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.