Nass­er Khan

Day, Au­gust 31, 2012, marks the 50th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence of Trinidad and To­ba­go from Britain. It was af­ter mid­night on Au­gust 31, 1962, at the front of the Red House in Port-of-Spain, that the Roy­al Marines band be­gan to play as Britain's Union Jack flag was low­ered to the sound of 'The Last Post'. On the ad­join­ing flag­pole was hoist­ed the new red, white and black flag while our na­tion­al an­them played (Forged from the love of Lib­er­ty...). And thus was an­nounced the new­ly In­de­pen­dent Trinidad and To­ba­go to the loud ap­plause of the crowds gath­ered in Wood­ford Square, across the street and oth­er van­tage points, to the blar­ing sounds of ca­lyp­so and steel­band mu­sic and the crack­ling of fire­works. It was the be­gin­ning of a new dawn and a proud mo­ment in our na­tion's his­to­ry. But what was the road to In­de­pen­dence like? There must have been sig­nif­i­cant dates and events and most im­por­tant­ly, peo­ple who would have con­tributed to this achieve­ment. Trinidad and To­ba­go's his­to­ry had been one of con­quer and col­o­niza­tion with the su­per­pow­ers of the day fight­ing at var­i­ous times for pos­ses­sion of these the south­ern­most of the Caribbean chain of is­lands. The orig­i­nal set­tlers, the Amerindi­ans, were no match for the in­vad­ing ma­raud­ers...To­ba­go changed hands among the British, French, and Dutch but even­tu­al­ly end­ed up in British hands.

Trinidad re­mained un­der Span­ish rule un­til 1797, and though large­ly set­tled by French colonists al­so end­ed up, like To­ba­go, in the hands of the British. The road to in­de­pen­dence is linked to the grant­i­ng of the rights to vote in 1924, the cul­mi­na­tion of many cries for the fran­chise and a pe­ti­tion sub­mit­ted to the Colo­nial Of­fice call­ing for the in­clu­sion of "lo­cal" rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the gov­er­nance of the colony. The con­tin­ued de­mands for in­creased par­tic­i­pa­tion in gov­er­nance and the labour-based "But­ler ri­ots" of 1937 call­ing for in­ter­nal self gov­ern­ment, led to the British Par­lia­ment grant­i­ng uni­ver­sal adult suf­frage to Trinidad and To­ba­go in 1945. This was lim­it­ed to per­sons aged 21 years and over. The evo­lu­tion of the elec­toral and gov­ern­ing process was en­hanced and re­fined since that time, due to the strug­gles of thinkers and labour lead­ers such as Tubal Uri­ah 'Buzz' But­ler, George Weekes, Adri­an Co­la Rien­zi, Arthur Cipri­ani, CLR James and the po­lit­i­cal and lead­er­ship skills of Dr Er­ic Williams, the coun­try's first chief min­is­ter from 1956 to 1959, its first pre­mier from 1959 to 1962, and first prime min­is­ter from 1962 to 1981. Self-gov­ern­ment was grad­u­al­ly in­creased be­tween 1946 and 1961 with the elec­tions of those years serv­ing as dress re­hearsals for in­de­pen­dence.

The at­tempt at Caribbean in­te­gra­tion through the con­cept of a fed­er­at­ed re­gion, called the Fed­er­a­tion, fell apart in Jan­u­ary 1962, lead­ing Dr Er­ic Williams to make his fa­mous state­ment: "One from ten leaves ze­ro". The Fed­er­a­tion, now dis­solved, Trinidad and To­ba­go de­cid­ed to strive for In­de­pen­dence by tak­ing a del­e­ga­tion to Marl­bor­ough House in Lon­don to see Regi­nald Mauld­ing, sec­re­tary of State for the Colonies. This del­e­ga­tion com­prised of Dr Er­ic Williams, Dr Rudranath Capildeo, Learie Con­stan­tine, El­lis Clarke, Taj­mool Ho­sein, Li­onel Seuk­er­an, Pe­ter Far­qua­har, Stephen Ma­haraj and Ash­ford Sinanan. The de­tails of the in­de­pen­dence and the new con­sti­tu­tion were worked out and Au­gust 31, 1962 was de­clared the day that Trinidad and To­ba­go would achieve its In­de­pen­dence from Britain. On the day be­fore in­de­pen­dence the new prime min­is­ter de­liv­ered in his speech to the na­tion, di­rect­ed to its school chil­dren in his now well-known elo­quent and charis­mat­ic fash­ion: "You car­ry the fu­ture of the coun­try in your school­bags" and "To­mor­row, In­de­pen­dence Day, you will be the chil­dren of the in­de­pen­dent state of Trinidad and To­ba­go. And in a few years you will be called up­on by the law of the land to share in the priv­i­leges and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, the rights and du­ties of cit­i­zens". Trinidad and To­ba­go has giv­en the world many gifts from its sun drenched trop­i­cal shores...the gift of the steel­pan, the on­ly mu­si­cal in­stru­ment in­vent­ed in the 20th cen­tu­ry; our world fa­mous car­ni­val; the mu­sic gen­res of ca­lyp­so, so­ca, chut­ney and chut­ney so­ca; the lim­bo dance; Bri­an Lara, one of the great­est bats­men the sport of crick­et has ever seen; many bril­liant minds such as Er­ic Williams and Rudranath Capildeo, and of course two Miss Uni­verse and one Miss World beau­ties. Not bad for a tiny na­tion such as ours, less than 2,000 square miles with a pop­u­la­tion of just 1.3 mil­lion.

Au­gust 31, 2012, will in­deed be a spe­cial day for us all to cel­e­brate.