I be­lieve, with sin­cere hon­esty, that we should be cel­e­brat­ing the 57th an­niver­sary of our In­de­pen­dence to­day, look­ing deeply in­to our in­di­vid­ual con­sciences to con­sid­er the highs and lows in our re­cent, na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence.

The com­ple­tion of Car­ifes­ta 2019 was one such high. We saw thou­sands of our cit­i­zens blend­ing to­geth­er with oth­er Caribbean peo­ples in a fes­ti­val to cel­e­brate the great spir­it, which con­tin­ues to evolve in­to a dis­tinc­tive Caribbean cul­ture.

We demon­strat­ed, that in spite of the his­to­ry of how we all ar­rived here, and our lan­guage and eth­nic dif­fer­ences, there is a unique rich­ness of spir­it which re­sides, with­in all Caribbean peo­ple.

That “Caribbeaness” was fur­ther demon­strat­ed, last week­end when this coun­try and Bar­ba­dos signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing from which joint ini­tia­tives will be de­vel­oped for the ex­ploita­tion of hy­dro-car­bon re­sources across our mar­itime bound­aries.

This ge­o­graph­i­cal area, ap­pears to hold gas-re­serve po­ten­tial, which could be ex­ploit­ed to sup­ply our Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate, at the same time, grant­i­ng Bar­ba­dos a guar­an­teed mar­ket for sup­plies de­vel­oped in its ex­clu­sive eco­nom­ic zone.

Your gov­ern­ment al­so pro­pos­es to dis­cuss fur­ther co­op­er­a­tion with the Bar­ba­dos gov­ern­ment—ini­tia­tives in the ar­eas of in­vest­ment, trans­porta­tion, fish­ing and the shar­ing of diplo­mat­ic mis­sions across Africa and Asia.

The po­ten­tial of a new, co­op­er­a­tive Caribbean frame­work is in­deed laud­able. I sum­marised it last week­end as be­ing “All good for Bar­ba­dos, and All good for Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

There is al­so the high of this coun­try’s suc­cess­es at the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Pan Amer­i­can Games in which our ath­letes came home with 12 medals, in­clud­ing two gold, and a praise-wor­thy stand­ing among all per­form­ing coun­tries.

But there were lows on the na­tion­al land­scape, how­ev­er. One of which was the spread­ing of a dis­ap­point­ing­ly neg­a­tive sto­ry line that this coun­try was in a state of cri­sis. Some per­sons – rather “doom­sters” look at our dai­ly lives, nev­er cit­ing our great in­ter­na­tion­al achieve­ments, the beau­ties of life in Trinidad and To­ba­go or the dai­ly strug­gles against our in­evitable na­tion­al chal­lenges. In­stead, they choose to pur­vey on­ly sto­ries of un­nec­es­sary bit­ter­ness, man­u­fac­tured so­cial con­flict, racial ten­sion, even glee­ful­ly pre­dict­ing our col­lec­tive fail­ure.

They pro­nounced, wrong­ly, that your gov­ern­ment would nev­er take se­ri­ous ac­tion against white-col­lar crime, nor pro­gres­sive­ly pur­sue the spate of vi­o­lent crimes—but ob­serve that your gov­ern­ment’s stand of pro­ceed­ing with a se­ries of leg­isla­tive crime-fight­ing mea­sures, and that it demon­strates a de­ter­mined will to bring or­der where there is a chaot­ic re­al­i­ty—fix­ing the bro­ken parts.

Ad­mit­ted­ly, the in­her­ent fault lines run­ning through our body politic are man­i­fest­ed every day in the anger and vi­o­lence among in­di­vid­u­als, fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties. It brings no com­fort to re­mind that crime is now a uni­ver­sal dis­ease, be­ing spread by the cul­ture of drugs, guns and gangs.

This dis­ease was iden­ti­fied years ago, and at­tempts were made to iso­late Trinidad and To­ba­go, as much as pos­si­ble, but sad­ly, in re­cent times, our bor­ders were left vul­ner­a­ble, the re­sults of that cul­ture are what we see re­port­ed every day.

I wish to re­peat that the gov­ern­ment, which I lead, con­tin­ues to em­brace the great Vi­sion out­lined by this coun­try’s Found­ing Fa­ther, Dr Er­ic Eu­stace Williams, at our in­de­pen­dence, in 1962. We strive to­wards fix­ing and main­tain­ing our in­sti­tu­tions, the ed­u­ca­tion of our peo­ple, the de­coloni­sa­tion of their minds, and im­prove­ments in the qual­i­ty of life, over­all.

For the vul­ner­a­ble among us, we fight to main­tain the pro­vi­sions of over 100 grants and ser­vices, avail­able through gov­ern­ment min­istries and agen­cies – many of these be­ing far more sup­port­ive than those in de­vel­oped so­ci­eties.

The more for­tu­nate, it should be eas­i­ly recog­nised, con­tin­ue to ben­e­fit -- even in this pe­ri­od of de­clin­ing gov­ern­ment rev­enues -- from free health care, ed­u­ca­tion, var­i­ous State sub­si­dies and fa­cil­i­ta­tions.

The watch words, with­in Dr Williams’s Vi­sion of Dis­ci­pline, Pro­duc­tion and Tol­er­ance are still so rel­e­vant and alive to­day, hav­ing the same sig­nif­i­cance of fifty-sev­en years ago, and are, no doubt, need­ed now, prob­a­bly, more than ever. In­de­pen­dence, un­less “it is a sham and an im­pos­ture”, Dr Williams wrote, means a clean slate, and the throw­ing off of the bur­dens of the past but we can­not side­step the bur­dens of the present and hope to suc­ceed.

The 21st cen­tu­ry, as it un­folds, is de­mand­ing strate­gic knowl­edge from both a peo­ple and a na­tion. This then is not the time for cit­i­zens to play the blame-game or to dis­hon­est­ly throw stones at each oth­er.

In oth­er parts of the world, pro­gres­sive cit­i­zens, rather than pelt stones, are us­ing stones to build paths to a New So­ci­ety. Let’s all work to con­vert­ing the lows of par­ti­san po­lit­i­cal ri­val­ries, just as they con­front us, in­to the highs of har­mo­ny, mu­tu­al re­spect and a per­ma­nent space for moral val­ues.

Let’s seek to bring out the best in our­selves, al­ways.

Re­cent­ly, I made some com­ments on the Pub­lic Ser­vice, which were ea­ger­ly mis­in­ter­pret­ed, un­for­tu­nate­ly. How­ev­er, I hope that this could be the be­gin­ning a na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion on the Pub­lic Ser­vice, and that we could work col­lec­tive­ly to­wards de­mand­ing a busi­ness-ori­en­tat­ed or­gan­i­sa­tion, one that de­liv­ers cus­tomer-sen­si­tive ser­vice, adopts a cul­ture of strate­gic plan­ning, de­liv­ers prompt re­sults and cost ef­fec­tive projects.

Such an or­gan­i­sa­tion has to be the spinal cord of the New So­ci­ety – our re-fo­cus­ing on high­er moral val­ues, and moral­i­ty in pub­lic and pri­vate of­fice; achiev­ing a safer coun­try, through au­thor­i­ties solv­ing and cit­i­zens con­scious­ly pre­vent­ing crime; the fi­nan­cial com­fort of all, and cit­i­zens ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a pro­gres­sive­ly-im­prov­ing qual­i­ty of life; and a cre­ative and in­no­v­a­tive so­ci­ety.

As cit­i­zens, we must al­ways be mind­ed that 21st cen­tu­ry trends de­mand that we fix those un­pro­duc­tive as­pects in our lives, and that we all in­no­vate, cre­ate and seek to dis­cov­er.

Trends in this Cen­tu­ry are de­mand­ing an evo­lu­tion­ary shift from the cul­ture of de­pen­den­cy and en­ti­tle­ment to a new role for the cit­i­zen, that of in­di­vid­ual re­spon­si­bil­i­ty i.e. peo­ple tak­ing charge of their lives, rather than wait­ing on oth­ers or the state for re­lief. We must ac­knowl­edge and de­mand that there are im­por­tant roles for the state in all our lives but we will on­ly get the best of our­selves and our so­ci­ety when we al­so ac­knowl­edge the very im­por­tant role of in­di­vid­ual re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

As we con­scious­ly re­view the list of highs and lows, we should al­so be ask­ing our­selves how can we re-cre­ate, change, solve, and in­vent. We must be aware that the Cen­tu­ry is now de­mand­ing that cit­i­zens cre­ate their own New So­ci­ety, in which they both own the change they want, and the fu­ture they think is pos­si­ble. Let us hold hands and step con­fi­dent­ly for­ward with “bound­less faith” in a des­tiny which we can shape.

Hap­py In­de­pen­dence Day, Fel­low Cit­i­zens.