?Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning said that Eman­ci­pa­tion was for all, de­spite eth­nic ori­gins and so was In­di­an Ar­rival Day. He was de­liv­er­ing a speech last Fri­day at the an­nu­al din­ner of the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion for the Em­pow­er­ment of Black Peo­ple (NAEAP) at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Ma­coya. He said, "This is not African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day. Eman­ci­pa­tion in T&T, as in oth­er coun­tries, has most im­por­tant­ly al­so been a strug­gle span­ning gen­er­a­tions of all ori­gins.

"Cit­i­zens of every ori­gin have been in­volved in the eman­ci­pa­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. It is the same for (In­di­an) Ar­rival Day. We all came from dis­tant shores and built this place that is now our home. We all ar­rived and have all been eman­ci­pat­ed by our col­lec­tive ef­forts. Let our his­to­ry and our con­tin­u­ing com­mon strug­gle weld us fur­ther to­geth­er.

There is no oth­er way to face the chal­lenges that are be­fore us," said the Prime Min­is­ter. Ac­cord­ing to Man­ning, the coun­try has been shaped by hands of many colours and minds of many cul­tures. "As a col­lec­tive, we were thus ear­ly eman­ci­pat­ed from fear of oth­ers, a fact which has helped to pro­duce the en­dur­ing har­mo­ny in plu­ral­i­ty which is at the heart of our na­tion­hood."

He said T&T must "nev­er loose sight" of the deep sig­nif­i­cance of Eman­ci­pa­tion Day. On this oc­ca­sion, Man­ning said, the coun­try must re­mem­ber the fact that the world did even­tu­al­ly bring to a close one of the cru­ellest chap­ters in the his­to­ry of mankind. Al­so speak­ing at the event was Man­ning's name sake, Pro­fes­sor Patrick Man­ning, a His­to­ri­an at the Pitts­burgh Uni­ver­si­ty.