If Dr Eric Williams, the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago who led this country to Independence 60 years ago, were alive today, he would be shaking his head and bemoaning the fact that people are still not serious.
However, he would be proud that democracy is alive and well and we have not succumbed to past attacks.
These are the sentiments of Erica Williams-Connell, daughter of the man who was the architect of this country’s Independence.
In a phone interview with the Sunday Express on Friday, Williams-Connell said Trinidad and Tobago should try to “become one” and not fall for the evil machinations of those who wish to divide the country.
Noting that at 60 years of Independence, T&T is still in its infancy, she said the people have a lot of growing to do.
On 15 January 1956, Williams inaugurated the People’s National Movement (PNM) and subsequently led T&T to Independence in 1962, and was a dominant figure in post-colonial politics.
Williams-Connell recalled that she was only 11 years old when T&T achieved Independence. At that time she was in England as a student.
“I celebrated Independence with the new ambassador to the Court of St. James Sir Leary Constantine and his wife. “My father was certainly in Trinidad,” she said.
She did not understand the significance of what happened at that time when she was a child.
“I am 71 years old and in reflection – and this is why they say youth is lost on the young – it took me many years of maturity to understand who my father really was and what he was, apart from Dad, ” she. said.
Williams-Connell said her father’s words about democracy and the unity of a people resonate even more today.
“We see what’s happening in the United States where I live today, it’s amazing. We can be like that; in fact, sometimes, I think I live in a banana republic here in the United States; it’s become a Third World country, a Fourth World country in many ways…we’ve done better, but the road ahead is still very bumpy,” she said, recalling the horror of the Capitol Hill storm on January 6. this year.
“I’m amazed that this incredible experiment in democracy that America, more than 200 years ago, began, is in serious danger of falling, and that’s where we could be,” she said.
Famous words
Williams-Connell noted what her father said 60 years ago in his Independence Day speech on August 31, 1962:
“What will you use your Independence for? What will you pass on to your children five years from now? Your first responsibility is to protect and promote your democracy. Democracy means more, much more than the right to vote. Democracy means recognition of the rights of others. Democracy means equality of all in the eyes of the law. Democracy means protection of the weak against the strong. Democracy implies the obligation of the minority to recognize the right of the majority.
“Democracy means responsibility of the government towards its citizens, protection of citizens from the exercise of arbitrary power and violation of human freedoms and individual rights. Democracy means freedom of worship for all and the subordination of the rights of each race to the prevailing right of the human race. Democracy means freedom of expression, assembly and organization… Everything is democracy… Democracy ultimately rests on a higher power. It relies on an informed, cultured and alert public opinion.”
Williams-Connell said the question to ask now is “have we delivered on that promise?”.
She said that it is often said that “God is a Trinity”, but we as humans have not really fought for anything.
“I believe that when you give a child everything, he doesn’t appreciate it. We can only pray when we mature, as a people and as a nation,” she said.
What worries her today, she said, are the divisions taking place in T&T society.
“If you are of one race and I am of another and I have a serious accident and I need your blood, what color is your blood, isn’t it the same as mine? she said as she emphasized that this place has the potential to become one as seen during sports events and carnivals.
“But there are always these divisions in society that many people, not just politicians, stoke that fire, deliberately, badly, to ensure that we remain divided and not united because divided we fall,” she said.
The struggle for unification
Williams-Connell recalled her father’s words about loyalty to country and unity:
“Together, the various groups in Trinidad and Tobago have suffered, together they have aspired, together they have achieved. Only together can they succeed. And only together they can build a society, they can build a nation, they can build a homeland. There can be no Mother India, for those whose ancestors came from India…there can be no Mother Africa, for those of African descent. There can be no Mother England and no double allegiance…..
“There can be no Mother China, even if one can agree which Mother China is; and there cannot be Mother Syria and Mother Lebanon. A nation, like an individual, can have only one mother. The only mother we know is Mother Trinidad and Tobago and the mother cannot differentiate between her children.”
Williams-Connell said the people of T&T are multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-national, but they struggle many times to make it happen, to become one.
She noted that the fastest-growing subgroup of the population is mixed race, and that’s “great because we can all bring some kind of unity to our lives and to our nation, and at the same time celebrate our heritage”.
“We are the masters of our own destiny, we have the power to make or break our future and that alone is cause for celebration. It is no longer what we should be or should be imposed on us…we can look in that proverbial mirror to chart the way forward or we can continue in blissful ignorance to diminish our history,” she added.
Williams-Connell said young people need to be aware of their history and not fall prey to the negative aspects of social media.
The history of this nation should also be taught in all international schools in T&T, she said, adding that it was intolerable that this was not the case.
She said this twin island republic should be grateful in reaching 60 years of Independence as she noted that T&T has not faced racial tensions and racially based killings like other nations.
She said this country has much to celebrate, including a free press and an independent judiciary.
Asked how her father would feel if he were alive today, she said: “As far as the world, the global community, I think he would be devastated. I think he’d still get the nod for Trinidad and Tobago; he basically complained about the fact that we are not a serious people, not only Trinidad and Tobago, but the people of the West Indies. Give the man his cricket and carnival and he is satisfied, I think he would complain about it.
“But then again, he could easily be seen as overly serious, although he had a wicked sense of humor. This to me is something that a man or woman who knows they only have a certain amount of time to get things done, they are in a hurry to do it. I think he would think that we have a long way to go in Trinidad and Tobago, but I think he would be proud that the two revolutions that we’ve had in our lifetime were broken, the country came together and moved on.”
