The can­cel­la­tion of the In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade dis­ap­point­ed those who saw the pa­rade as a ges­ture of pride in the coun­try’s na­tion­hood. There will be oth­er, less grand and more com­mu­ni­ty-ori­ent­ed cel­e­bra­tions. The can­cel­la­tion gen­er­at­ed mut­ed dis­cus­sion about how best to cel­e­brate In­de­pen­dence Day, re­sult­ing in no se­ri­ous ex­plo­ration of the al­ter­na­tives. Any In­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for ma­ture re­flec­tion, but more im­por­tant­ly, to chart a course to­ward a more suc­cess­ful fu­ture.

There is much to cel­e­brate. The de­mo­c­ra­t­ic foun­da­tions have with­stood two at­tempt­ed coups with­out any ex­ter­nal in­ter­ven­tion. Reg­u­lar and cred­i­ble elec­tions are held in ac­cor­dance with con­sti­tu­tion­al arrange­ments. Trans­fers of po­lit­i­cal pow­er have been peace­ful and blood­less. We en­joy a vi­brant civ­il so­ci­ety and an ac­tive me­dia. While po­lit­i­cal di­vi­sions are racial­ly bi­ased, the so­ci­ety has found ways to co­here, ac­cept, cel­e­brate, and lever­age cul­tur­al and re­li­gious dif­fer­ences.

But there are chal­lenges. The high mur­der rate is ev­i­dence that crime is per­va­sive. The pub­lic per­cep­tion is that the le­gal process is over­bur­dened, the jus­tice sys­tem is too slow, and cor­rup­tion is en­dem­ic and wide­spread. Two ad­min­is­tra­tions have de­clared states of emer­gency in six months, one be­cause of an im­pend­ing crime wave, the oth­er be­cause of re­port­ed threats from crim­i­nal el­e­ments to as­sas­si­nate po­lice, prison of­fi­cers, mem­bers of the ju­di­cia­ry, and oth­er of­fi­cials linked to law en­force­ment and state pros­e­cu­tions. This comes af­ter the 2024 claims of ne­far­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties in the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency and the es­tab­lish­ment of an unau­tho­rised mil­i­tarised unit with­in its ranks. These events do not in­spire con­fi­dence.

Cit­i­zens are al­so aware that there are nu­mer­ous eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, not the least of which is the scarci­ty of for­eign ex­change, a man­i­fes­ta­tion of deep­er eco­nom­ic prob­lems. The con­tin­u­ing re­duc­tion in cred­it card lim­its demon­strates that the com­mer­cial banks have nei­ther the tools nor the ca­pac­i­ty to ad­dress what is a sys­temic is­sue. The mea­sures an­nounced by the Fi­nance Min­is­ter dur­ing the mid-year bud­get re­view have not been im­ple­ment­ed. Nev­er­the­less, the con­sen­sus is that those mea­sures would serve lit­tle prac­ti­cal pur­pose.

The prob­lem is a weak­er econ­o­my and de­clin­ing for­eign ex­change earn­ings, re­sult­ing from low­er ex­port prices, low­er ex­port vol­umes, and more re­cent­ly, the neg­a­tive im­pact of the Trump tar­iffs on ex­ports, es­pe­cial­ly petro­chem­i­cals. There is no quick fix. A dif­fer­ent eco­nom­ic mod­el is need­ed. This will take time and re­quires buy-in and agree­ment from all the so­cial part­ners.

Sim­i­lar­ly, the geopo­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment has be­come more com­pli­cat­ed. The US in­va­sions of Grena­da in 1983 and Pana­ma in 1989 demon­strate that the Munro Doc­trine is alive. Small states must al­ways tread care­ful­ly in world af­fairs. There­fore, while T&T recog­nis­es the pre­em­i­nence of the Unit­ed States, it has al­ways steered its own course and fol­lowed a pol­i­cy of non-in­ter­fer­ence. We es­tab­lished diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with Chi­na in 1974 at the height of the Cold War and main­tained friend­ly re­la­tions with Cu­ba de­spite 63 years of US sanc­tions. We have re­mained on good terms with our clos­est neigh­bour, Venezuela, de­spite its dif­fi­cult po­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion.

The scourge of kid­nap­pings preva­lent dur­ing the ear­ly 2000s was ad­dressed through tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion with our Latin Amer­i­can neigh­bours and re­mains an ex­am­ple of sen­si­ble re­gion­al South-to-South co-op­er­a­tion. This can be re­peat­ed. There­in lies the re­al mean­ing of in­de­pen­dence. We are re­spon­si­ble for our­selves and must choose the op­tions that suit our best in­ter­ests. Even in the most dif­fi­cult of sit­u­a­tions, there are al­ways op­por­tu­ni­ties.