Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says decades of both progress and chal­lenges have shaped the na­tion’s 60th In­de­pen­dence Day.

In a mes­sage to the na­tion yes­ter­day, Row­ley said, “Let us go be­yond the per­pet­u­al naysay­ers, with their self-de­feat­ing mis­er­able bag of neg­a­tives, that “this is not a re­al place.” We are a great place and our red, white and black cov­ers us all in every cir­cum­stance. Ac­cept the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, feel the pride. In our six­ty years, we have made vast strides in our de­vel­op­ment. We have moved from a large­ly un­der agrar­i­an, un­der­de­vel­oped econ­o­my to a high­ly in­dus­tri­alised sta­tus, with an ed­u­cat­ed work­force, sup­port­ing a so­phis­ti­cat­ed, spe­cialised ser­vices sec­tor and a trad­er in the com­plex in­ter­na­tion­al econ­o­my.”

Dr Row­ley not­ed that in­di­vid­ual re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of cit­i­zens must come in­to na­tion­al fo­cus.

“As Prime Min­is­ter, I have some con­cerns, which I call a cit­i­zens’ agen­da: the ris­ing crime surge, as a na­tion­al emer­gency re­quir­ing ac­tion from all stake­hold­ers; the ef­fec­tive­ness of the na­tion­al school cur­ricu­lum; the con­tin­u­ous re­view of our so­cial wel­fare pro­grammes; a spe­cial at­ten­tion, by the rel­e­vant min­istry, on our youths; and plac­ing fam­i­ly life in Trinidad and To­ba­go, un­der our na­tion­al spot­light. We need to reded­i­cate to the na­tion’s watch­words of Dis­ci­pline, Tol­er­ance and Pro­duc­tion, the vi­sion­ary guid­ance iden­ti­fied for us at our birth by our found­ing fa­ther Dr Er­ic Williams.”

The Prime Min­is­ter urged na­tion­als to cel­e­brate In­de­pen­dence Day with in­tro­spec­tion.

“This In­de­pen­dence mo­ment calls for a gen­uine ef­fort to­wards qui­et­ing down, one of tol­er­ance in which we stim­u­late a spir­i­tu­al com­pas­sion of broth­er­hood/sis­ter­hood, a dis­ci­pline, and readi­ness to re­move our per­son­al, self­ish in­ter­ests for the good of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

As he re­flect­ed on the na­tion’s ac­com­plish­ments over the decades, Dr Row­ley made par­tic­u­lar ref­er­ence to sports and cul­ture, list­ing the many men and women who brought na­tion­al pride and placed the glob­al spot­light on T&T.

The Prime Min­is­ter said he was grate­ful for their ac­com­plish­ments and said their achieve­ments have been di­verse.

Row­ley al­so told cit­i­zens, “At the birth of our Re­pub­lic, our Found­ing Fa­ther, Dr Er­ic Eu­stace Williams, gave us the clas­sic gift, the book, His­to­ry of the Peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, which ends, in part, with a charge to all cit­i­zens: “On Au­gust 31st, 1962, a coun­try will be free, a minia­ture state will be es­tab­lished, but a so­ci­ety and a na­tion will have to be formed. Af­ter Au­gust 31, 1962, the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go will face the fiercest test in their his­to­ry—whether they can in­vest with flesh and blood the bare bones skele­ton of their Na­tion­al An­them, ‘here every creed and race find and equal place.’”

The Prime Min­is­ter en­cour­aged na­tion­als to stay the course, say­ing, “We will all get there to­geth­er.”