Trinidad and Tobago Monday celebrated its 64th anniversary of political independence from Britain with contrasting statements from Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Opposition Leader Pennelope Beckles.
In her congratulatory message, Persad-Bissessar, the firat woman ever to lead a government in Trinidad and Tobago said that the population should stop blaming its problems on its colonial past arguing that after 64 years, the country should not avoid taking responsibility for its current challenges.
‘It’s time we grow up and stop blaming our problems on our colonial past to escape accepting responsibility for bad decisions we made post Independence that have resulted in negative consequences for ourselves and our nation,’ she said.
Persad-Bissessar said the country needed to confront ‘our post-Independence history with honesty and acknowledge that we should have done much better over the past 64 years’ noting that Trinidad and Tobago had entered Independence in 1962 with a strong economic and institutional foundation inherited from Britain.
She pointed to the country’s per capita income at the time, saying it was higher than that of several countries, including Japan, Chile, Greece, Spain, Hong Kong, Singapore, Portugal, Mexico, Turkey, Iraq, Brazil, Malaysia, Iran, Morocco, Taiwan and China.
‘Almost all of these countries have now superseded us,’ she said, adding that when the twin island gained its independence, it had also inherited a well-organised legal and governance structure, an advanced oil exploration and refining industry, an expansive agricultural sector and a developed railway system.
‘The fact is that the British left us a very prosperous functioning country in 1962,’ Persad-Bissessar said.
But Beckles, who is the first woman to head the main opposition People’s National Movement (PNM) said Persad-Bissessar is ‘divorced from history’ and was attempting to ‘rewrite the history of our nation.
‘Trinidad and Tobago’s journey to Independence, and our development thereafter, cannot be reduced to a politically convenient version of history that serves whichever audience she is addressing.
‘The Prime Minister is wrong to present our colonial inheritance without acknowledging the profound inequalities and social conditions that existed at Independence. Equally, she is wrong to recast our post-Independence history as a partisan struggle,’ Beckles said in her independence message.
‘Our history is more substantial than that, and our nation deserves better. It is therefore no surprise that a Prime Minister who appears unwilling to properly acknowledge the historical place of Dr. Eric Williams as the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago would now offer such a distorted account of the history of our Independence.
‘A Prime Minister who cannot speak honestly about our history cannot credibly lead the nation forward,’ Beckles said, condemning also the ‘insensitive’ statement by Persad-Bissessar to supporters of her ruling United National Congress (UNC) that ‘they do not crawl on your belly for anyone. It’s either peace or total war, nothing in between’.
Persad-Bissessar said that the party’s membership ‘was born of people mired in poverty who, at times, survived on salt and rice, while drinking water from ponds and springs. Sometimes eating one meal a day to make the sacrifices needed to educate us in cowsheds and church annexes.
‘They fetched water in box carts and bull carts, used flambeaus for light, had no healthcare, possessed one outfit of clothes for going out, and usually had to walk or ride a bicycle for miles in the sun or rain to reach any government service. They were objects of ridicule and hatred in this country for years under the PNM, post-1962 Independence.
‘We must keep working for our sons and daughters to qualify themselves to have better lives than ours. We must never stop learning, working and improving. You must strive to be owners and entrepreneurs, not simply satisfied with being workers or living on state welfare,’ said Persad-Bissessar, who has led the UNC since January 2010.
Beckles said she was taking the opportunity to condemn both independence addresses by the prime minister ‘as insensitive, divorced from reality, and devoid of any distinction between party politics and the responsibilities of national leadership.
On the occasion of our 64th Independence anniversary, the Prime Minister chose to address the UNC before addressing the nation, using a moment that belongs to all citizens to promote a partisan narrative of grievance and division. That is not the conduct of a Prime Minister seeking to unite a country’.
She said Trinidad and Tobago’s journey to Independence, ‘and our development thereafter, cannot be reduced to a politically convenient version of history that serves whichever audience she is addressing’.