by Leela Ramdeen

On Wednes­day Au­gust 31, we will cel­e­brate the 60th An­niver­sary of T&T’s In­de­pen­dence. As we cel­e­brate, let us thank all those who toiled so that we will gain our In­de­pen­dence. We will on­ly tru­ly achieve our goals as a free na­tion when we view our di­ver­si­ty as a source of strength. We are blessed to have so many eth­nic groups co-ex­ist­ing in rel­a­tive har­mo­ny. I be­lieve that it is pos­si­ble to have uni­ty and har­mo­ny in di­ver­si­ty.

I have been shar­ing with the young ones in our fam­i­ly in Lon­don, the mean­ing of In­de­pen­dence and of the role that each of them can play in ad­vanc­ing T&T’s democ­ra­cy in the di­as­po­ra. Where were you on that fate­ful day in 1962 when we gained our free­dom from Colo­nial rule? I was 12 years old. My fa­ther, the late Bal­go­b­in Ramdeen, was a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment. On Fri­day De­cem­ber 29, 1961 the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate had sat for the first time in the his­to­ry of the Par­lia­ment of T&T. In the gen­er­al elec­tion, PNM had won 20 seats and the DLP had won 10 of the 30 seats in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Pa was a mem­ber of the Op­po­si­tion, the DLP, rep­re­sent­ing the Con­stituen­cy of Ca­roni East in our first In­de­pen­dent Par­lia­ment (1961-1966).

On the night of 30 Au­gust 1962, my sib­lings and I wait­ed up for the​ re­turn of our par­ents who had at­tend­ed the flag rais­ing cer­e­mo­ny, and had lis­tened to the play­ing of our Na­tion­al An­them, to the mes­sages, in­clud­ing one from the Queen’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Her Roy­al High­ness, The Princess Roy­al who read the mes­sage sent by Queen Eliz­a­beth II, stat­ing that she was re­lin­quish­ing her rule of our coun­try. We were ea­ger to hear their first-hand ac­count of this aus­pi­cious oc­ca­sion! Par­lia­ment was in­au­gu­rat­ed by the Princess Roy­al. T&T cit­i­zens had to wait un­til 14 years lat­er, on 24 Sep­tem­ber 1976, when we at­tained Re­pub­li­can Sta­tus and the pow­er to gov­ern our coun­try was then de­ter­mined en­tire­ly by the cit­i­zens of the coun­try.

There is a 48 sec­ond video clip by Pe­dro Cristo­bal that al­ways makes me smile when­ev­er I lis­ten to it. It is en­ti­tled: Bal­go­b­in Ramdeen on Love/T&T’s In­de­pen­dence. In it, Pa re­calls how he felt on the night of 30 Au­gust when, at the stroke of mid­night, he stood in front of the Par­lia­ment build­ing and saw the Union Jack “come down, and our flag, the Red, White and Black, go up and flut­ter in the breeze. And I told my wife, ‘When I spoke to you for the first time, I thought love was a bad thing be­cause my heart was beat­ing so much that I thought I would die. And when I saw that flag go up, I felt the same way’.”

That morn­ing, in his In­de­pen­dence Day speech, Dr Er­ic Williams ad­dressed the na­tion stat­ing, in­ter alia, “Your Na­tion­al Flag has been hoist­ed to the strains of your Na­tion­al An­them, against the back­ground of your Na­tion­al Coat of Arms, and amidst the beau­ty of your Na­tion­al Flower...What use will you make of your In­de­pen­dence?...The first re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that de­volves up­on you is the pro­tec­tion and pro­mo­tion of your democ­ra­cy.”

As we pre­pare to cel­e­brate our An­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence, re­flect on these words and on the words on our Coat of Arms: “To­geth­er we as­pire, to­geth­er we achieve.” We will cer­tain­ly achieve a lot more if on­ly we could “pull to­geth­er”; if on­ly we could iden­ti­fy and work to achieve com­mon goals; if on­ly we could em­brace morals and val­ues that will pro­pel us for­ward in our glob­alised world.

I re­call see­ing a Face­book post to­day be­moan­ing the fact that dur­ing the first 19 days of Au­gust, there were 44 mur­ders in T&T, 37 of which were gun-re­lat­ed. One of the per­sons who re­spond­ed to the post ex­pressed sor­row that we seem to “nor­malise” vi­o­lence in our beloved coun­try and that we have no fo­cused de­ter­rence in­ter­ven­tions or strate­gies to fa­cil­i­tate be­hav­iour change.

Britain, no longer con­trols the af­fairs of our coun­try. We are the ones to ad­dress the many so­cial ills that be­set us; we are the ones who are called up­on to make Dr Williams’ words a re­al­i­ty: “Let us al­ways be able to say, with the Psalmist, be­hold, how good, and how pleas­ant it is for brethren to dwell to­geth­er in uni­ty.”

Let’s give mean­ing to our watch words: Dis­ci­pline, Pro­duc­tion, Tol­er­ance. Hap­py In­de­pen­dence Day!