba, Rus­sia, Is­rael, Chi­na and Nige­ria were among the for­eign dig­ni­taries ex­pect­ed in Trinidad, re­flect­ing the in­ter­na­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance at­tached to the coun­try’s sov­er­eign­ty.

For some, the vis­it was al­so a first close en­counter with the coun­try.

But Al Mor­gi, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from Is­rael, said his coun­try had al­ready learned much about T&T.

“We in Is­rael know a lot about T&T through the re­cent vis­it of Dr. Williams and his del­e­ga­tion to our coun­try,” Mor­gi said, adding that the vis­it had left an ex­cel­lent im­pres­sion on the Is­raeli gov­ern­ment and its peo­ple.

For­eign naval units al­so joined the oc­ca­sion, with war­ships from Britain, Cana­da, the Unit­ed States, the Nether­lands and Venezuela an­chor­ing to par­tic­i­pate in the cel­e­bra­tions.

World lead­ers sent his­toric to­kens of good­will. Pope John XXI­II of­fered bless­ings and prayers in a for­mal mes­sage, while US Pres­i­dent John F Kennedy pre­sent­ed a sil­ver desk set fea­tur­ing an ink­stand and a com­plete set of the ‘Pa­pers of Thomas Jef­fer­son’ as a per­son­al gift to Dr Williams.

As one can ex­pect, prepa­ra­tions reached an­oth­er lev­el when Her Roy­al High­ness Princess Mary (the pa­ter­nal aunt of Queen Eliz­a­beth II) ar­rived days be­fore for the In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions.

From the mo­ment Princess Mary ar­rived, her sched­ule was packed: she opened the new ter­mi­nal build­ing at Pi­ar­co be­fore pro­ceed­ing in­to Port-of-Spain. On Au­gust 30, at 9 pm, a gala cul­tur­al per­for­mance was held in her ho­n­our at Queen’s Hall.

And then came the mo­ment every­one was wait­ing for.

At 11:54 pm, the flag-rais­ing cer­e­mo­ny at the Red House fore­court com­menced. Just min­utes re­mained. At mid­night, the red, white and black flag rose in­to the late-night air. The new na­tion had en­tered its very first day.

Church ser­vices were sched­uled for 12:25 am, fol­lowed by the for­mal State Open­ing of Par­lia­ment fea­tur­ing the Princess Roy­al, the Gov­er­nor-Gen­er­al, the new Prime Min­is­ter, church and state of­fi­cials, and in­ter­na­tion­al guests.

Dur­ing those mag­nif­i­cent mo­ments, some pon­dered silent ques­tions. Could this new na­tion gov­ern it­self?

Could this mul­ti-cul­tur­al so­ci­ety con­tin­ue be­ing an ex­am­ple to the world? Could its lead­ers guide it in­to the fu­ture?

While the an­swers were left to his­to­ry, an un­de­ni­able tide of pride swept across the fore­court as the flag reached full mast.

And just as Lord Bryn­ner sang, ‘Let dis­ci­pline, pro­duc­tion, and tol­er­ance guide us through, In­de­pen­dence.”