As Trinidad and To­ba­go marks 64 years of in­de­pen­dence to­day, Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo is call­ing for cit­i­zens to have the free­dom to live with­out fear while con­fronting the coun­try’s on­go­ing crime and vi­o­lence cri­sis.

In her In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage, Kan­ga­loo urged peo­ple to be can­did in as­sess­ing the na­tion’s state of af­fairs.

“All is not as we would wish it to be. Too many cit­i­zens face un­cer­tain­ty about their fu­ture, and too many young peo­ple strug­gle to see a se­cure place for them­selves in the coun­try of their birth,” Kan­ga­loo said.

While the coun­try cel­e­brates its in­de­pen­dence, Kan­ga­loo im­plored cit­i­zens not to over­look the re­al­i­ties fac­ing the coun­try. In­stead, she said the day gives peo­ple the op­por­tu­ni­ty, free­dom and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to con­front them.

“The free­dom we cel­e­brate in­cludes the free­dom to live with­out fear. Every life lost to vi­o­lence di­min­ish­es us, and every fam­i­ly left to mourn bears a sor­row that touch­es the na­tion as a whole. We are there­fore right to in­sist up­on safe­ty and or­der,” the Pres­i­dent said.

She added, “But our in­de­pen­dence al­so en­trusts to us laws, in­sti­tu­tions and lib­er­ties which gen­er­a­tions be­fore us strug­gled to se­cure. A ma­ture so­ci­ety does not re­gard se­cu­ri­ty, lib­er­ty and the sanc­ti­ty of life as com­pet­ing as­pi­ra­tions. It works, pa­tient­ly and re­spon­si­bly, to pro­tect all three.”

Be­yond law en­force­ment, Kan­ga­loo point­ed to the role of par­ents, fam­i­lies, teach­ers, neigh­bours and com­mu­ni­ties in help­ing young peo­ple find pur­pose.

She added that any di­vi­sions among peo­ple in so­ci­ety must be con­front­ed and that all cit­i­zens must be treat­ed equal­ly and with re­spect.

“In­de­pen­dence made us one peo­ple in law. Na­tion­hood asks us to be­come one peo­ple in prac­tice: not by sur­ren­der­ing the dif­fer­ences that en­rich us, but by re­fus­ing to al­low those dif­fer­ences to de­ter­mine who be­longs, whose con­tri­bu­tion is val­ued, or whose dig­ni­ty de­serves pro­tec­tion.

“The Re­pub­lic be­longs whol­ly and equal­ly to every cit­i­zen. Its in­sti­tu­tions are not the pos­ses­sions of the per­sons who oc­cu­py them, nor in­stru­ments of the mo­ment. They are held in trust for all the peo­ple.”

As the coun­try pro­gress­es, Kan­ga­loo called for greater pro­duc­tion and in­no­va­tion, while al­so high­light­ing the need to pre­serve the coun­try’s cul­tur­al her­itage, pre­pare for cli­mate change, and strength­en food se­cu­ri­ty na­tion­al­ly.

Kan­ga­loo not­ed that the re­turn of the In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade, af­ter it was can­celled last year due to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns, pro­vides cit­i­zens with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to cel­e­brate na­tion­hood while al­so reaf­firm­ing their com­mit­ment and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to a bet­ter fu­ture.