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September 23, 2024
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September 23, 2024

What does it mean to be a Republic?

By Leela Ramdeen

Consultant, CCSJ & Director, CREDI

On Tuesday, September 24, we will celebrate the 48th anniversary of Trinidad & Tobago becoming a Republic. Let’s thank God for our democracy, our freedom and for the many gifts that He has bestowed upon us.

On August 31, we observed the 62nd year of T&T’s Independence from Britain. On August 31, 1962, some 160 years after Trinidad had ceded to the British, T&T became a sovereign democratic State, able to chart our own course.

We remained within the Commonwealth family, with the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, as the Head of State, until 1976 when T&T adopted a republican Constitution and became a fully self-governing Republic.

The British monarch was then replaced with a president who was elected by Parliament. Sir Ellis Emmanuel Innocent Clarke TC GCMG was T&T’s second and last Governor-General and the first President of our Republic.

Our Independence Constitution was replaced with a Republican Constitution, which included a comprehensive set of fundamental human rights and freedoms, checks and balances in the Legislative, Executive and Judicial arms of Government, and a commitment to the Rule of Law.

We embraced our red, white and black flag; our Anthem; our Coat of Arms; our National flower, the Chaconia; our national birds, the Scarlet Ibis and the Cocrico; our Watchwords given to us by our first Prime Minister, Dr Eric Williams: “Discipline, Production and Tolerance”; our nation’s motto: “Together we aspire, Together we achieve”; welcomed our Chief of Justice, Sir Hugh Wooding TC and our defence forces.

We remember with gratitude those who laboured in the vineyard and sacrificed much to gain our Independence and our Republican status. Kofi Annan, Former Secretary-General of the United Nations, reminds us: “No one is born a good citizen; no nation is born a democracy. Rather, both are processes that continue to evolve over a lifetime.”

As we celebrate our freedom from colonial rule, embrace our ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity, and promote our relationship with other countries, and with international organisations, let us remember the words of St John Paul II: “Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought”.

We must acknowledge not only our rights, but also our responsibilities. How many of us are doing what we ought to build the common good?

While in our Republic power is exercised by the people through our representatives in Government, remember that building a just and peaceful society, a truly independent nation, requires what Pope Francis says is “a commitment to a fully participatory democratic life aimed at the true common good”. Nation-building involves all of us.

In spite of our many social and other ills, we have much for which to be thankful. In many ways, we are a blessed people living in a blessed land. But let us be aware of the dangers confronting us.

For example, there are concerns of a rising wave of nationalism around the world, the negative effects of  which can fuel violence, division, and global disorder.

Let us promote patriotism, instead. Love for/pride in our country should lead us to strive to be good citizens, respecting self, others, and the environment; to do good works; to reject corruption, crime and violence and maintain the highest moral principles and ethical standards.

In their 1983 pastoral letter, the US Bishops wrote: “The virtue of patriotism means that as citizens we respect and honour our country, but our very love and loyalty makes us examine carefully its role in world affairs, asking that it live up to its full potential as an agent of peace with justice for all people.”

A good Republic is one that acknowledges that all lives matter; one whose policies, programmes, and practices demonstrate its commitment to promote integral ecology, since, as Pope Francis says in his encyclical, Laudato Si’ (LS), everything is connected.

It’s one that hears “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” (LS 49) and vulnerable. It promotes integral human development, that is, the development of each person, of every dimension of the person, of the entire human race; and it ensures good stewardship by caring for God’s Creation.

We are in the Season of Creation which runs from September 1 to October 4. The theme is: To hope and act with Creation.

As we reflect on how far we have come and how much more needs to be done, let’s address the deficiencies and weaknesses in our various institutions that hinder human and ecological development, and strive to foster more meaningful relationships between the different ethnic communities that co-exist here.

May God continue to bless our Nation!