They are the four words that com­prise the clos­ing lines of the Na­tion­al An­them, the ti­tle of a na­tion­al song com­posed by the late Mar­jorie Pad­more and part of the cho­rus of a pop­u­lar ca­lyp­so re­leased around the time of T&T’s In­de­pen­dence.

In 1962, with cit­i­zens of a new­ly emerg­ing na­tion op­ti­misti­cal­ly look­ing to a fu­ture free of colo­nial rule, the shared hope was for a coun­try blessed with pros­per­i­ty and peace and, the com­mon in­vo­ca­tion was for God to bless this na­tion.

But 60 years lat­er and with less than a fort­night to go un­til Au­gust 31, T&T’s Di­a­mond Ju­bilee, this is a na­tion so bat­tered by vi­o­lence and blood­shed, so bur­dened with cor­rup­tion and po­lit­i­cal im­ma­tu­ri­ty, it is dif­fi­cult to see the bless­ings.

In­stead, T&T seems to have bro­ken in­to thou­sands of pieces and the ap­proach­ing sixth decade brings with it a mon­u­men­tal task of re­cal­i­brat­ing and re­build­ing. There is lit­tle sense of fes­tiv­i­ty and joy, even with the re­mark­able ac­com­plish­ment of the 60th an­niver­sary of in­de­pen­dence just 13 days away.

The cur­rent mood in the coun­try is in sharp con­trast to the at­mos­phere of joy­ous ex­pec­ta­tion that ex­ist­ed in Au­gust 1962, as cit­i­zens pre­pared to cast off a past that in­clud­ed 165 years as a British colony.

All these years lat­er, many of the hopes and dreams of the gen­er­a­tion that wit­nessed the low­er­ing of the Union Jack, and the hoist­ing of the red, white and black flag, are still to be achieved. But they should not be al­lowed to fade com­plete­ly.

It is easy to de­scend in­to de­spair with the fre­quen­cy of blood­shed, protests and weath­er-re­lat­ed dis­as­ters.

But there are still the bless­ings, dif­fi­cult though they might be to count.

Sports he­roes in cy­cling and ath­let­ics brought the na­tion pride and joy with the medals they won at the re­cent Com­mon­wealth Games in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land, and the Elite Pan Amer­i­can Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onship in Li­ma, Pe­ru.

This is still the blessed na­tion that gave the world the steel­pan, ca­lyp­so so­ca and these are the twin is­lands blessed to be the birth­place of peo­ple who have earned re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al ac­claim for their pro­fes­sion­al, sport­ing and cul­tur­al achieve­ments.

Over 60 years, T&T has grown from a pop­u­la­tion of 879,436 to 1.4 mil­lion, weath­er­ing so­cial and eco­nom­ic crises, in­clud­ing the 1970 ri­ots, the painful process of struc­tur­al ad­just­ment in the 1980s, the Ju­ly 1990 at­tempt­ed coup and a de­te­ri­o­rat­ing crime sit­u­a­tion.

But there are more in­sid­i­ous en­e­mies loom­ing in the form of transna­tion­al crime, cli­mate change, dis­eases that eas­i­ly breach na­tion­al bor­ders and dis­tant wars.

This calls for en­light­ened and in­spi­ra­tional lead­er­ship to lead T&T out of trib­al­ism, hope­less­ness and fear. The lead­ers for this new era must have the ca­pac­i­ty to in­spire and en­cour­age much-need­ed na­tion­al trans­for­ma­tion to stave off the dark­ness that threat­ens to over­whelm us.

With Au­gust 31 fast ap­proach­ing, the fer­vent prayer res­onat­ing across this na­tion should be, in the words of the late Mar­jorie Pad­more:

God bless our na­tion

Of many var­ied races

May we pos­sess that com­mon love

That binds and makes us One.

Let it be known around the World

That we can boast of Uni­ty

And take a pride in Our Lib­er­ty.