Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s In­de­pen­dence Day as­sess­ment that Trinidad and To­ba­go should be fur­ther ahead af­ter 64 years of In­de­pen­dence, giv­en the foun­da­tion in­her­it­ed from Britain, has trig­gered a sharp his­tor­i­cal re­buke, with a his­to­ri­an ac­cus­ing her of pre­sent­ing a dis­tort­ed pic­ture of colo­nial rule.

For all 64 years of this coun­try’s time as an In­de­pen­dent na­tion, the oil and gas sec­tor has been the back­bone of T&T’s econ­o­my.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go cel­e­brates 64 years of po­lit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence to­day, we must recog­nise the con­tri­bu­tion of our sport­ing per­son­nel on and off the field. Emerg­ing from the throes of colo­nial­ism and tasked with man­ag­ing the chal­lenges of eco­nom­ic, po­lit­i­cal, and so­cio-cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment, our sports­women and sports­men have con­sis­tent­ly played their part, even when our lead­ers have some­times seemed bereft of ideas.

In­de­pen­dence means more than free­dom from ex­ter­nal con­trol. It places up­on a na­tion the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of gov­ern­ing it­self, man­ag­ing its re­sources, pro­tect­ing its cit­i­zens and ad­dress­ing the so­cial, po­lit­i­cal, le­gal and eco­nom­ic chal­lenges it faces. Gov­ern­ments are elect­ed to con­front these prob­lems re­gard­less of how they orig­i­nat­ed. They ex­er­cise au­thor­i­ty over na­tion­al bor­ders and in­sti­tu­tions and are ac­count­able for what oc­curs with­in them un­der the rule of law.