Forty eight years later, the 1962 dream of self-governance, self-respect, a healthy dose of self-doubt and a stronger sense of civic friendliness are yet to be realised. Ferdie Ferreria and others are right in pointing to the many accomplishments we have made during our short period of self- governance; the Independence moment calls for self-congratulations, for fulsome patriotism, nostalgia and feel good reflections.

It is also imperative, though, that we assess our social well being and civic maturity, and that even as we look back at our goodness, we look at our poor present and share a vision for a progressive future.

Forty eight years of self-rule and we have a Canadian Commissioner of Police whose appointment comes after several reports on crime and the Police Service conducted by foreigners; possibly a foreign flood expert; a foreigner invited to assess dilapidation of President's House; foreign Queen's Counsel to offer legal opinions on a range of legal conundrums, including the extradition of Steve Ferguson and Ish Galbaransingh; a foreign expert to soon arrive to train our Government in negotiation strategies.

All things considered, these invitations to foreign experts — and all foreigners being invited and/or contracted to come here are modified with the word "expert", the term "foreign expertise" or "foreign expert" calling attention its converse "local inexpertise" or "national amateur" — are not by themselves disadvantageous. There is nothing automatically wrong or misguided or unpatriotic about importing advice, counsel or guidance from non-nationals, especially in this age of transnationalism, globalisation and migrations. Just as we import expertise, so too we have exported Trinidadians, Tobagonians and Caribbeanists to various parts of the world; we have impacted arts, culture and intellectualism in significant chunks of the world community and we should applaud our national and regional identity and upbringing that have encouraged us to continue in so doing.

But as we celebrate our 48 years, we must also reflect on ourselves, examine honestly the aspects of us that do not contribute to the nation we want to forge, interrogate how we consider ourselves and each other and how collective responsibility is still an elusive theme.

One important interrogation is not why we seek expertise from abroad but why we do not trust ourselves to conduct these exercises in the service of building a better nation and country.

It's easy to condemn initiatives that are foreign-focussed, to say buy local and choose nationals, to posit all the cultural differences that come with foreigners and point to their lack of indigenous knowledge that threaten to render their efforts irrelevant and unhelpful to us. But the truth is, we do not often trust our own people to perform these tasks efficiently, fairly and without corruption. We do not trust our fellow citizens and we often do not trust ourselves. So whatever our reservations about foreign expertise, we do expect a better, fairer job from them than we do from nationals. And we respond to foreign input with greater respect than we do to home grown offerings.

We are not often inaccurate in our assessment. There is a perception in this country, not without foundation, that Trinidad and Tobago is corrupt through and through. From tiefing and wasting water during a severe dry season to racing along highways without no regard for traffic regulations and even police, from robbing the injured to robbing the Treasury, we feel our institutions and people are utterly corrupt.

This perception drives our lack of trust that the Caribbean Court of Justice can adequately replace the Privy Council in delivering non-partisan judgements. We encourage the extradition of Ferguson and Galbaransingh because we invest greater confidence in the justice systems of other, more mature countries that we do in our own system.

We are conducting a debate on capital punishment that demonstrates why we do not trust ourselves. Other than a few notable exceptions, the debate is vile, base and as uncivil and violent as criminal acts that hangings are meant to reduce.

It is my hope that the debate is more important to us than the actual hangings, that the debate provides an opportunity to vent our collective rage and helplessness and that we need to so express rather than needing to kill in order to stop killings.

It is an uncivilised people who kill in the first instance, and it is spiralling into deeper incivility to kill those who kill, threaten to cut off their parts and hang them in the public square.

The debate demonstrates no trust in reason and civility but rather the same lust for blood that characterise some of our most brutal murderers.

Forty eight years on, distrust, violence and incivility are as much a part of us as our goodness, creativity and generosity. In celebrating the latter, let us not forget the abiding darkness that we also manifest and let us feed our good rather than satiate our hunger for the evil.