A week from to­day, this na­tion will be caught up in the pa­tri­ot­ic fer­vour of In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions with mil­i­tary pa­rades and ob­ser­vances that in­spire na­tion­al pride.

Ex­act­ly a month lat­er, the spot­light will be on the 48th an­niver­sary of this coun­try achiev­ing Re­pub­li­can sta­tus and the high point will be the Na­tion­al Awards cer­e­mo­ny, where out­stand­ing cit­i­zens will be ho­n­oured for their con­tri­bu­tions to T&T’s de­vel­op­ment.

There are al­ready signs of prepa­ra­tions for those cel­e­bra­tions, with pub­lic build­ings and spaces be­ing adorned with buntings and ban­ners in red, white and black.

The pe­ri­od be­tween Au­gust 31 and Sep­tem­ber 24 has be­come a sea­son of pa­tri­ot­ic dis­plays and ex­pres­sions when there is an in­creased fo­cus on the pos­i­tives that make up T&T’s unique iden­ti­ty.

But it should al­so be a time of hon­est as­sess­ment of the ac­tions need­ed to rid this coun­try of the many ills ham­per­ing progress and taint­ing T&T’s im­age.

The count­down to the 62nd an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence has been marred by vi­o­lent crime. The mur­der count is al­ready past 400 and threat­en­ing to sur­pass the record toll of 605 record­ed in 2022.

The main con­trib­u­tor is the gun-fu­elled gang vi­o­lence which has re­cent­ly in­fil­trat­ed To­ba­go where the record mur­der toll climbed to 20 this week.

The lat­est in­ci­dent was a mass shoot­ing in Scar­bor­ough on Wednes­day night in which Ker­lon Thomas was killed and five oth­ers in­jured.

The heart­less blood­let­ting by the crim­i­nals took a bru­tal turn with the mur­der of Moru­ga busi­ness­man En­ri­co Guer­ra and his daugh­ter, Ani­ka, five, who was shot five times, in­clud­ing in the head.

The re­al­i­ty that these bru­tal slaugh­ters have be­come so com­mon­place is con­tribut­ing to wide­spread pub­lic fear and de­spair, which is de­tract­ing from the cel­e­bra­to­ry at­mos­phere that should her­ald the ap­proach­ing In­de­pen­dence Day.

In­stead, there is con­cern about the con­tin­ued fail­ure of the crime sup­pres­sion and pre­ven­tion strate­gies of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in re­sponse to the grow­ing mur­der toll.

Feel­ings of na­tion­al pride are al­so tem­pered by the prob­lems en­velop­ing the coun­try’s lead in­tel­li­gence en­ti­ty, the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA).

As T&T pre­pares to mark 62 years of In­de­pen­dence with crime in­flict­ing a sig­nif­i­cant bur­den on its psy­che, the biggest need is for the true pa­tri­ots to come for­ward to con­tribute to heal­ing and re­build­ing this na­tion.

Pa­tri­o­tism, not pol­i­tics, should in­form the in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes that must be ur­gent­ly im­ple­ment­ed to save lives and re­duce the trau­ma be­ing in­flict­ed on law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

Pa­tri­ots are the cit­i­zens with the ca­pac­i­ty to look past race, class and cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences to fos­ter the col­lab­o­ra­tions among com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, so­cial ser­vice providers, and law en­force­ment that have been lack­ing for too long. They are the ones will­ing to go in­to the trench­es, ven­tur­ing in­to the crime hotspots to build trust be­tween po­lice and those mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties.

Pa­tri­ots from all walks of life, com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivists, faith-based lead­ers and even ex-con­victs and sur­vivors of vi­o­lence have cru­cial roles to play in iden­ti­fy­ing and me­di­at­ing con­flicts aimed at de-es­ca­lat­ing po­ten­tial­ly fa­tal in­ci­dents.

To save T&T, it is time for a sus­tained, col­lec­tive, pa­tri­ot­ic re­sponse to the crim­i­nals de­stroy­ing this na­tion.