Nine days from to­day, Trinidad and To­ba­go will cel­e­brate 64 years of In­de­pen­dence. As the na­tion counts down to this im­por­tant mile­stone, there is a need for hon­est re­flec­tion on the state of our so­ci­ety, par­tic­u­lar­ly the in­creas­ing­ly di­vi­sive na­ture of our po­lit­i­cal cul­ture.

In­de­pen­dence was fun­da­men­tal­ly an ex­er­cise in na­tion-build­ing. The ar­chi­tects of the new na­tion faced the chal­lenge of forg­ing a shared na­tion­al iden­ti­ty with­out re­quir­ing cit­i­zens to aban­don their dif­fer­ences. Their vi­sion was not one of uni­for­mi­ty but of uni­ty.

That is why, 64 years lat­er, we should pause and re­flect on our na­tion­al mot­to: “To­geth­er We As­pire, To­geth­er We Achieve.”

The mot­to is root­ed in a vi­sion of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment through uni­ty and col­lec­tive ef­fort. The re­peat­ed use of the word “to­geth­er” is de­lib­er­ate. It re­minds us that both as­pi­ra­tion and achieve­ment are shared pur­suits. Progress de­pends on the con­tri­bu­tions of all cit­i­zens, re­gard­less of race, re­li­gion, class, or po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion.

The Na­tion­al An­them re­in­forces the same phi­los­o­phy. Patrick Castagne’s de­c­la­ra­tion that “Here every creed and race find an equal place” was a pow­er­ful ex­pres­sion of what the new na­tion was in­tend­ed to be. Di­ver­si­ty was not a chal­lenge to be over­come; it was an in­te­gral part of the na­tion­al project.

Even the na­tion­al flag was de­signed to re­flect this vi­sion. Red rep­re­sents vi­tal­i­ty, en­er­gy, courage and friend­li­ness; white sym­bol­is­es the sea, pu­ri­ty of as­pi­ra­tions and equal­i­ty; and black sig­ni­fies ded­i­ca­tion, strength, uni­ty and pur­pose. To­geth­er, these colours em­body both the char­ac­ter of the peo­ple and their shared fu­ture.

These sym­bols are more than cer­e­mo­ni­al ex­pres­sions. They are re­minders of a na­tion­al com­pact.

Yet to­day, po­lit­i­cal dis­course too of­ten en­cour­ages di­vi­sion rather than com­mon pur­pose. Dis­agree­ment has in­creas­ing­ly be­come a li­cence to de­monise fel­low cit­i­zens, ques­tion their pa­tri­o­tism or re­duce com­plex na­tion­al is­sues to par­ti­san loy­al­ties.

More trou­bling still is the rise of racist rhetoric across so­cial me­dia plat­forms. It is a dis­turb­ing de­vel­op­ment in a coun­try once praised by the late Arch­bish­op Desmond Tu­tu as a na­tion of “rain­bow peo­ple.” T&T can­not be­come stronger if every ini­tia­tive is judged sole­ly by who pro­posed it, if every set­back is weaponised for po­lit­i­cal gain, or if cit­i­zens re­treat in­to trib­al po­lit­i­cal camps.

The coun­try’s chal­lenges, in­clud­ing crime, eco­nom­ic pres­sures, in­fra­struc­tur­al de­fi­cien­cies, ed­u­ca­tion, health­care, hous­ing, and the need to cre­ate mean­ing­ful op­por­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple, do not be­long to any one po­lit­i­cal par­ty. Nei­ther do the so­lu­tions.

The In­de­pen­dence watch­words, “Dis­ci­pline. Pro­duc­tion. Tol­er­ance”, re­main re­mark­ably rel­e­vant. Tol­er­ance does not re­quire sur­ren­der­ing deeply held con­vic­tions. Rather, it de­mands recog­ni­tion that those with whom we dis­agree re­main fel­low cit­i­zens with an equal stake in this Re­pub­lic.

In the face of mount­ing so­cial, po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, In­de­pen­dence Day must be more than an oc­ca­sion for speech­es, pa­rades and fire­works. It should serve as an op­por­tu­ni­ty for a gen­uine recom­mit­ment to the val­ues and as­pi­ra­tions up­on which this na­tion was found­ed.

As Au­gust 31 ap­proach­es, we should ask our­selves whether our pol­i­tics re­flects the na­tion we set out to build in 1962.