Michelle Loubon

Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards says T&T should con­sid­er whether the coun­try is tak­ing the best and "most ap­pro­pri­ate steps for­ward as we grow as an in­de­pen­dent na­tion." The ob­ser­va­tion is con­tained in his Eman­ci­pa­tion Day 2010 mes­sage mark­ing the Au­gust 1,1834 de­c­la­ra­tion. Richards said: "The jour­ney from 1838 un­til now has not been an easy one as, we are well aware and his­to­ry records, the facts that have con­tributed to mak­ing us the peo­ple we are. We need to re­mind our­selves of them if we are to take the best and most ap­pro­pri­ate steps for­ward as we grow as an in­de­pen­dent na­tion. "Ours has been de­scribed as a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety, and in many ways it is so. "How­ev­er, the cel­e­bra­tion of Eman­ci­pa­tion Day is a time to con­sid­er the ex­tent to which we are in­deed free and where we are as in­di­vid­u­als, and col­lec­tive­ly, in the process of eman­ci­pat­ing our­selves, es­pe­cial­ly in the way we think.

For no one can re­al­ly de­clare us free. This is a good time to ask our­selves where we stand on that opin­ion," Richards added. T&T is found­ed up­on the prin­ci­ples of democ­ra­cy–gov­ern­ment of the peo­ple, for the peo­ple and by the peo­ple. Richards cit­ed free­dom quotes in­clud­ing US politi­cian Ad­lai Steven­son's view that "a free so­ci­ety is one where it is safe to be un­pop­u­lar." He not­ed that Thucy­dides the Athen­ian his­to­ri­an, born in the 5th cen­tu­ry BC, said: "The se­cret of hap­pi­ness is free­dom and the se­cret of free­dom is courage." Richards said Thucy­dides who had ex­pe­ri­enced ex­ile knew "Free­dom is not li­cence or dis­or­der. Nor is courage brava­do, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it sig­nals in­tim­i­da­tion from what­ev­er quar­ter and in what­ev­er man­ner."

He al­so warned T&T to be eter­nal­ly vig­i­lant with re­gard to its free­dom.

Richards al­so quot­ed Baron de Mon­tesquieu who said: "A na­tion may lose its lib­er­ties in a day and not miss them in a cen­tu­ry." Richards said cit­i­zens have a sa­cred re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pre­serve T&T's free­dom. "We should not take light­ly the courage with which they faced the ear­ly days of Eman­ci­pa­tion and con­tin­u­ing, as they, women side by side with men, laid foun­da­tions on which our In­de­pen­dence would even­tu­al­ly be built. "Out of re­spect for what they have done, we have a du­ty to pre­serve in­de­pen­dence of mind and guard the free­doms which we have gained over time, pre and post In­de­pen­dence, in­clud­ing those of our in­sti­tu­tions," said Richards. He re­mind­ed the cit­i­zen­ry they had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to make a con­tri­bu­tion to T&T's de­vel­op­ment. Richards al­so con­veyed a spe­cial ap­peal to youth to take up the chal­lenge.