TRINIDAD and Tobago proudly celebrates 47 years as an independent nation today, reflecting as we must, the roads we have travelled over this period of almost half a century, and looking ahead to where we are likely to go over the next 50.
What is beyond argument is that as a country and as a people we have made significant and tremendous strides in many areas during this time, but that we have far still to go, in the forging of the kind of society consistent with many of our aspirations.
Having come into the world as it were, with manna from heaven, by way of the resource-rich soils and the seas upon which we have been cast, we have taken as a natural responsibility the maxim that to whom much is given much is expected.
It bears repeating that over the last 47 years we have scaled dizzying heights as a small nation, likewise we have been brought low by shocking homegrown developments.
A mere eight years after independence, the country convulsed under the weight of social unrest, in the sweep of the black power disturbances centred mainly in the United States.
But this experience itself ushered in a period of introspection which led to significant changes in the social and economic design of the country. The effects of these are very evident today. Then along the way we moved to republican status which dictated a new constitution for our self-government.
Later, in 1990, we lived the reality of a rude, murderous assault on our democracy by a group of discontented young men under the banner of a militant Islamic sect.
Significantly, as we celebrate this anniversary today the need for a fresh constitutional model is centre stage in our deliberations.
A plural society which has demonstrated to the world a unique way of life based on tolerance and embracing the concept of unity in diversity, we have been spared the more extreme forms of discrimination and intolerance that have been visited on peoples close to us and further afield.
In politics, history, literature, music, drama and the arts, in sports and culture, in beauty and in horticulture, among other areas of endeavour, we have made significant, repeated marks on the international scene.
The performance of our athletes at the just-concluded world track and field championships was the latest examples of such world-class achievement.Three years ago we became the smallest nation to ever qualify for the World Cup finals, an achievement we seek to repeat for South Africa 2010.
But as we look back over these years and look ahead to the future, some troubling developments must command our attention for critical action.
An increasing income gap between rich and poor, complicated by a sub-set gender divide as well, we must address.
Perhaps, however, the single most sobering aspect of our current development is the pervasiveness of a murderous cohort of young people, mainly men.
A crime rate led by ever increasing murder figures is contributing to a sense of anxiety increasing on a daily basis. The prolonged nature of its spiral is a major blot on our way of life.
These are but a few of the stumbling blocks in the way of our vision for a brighter future, over the next half century.
