How do we build a nation?

I’m sure we can rise from the shadows as we shine

Through the pain and sorrow leave de darkness behind

For the youths and we future, let the healing begin

In the rhythm of we island let love pull us in

So come from the dusk till dawn

As we rise up every morn

We’ll fly to the skies like plane

Our people will rise again

Hand in hand is how we’ll start

Everyone can play their part

Man, woman and child come in

Let the cleansing begin.

—Yung Bredda

I imagine if T&T spoke on its 64th birthday, it would say something like this:

“I gained my Independence on August 31, 1962. I am now 64 years old. By this age, I should be mature. I should know who I am, what I stand for and where I am going. I should be flourishing.

“Yet, as I prepare to celebrate another birthday, I look at my people and see them fighting among themselves. I see violence, division and growing despair. I see people treating my land as though it has no value and speaking about my future as though it is someone else’s responsibility. After 64 years, I am forced to ask: have my people really built a nation?”

In his book, History of the People of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr Eric Williams warned that “a country will be free, a miniature state will be established, but a society and a nation will not have been formed.”

He was reminding us that independence was only the beginning. Yes, we got the national flag and anthem along with the right to manage our own affairs. However, those things alone could not make us a nation.

Nationhood required something deeper; we need to have a shared purpose, a willingness to care for one another and the discipline to put country before self. That was the work independence left for us to do.

So, what does the unfinished work of nation-building look like? It begins with how we treat one another when we disagree. Politics will always involve different opinions, but it should not turn citizens into enemies.

Williams and then Opposition Leader Dr Rudranath Capildeo had deep political differences. Only months earlier, their parties had clashed over constituency boundaries, election procedures, constitutional amendments and appointments to the Public Service Commission. Yet Williams and Capildeo met privately at Marlborough House and found enough common ground to move the country towards Independence. That is what putting country before party looked like.

In his Independence address, Capildeo said, “They have stretched out the hand of peace and we must be first to accept it and last to reject it.” He understood that opposing the Government did not mean opposing the country. Today, too much of our politics seems to be about winning, humiliating the other side and protecting party interests. We cannot answer “they do not like us” with “we do not like them” and then expect to build a nation.

All new nations must go through a nation-building phase, and some may argue that T&T is still relatively young. However, we have had 64 years to build. Surely, that is long enough to move beyond the teething stage.

I have often said that, on a daily basis, our people live and work together. We attend each other’s weddings and funerals, care for our neighbours’ children and help complete strangers after floods, fires and other tragedies. Yet, when politics enters the picture, we are encouraged to see one another through the narrow lenses of race and party.

We could have done far more to build a shared national identity. Our schools could have taught our history as one connected story. No, now it is all about “African this and Indian that”.

National youth, sporting and cultural programmes could have regularly brought children from different communities together. Instead, too many of our children grow up in their own small, fragmented worlds, with few opportunities to truly know one another.

Development could have been distributed fairly, regardless of which party represented an area. Building a nation has to be a conscious decision supported by deliberate action; it cannot be left to happen haphazardly. Nothing will change until we decide to change it.

So, where do we go from here? In Williams’ words, “Whatever the challenge that faces you, from whatever quarter, place always first that national interest and the national cause. The strength of the Nation depends on the strength of its citizens.”

The responsibility for building T&T does not solely belong to the Government or the Opposition. It belongs to every one of us.

On Monday, as we celebrate, perhaps we should ask ourselves a simple question: what am I doing to help build this nation? Am I contributing to the division, or am I helping to heal it?

Yung Bredda reminds us that “everyone can play their part.” T&T is now 64 years old. We cannot continue waiting for politicians or some future generation to create the nation we want. We are here now. We are the ones who have to build it.

Happy Independence Day, T&T.