Fellow citizens, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:

This morning, we witnessed, at the Queenโ€™s Park Savannah, albeit at a new location, the discipline and devotion of those who serve beneath our flag. Here, at the National Academy for the Performing Arts, we are surrounded by another expression of nationhood: the imagination, creativity and culture of the people for whom they serve.

A nation needs both: the discipline to protect what it values, and the imagination to build what it has not yet become.

Today, as we celebrate sixty-four years of Independence, we take pride in the country we have built. But national pride does not require us to pretend that all is well. Many citizens are anxious about safety, opportunity and the quality of our life together. Our task is to face those concerns honestly, without surrendering either our confidence in Trinidad and Tobago or our regard for one another.

For we are more than the difficulties of the moment.

Our story is carried in the rhythms of the African drum and the tassa; in the music of the steelpan and the dhantal; in calypso, soca, chutney and parang; in the prayers offered in churches, temples, mosques and sacred spaces across our islands; and in the customs and memory of our First Peoples and of every community that has helped to shape our national life.

We have not merely inherited these influences. We have absorbed, adapted and transformed them into a way of life, a national character and an identity that are unmistakably our own. These are not separate Trinidad and Tobagos. They are different expressions of one national soul.

Today, as  we proudly celebrate this momentous day in our nationโ€™s history, let us remember that independence is not merely an achievement to commemorate, but is a responsibility to discharge. Let us remember that national greatness is not something that Trinidad and Tobago simply possesses. It is something that we must continue, deliberately, to choose and to build.

Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you to raise your glasses to Trinidad and Tobago:

  • to the discipline that protects us and the imagination that carries us forward;
  • to a nation in which every citizen belongs;
  • to the country we have inherited, and to the greater country we are still building together.

To Trinidad and Tobago.