Advertise With Us
About Us
Listen
Watch

Login

/

Subscribe

Home

News

Carnival

Business

Sports

E-Paper

Features

Opinion

Traffic Cameras

Life

Classifieds

Death Notices

Community

Real Estate

About Us

Contact Us

Home
News
Carnival
Sports
E-paper
Business
Classifieds
Other
Death Notices
Traffic Cameras
Covid-19
Features
Opinion
Games
Subscriptions
Real Estate

The fear of exercising our mind to its full potential

by

#meta[ag-author]
Brian Lewis
20220802043658
20220802

Yes­ter­day we cel­e­brat­ed Eman­ci­pa­tion day. Trinidad and To­ba­go was the first in­de­pen­dent coun­try to de­clare a na­tion­al hol­i­day to com­mem­o­rate the abo­li­tion of slav­ery in the British Em­pire.

The British like oth­er colo­nial pow­ers had al­lowed the wide­spread prac­tice of slav­ery to take place be­fore it was fi­nal­ly abol­ished through­out the British Em­pire by the Slav­ery Abo­li­tion Act of 1833, which came in­to ef­fect on Au­gust 1st 1834.

This was fol­lowed by a pe­ri­od of ap­pren­tice­ship with free­dom even­tu­al­ly com­ing in 1838. Slaves be­tween 1834 and 1838 were eman­ci­pat­ed but not free. Phys­i­cal­ly free­dom was at­tained. As we re­flect over the years and con­tem­plate where we are as of 1st Au­gust 2022. The leg­endary Bob Mar­ley’s lyrics from his icon­ic “Re­demp­tion Song” comes to mind—Eman­ci­pate your­self from men­tal slav­ery none but your­self can free your mind—rings true.

In al­most every en­deav­our it may ap­pear as if we as a coun­try con­tin­ue to be the au­thor of our demise—in a man­ner of speak­ing —are we tru­ly free?

Where are we as a coun­try and so­ci­ety? Can we on sober re­flec­tion and con­tem­pla­tion stand up and say we have em­braced the op­por­tu­ni­ty pro­vid­ed to us as free peo­ple?

We ap­pear to be more en­am­oured by oth­er in­flu­ences oth­er than our own. We con­tin­ue to be held back by fear. Fear of what pray tell? It’s as if the ghosts of the whips and chains, the sheer bru­tal­i­ty of slav­ery and ap­pren­tice­ship re­main a dark grey cloud over our heads.

We are still on the plan­ta­tion. For all the progress made. We con­tin­ue to set­tle for av­er­age. Don’t draw at­ten­tion to your­self. Fit in. Don’t rock the boat. The end re­sult of this en­slave­ment to fear is that we un­der­es­ti­mate our po­ten­tial.

Aim­ing to dom­i­nate rather than com­pete scares the liv­ing day­light out of most of us. We di­lute our great­ness and damp­en down our pas­sion for ex­cel­lence and suc­cess. Time and again I tell or re­mind our youth and young peo­ple, in par­tic­u­lar, to keep be­liev­ing, stay fo­cused, and stay dis­ci­plined your best is still to come. The most valu­able as­sets as hu­man be­ings we have are our mind­set, per­sis­tence, cre­ativ­i­ty and courage. We bare­ly tap in­to our reser­voir of men­tal ca­pac­i­ty. We hold back and are afraid to go all in.

Yet we cel­e­brate Eman­ci­pa­tion day every year. What are we cel­e­brat­ing? How have we eman­ci­pat­ed our­selves from men­tal slav­ery?

This isn’t to sug­gest that there aren’t Trin­bag­o­ni­ans achiev­ing ex­cel­lence and ful­fill­ing their po­ten­tial. Those in­di­vid­u­als will say that they have achieved against the odds or have had to leave their beloved Trinidad and To­ba­go to make it. Why is this so? Is it on­ly a per­cep­tion? Is it a dis­tor­tion of the truth?

Sun­day 31st Ju­ly—every dai­ly news­pa­per car­ried on their front and back page head­lines —Gold for Paul! The na­tion was eu­phor­ic—cel­e­bra­to­ry mes­sages rained down for Birm­ing­ham 2022 Com­mon­wealth Games Kierin cham­pi­on Nicholas Paul. Al­so to be com­mend­ed is Kwe­si Browne who made the fi­nal plac­ing 6th place fin­ish.

Not for the first time in our coun­try’s 60 years of In­de­pen­dence—the laud­able ex­ploits on an in­ter­na­tion­al sports stage lift­ed the spir­its of the cit­i­zens. There were calls for more cor­po­rate sup­port for our sports­men and women. In cel­e­brat­ing sport­ing suc­cess it’s im­por­tant to ap­pre­ci­ate that the podi­um is the end re­sult of the en­tire process. A process that re­quires set­ting big goals and go­ing all in to achieve. Our sports­men and women in seek­ing to ful­fil their po­ten­tial have eman­ci­pat­ed them­selves from men­tal slav­ery. No mat­ter the lim­its, chal­lenges, ob­sta­cles, fail­ures, in­juries and mis­takes. They pick them­selves up and keep try­ing. They don’t quit. They don’t give up. The chal­lenge con­tin­ues to be that sport in Trinidad and To­ba­go is still not free of the cul­tur­al chains of be­ing placed low down the list of so­ci­etal pri­or­i­ties. The last­ing lega­cy of Colo­nial­ism and Slav­ery.


Click HERE to Login

Want FREE access to all our content? Sign up HERE!

Tagged in:

Responses

Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored

Trending

Man in viral video hitting woman captured
Soca Monarch competition cancelled
Spent shell with TTPS marking found at murder scene
Retired senior cop awarded $200,000 in damages
Cocorite man killed at home
$300,000 missing from Siparia Corporation
Dolsingh knighted by Queen of Denmark
Double murder in Blanchisseuse
Kamla: No retreat, no surrender
Man gunned down following high-speed chase in Debe
Today's
Guardian
View
Subscribe

Publications

Numbness in your feet?

20230123072450

Your walking gear matters!

20230116101944
Sat Balkaransingh

Sat Balkaransingh

Photo by Wesley Gibbings

Sat Balkaransingh

Sat Balkaransingh

Photo by Wesley Gibbings

The Wanderers–Sat Balkaransingh in verse

20230117074645
Vic Susanna Surajdeen with her children's Book "The Adventures Of Heidi The Boxer Pup!"

Vic Susanna Surajdeen with her children's Book "The Adventures Of Heidi The Boxer Pup!"

Vic Susanna Surajdeen with her children's Book "The Adventures Of Heidi The Boxer Pup!"

Vic Susanna Surajdeen with her children's Book "The Adventures Of Heidi The Boxer Pup!"

Beloved pet dog’s death inspires children’s book

20230112202635
Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

News

Business

Sports

Life

Opinion

Tobago Today

Classifieds

Death Notices

Subscriptions

Real Estate

Categories

News
Business
Sports
Features
Opinion
Traffic Cameras
Death Notices

INFORMATION

About Us
Contact Us
Advertise With Us
Privacy Policy
Subscriptions
Terms of Services

Digital Media

The Big Board Company.
Real Estate
Classifieds

TELEVISION

CNC3 Television

RADIO

951 Remix
Sangeet 106.1 FM
Sky 99.5FM
Slam 100.5 FM
Vibe CT 105 FM
Mix 90.1 FM (Guyana)
Freedom 106.5 FM

About Us

Guardian Media is the premier provider of multimedia solutions and authoritative insight on news, politics, business, finance, sports, and current affairs. Our brand portfolio includes CNC3, Guardian, TBC Radio Network and The Big Board Company.

Contact us

Send us an e-mail here or call us at +1-(868)-225-4465

Follow us