Dr Garvin Heer­ah

The glit­ter has been washed from the streets, the last truck has rolled out of Port-of- Spain, the feath­ers are boxed, the flags fold­ed, and the sweet echo of iron and pan now lingers on­ly in mem­o­ry. What re­mains is some­thing deep­er than beads, biki­nis, colours and cre­ativ­i­ty, deep­er than the cui­sine and the gy­rat­ing of near-naked bod­ies, deep­er than the mu­sic, the laugh­ter and the mem­o­ries ... it is iden­ti­ty.

From the ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tions to the elec­tri­fy­ing Panora­ma fi­nals at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, from the pul­sat­ing trucks on the road to the de­bates on so­cial me­dia, T&T once again dis­played what makes us rare in the glob­al fam­i­ly of na­tions.

We are a peo­ple who cel­e­brate pas­sion­ate­ly, ar­gue loud­ly, cre­ate bril­liant­ly, and rec­on­cile nat­u­ral­ly. That is our rhythm.

The bac­cha­nal? Yes.

The dis­agree­ments with judges? Of course.

The fierce loy­al­ty to a ca­lyp­son­ian, a band, a steel or­ches­tra? With­out apol­o­gy.

That is us.

Car­ni­val is not sim­ply an event on a cal­en­dar. It is a na­tion­al mir­ror. It re­flects our cre­ativ­i­ty, our com­pet­i­tive­ness, our en­tre­pre­neur­ial spir­it, our re­silience, and some­times even our di­vi­sions. But above all, it re­flects our uni­ty be­neath the noise.

This year, as the dust set­tled on the Sa­van­nah stage and the Road March de­bates raged on, we saw again that our cul­ture is alive and evolv­ing.

The melodies of the sea­son, whether from tents, trucks, or pa­n­yards, stirred not on­ly our feet but our na­tion­al con­scious­ness.

When the an­them En­core echoed from the mas­ter­ful Machel Mon­tano, it was more than a Road March con­tender; it was a de­c­la­ra­tion. A state­ment that Trinidad and To­ba­go nev­er tru­ly says good­bye. We pause. We re­set. We re­turn stronger.

To our ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, guardians of com­men­tary and con­science, you re­mind­ed us that satire and so­cial re­flec­tion still mat­ter. Be it a lackaray, a mau­vais lange or Bless­ings over the land.

To our so­ca artistes, am­bas­sadors of en­er­gy and glob­al reach, you car­ried the flag across bor­ders.

To our pan­nists and arrangers, es­pe­cial­ly those who filled the Sa­van­nah with mag­ic, you proved once more that the steel­pan re­mains our ge­nius gift to the world.

To the youth, the next gen­er­a­tion of torch­bear­ers, keep the faith and reach for the stars, the world is wait­ing.

To every mas­quer­ad­er who chipped from Ari­api­ta Av­enue to the Sa­van­nah stage, you em­bod­ied free­dom wrapped in colour.

Car­ni­val is art in mo­tion.

But be­yond the mu­sic and mas, we must com­mend those whose work is of­ten un­no­ticed when every­thing goes right, our se­cu­ri­ty forces. The co­or­di­nat­ed ef­forts of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, the De­fence Force, the Fire Ser­vice, and oth­er na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies en­sured that hun­dreds of thou­sands could cel­e­brate safe­ly.

Se­cu­ri­ty in Car­ni­val is no small un­der­tak­ing. It re­quires in­tel­li­gence plan­ning, crowd man­age­ment, traf­fic con­trol, in­ter-agency co-or­di­na­tion, and rapid re­sponse ca­pa­bil­i­ties. It de­mands vig­i­lance when oth­ers are dis­tract­ed by rev­el­ry. It re­quires pro­fes­sion­al­ism un­der pres­sure.

This year, their pres­ence was firm yet mea­sured. Vis­i­ble yet dis­ci­plined. For that, we ex­press na­tion­al grat­i­tude.

A safe Car­ni­val is not ac­ci­den­tal, it is op­er­a­tional ex­cel­lence.

We must al­so ac­knowl­edge the en­tre­pre­neurs, the cos­tume de­sign­ers who worked sleep­less nights, the small ven­dors who de­pend­ed on Car­ni­val sales to car­ry their house­holds through the year, the food stall op­er­a­tors, the event pro­mot­ers, the sound en­gi­neers, the stage builders, the make­up artists, the dri­vers, the bar­tenders, and the count­less mi­cro-busi­ness­es that or­bit the Car­ni­val econ­o­my.

The tele­vi­sion crews, the pro­duc­ers, the cam­era­men and women, the hosts, the pan­el­lists, a na­tion­al pride.

For some, Car­ni­val is cel­e­bra­tion.

For oth­ers, it is sur­vival.

For many, it is op­por­tu­ni­ty.

In that lies an im­por­tant na­tion-build­ing truth: Car­ni­val is an eco­nom­ic en­gine. It stim­u­lates tourism, avi­a­tion, hos­pi­tal­i­ty, re­tail, man­u­fac­tur­ing, and the cre­ative sec­tor.

When long lines formed at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port with for­eign-based Tri­nis re­turn­ing home, it was more than nos­tal­gia, it was eco­nom­ic im­pact. When those same lines now stretch with de­par­tures, it sig­nals the end of a sea­son but not the end of con­nec­tion.

The di­as­po­ra leaves phys­i­cal­ly, but cul­tur­al­ly they re­main an­chored.

Car­ni­val re­minds us that no mat­ter where we live, Lon­don, Toron­to, New York, Mi­a­mi, when the rhythm calls, we an­swer.

Yet, as the stands down­town and in the Sa­van­nah are dis­man­tled and stored for next year, we are faced with a choice. Do we pack away the uni­ty as well? Or do we car­ry it in­to March, April, and the rest of 2026?

Be­cause the re­al test of a na­tion is not how well it cel­e­brates, but how well it gov­erns, col­lab­o­rates, in­no­vates, and cares for its cit­i­zens when the mu­sic stops.

Some will say this was their last Car­ni­val. They are “hang­ing up their guns,” metaphor­i­cal­ly. Oth­ers are al­ready sketch­ing cos­tume con­cepts for 2027. Some are analysing what went wrong in judg­ing. Oth­ers are plot­ting new sounds, new fu­sions, new busi­ness mod­els. That cre­ative rest­less­ness is our strength.

What if we ap­proached na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment the way we ap­proach Panora­ma prepa­ra­tion? Months of dis­ci­plined prac­tice. Clear lead­er­ship. Strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tion. Healthy com­pe­ti­tion. Ac­count­abil­i­ty. Fi­nal­ly, per­for­mance and ex­cel­lence.

What if we de­bat­ed pol­i­cy with the same in­ten­si­ty but rec­on­ciled with the same speed as Car­ni­val dis­putes?

What if we in­vest­ed in youth men­tor­ship, com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment, and crime pre­ven­tion with the same ur­gency we in­vest in band launch­es and fete pro­mo­tions?

Car­ni­val proves that when T&T fo­cus­es, we can pro­duce world-class ex­pe­ri­ences. That ca­pa­bil­i­ty must not be sea­son­al. As the smoke clears and the dust set­tles, we must har­ness the mo­men­tum of Car­ni­val and redi­rect it in­to sus­tained na­tion-build­ing.

Let 2026 not sim­ply be the year we “chip through” wait­ing for the next bac­cha­nal. Let it be the year we re­fine sys­tems, strength­en com­mu­ni­ties, sup­port our artists, ex­pand our cre­ative ex­ports, and deep­en pub­lic safe­ty frame­works.

When 2027 comes, as it sure­ly will, let us not just re­turn for rev­el­ry, but re­turn stronger as a na­tion.