Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Se­nior lec­tur­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Dr Jerome Teelucks­ingh, says Re­pub­lic Day should be more than a pub­lic hol­i­day. He is urg­ing cit­i­zens to use this year’s oc­ca­sion for re­flec­tion, di­a­logue and ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion in the na­tion’s de­mo­c­ra­t­ic life.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Teelucks­ingh said, “Re­pub­lic Day has the po­ten­tial to cre­ate pa­tri­o­tism and uni­ty. It’s a day to ex­am­ine our di­ver­si­ty, cel­e­brate the con­tri­bu­tions of both our he­roes and or­di­nary cit­i­zens, and re­flect on who we are as a peo­ple.”

Re­pub­lic Day is a defin­ing mo­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s his­to­ry.
On Au­gust 1st, 1976, the coun­try of­fi­cial­ly be­came a re­pub­lic, end­ing for­mal gov­er­nance un­der the British monar­chy.

Sir El­lis Clarke, the last gov­er­nor-gen­er­al, was sworn in as the first pres­i­dent, and the first ses­sion of the re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment con­vened on Sep­tem­ber 24, a date now ob­served as Re­pub­lic Day.

“We were no longer gov­erned by the or­der of coun­cil from the Queen in the UK. We now had our own Con­sti­tu­tion, an in­dige­nous Con­sti­tu­tion that re­flect­ed us,” Teelucks­ingh ex­plained as he re­flect­ed on the sig­nif­i­cance of the pe­ri­od.

“That al­lowed us to have our own pres­i­dent—a ma­jor po­lit­i­cal shift and a mile­stone for the na­tion.”

De­spite its his­tor­i­cal im­por­tance, Teelucks­ingh ex­pressed con­cern that many cit­i­zens, par­tic­u­lar­ly young peo­ple, failed to ful­ly grasp the sig­nif­i­cance of Re­pub­lic Day.

“Many young peo­ple don’t un­der­stand the dif­fer­ence be­tween In­de­pen­dence Day in 1962 and Re­pub­lic Day in 1976. Adults some­times don’t see it ei­ther. This is why we need greater civic ed­u­ca­tion,” he said.

“We tend to live in the present and have a short­er mem­o­ry. Un­der­stand­ing our his­to­ry helps build a more en­gaged and re­spon­si­ble so­ci­ety.”

He al­so point­ed to the hol­i­day’s re­cent his­to­ry, not­ing that be­tween 1999 and 2001, Re­pub­lic Day was re­moved from the of­fi­cial cal­en­dar, on­ly to be re­in­stat­ed in 2002.

“This shows how the day has been over­looked and some­times triv­i­alised,” he said.

Teelucks­ingh al­so em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of ac­knowl­edg­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s twin-is­land iden­ti­ty.

“There is a grow­ing move­ment in To­ba­go for se­ces­sion. Re­pub­lic Day should be a time to strength­en our re­la­tion­ship with To­ba­go. Too of­ten, cel­e­bra­tions fo­cus on Trinidad and side­line To­ba­go. This is some­thing we must ad­dress,” he said.

Teelucks­ingh urged trans­form­ing Re­pub­lic Day in­to a day of na­tion­al di­a­logue and ac­tion.

“It shouldn’t just be a qui­et day or a pub­lic hol­i­day. We should use it to en­gage cit­i­zens, dis­cuss chal­lenges, and plan col­lec­tive­ly for the fu­ture,” he said.

“It’s a day to re­flect, par­tic­i­pate, and build uni­ty. Every cit­i­zen has a role to play in shap­ing our na­tion.”

He added, “Not many coun­tries have achieved re­pub­li­can sta­tus. We should cher­ish Re­pub­lic Day, use it wise­ly, and make it a day where every Trinida­di­an and To­bag­on­ian feels in­clud­ed and rep­re­sent­ed.

“Re­pub­lic Day is more than a hol­i­day. It is a plat­form for di­a­logue, re­flec­tion, and na­tion-build­ing. We need to em­brace its full po­ten­tial and en­sure that all cit­i­zens young and old, in Trinidad and To­ba­go have a voice in shap­ing our fu­ture.”