Independence Season revisited

Marlborough House Independence Meeting 1962

 As I awoke this morning, in the middle of Independence Season 2020, I happened to scan through the pages of my book Speaking Out[1] and came across this letter I wrote to the newspapers in the same season 27 years ago.
As Rudder put it – Déjà vu, I suppose.
Just thought I would share it as we reflect on 58 years of our Independence experience.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose[2]? – You think?
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Independence Season
Well, this one is a scorcher! It's hardly two hours since sunrise and already. as I sit at the keyboard, I can feel the beads of sweat running down my neck.
"No typical early morning shower this year". I can hear the television announcers voice from across the room.
Well, it's Independence morning. Everything is there. Well appointed, as they say. The President standing stiff as my grandmother's starched clothes in his jeep. The red, white and black just as stiff in the early morning breeze. The soldiers, the police, the firemen, all the uniforms stiff and starchy, too.
You just can't, say the trappings aren't intact. Even the Prime Minister is back from Uncle Sam's huddle.
"Thirty First of August, Nineteen Sixty Two
I, ah Little Dadda Head Boy
Standing on de Bypass
As Colonial Motorcade with de Queen Face Pass
On de Bypass  "
Lance Doughty's[3] old rapso poem flashes across my mind.
Thirty-one years are gone. How yuh feel?
I recall those childhood visions. We moved up to Green Street that year. TV came in that year too. TTT, the same station that I have on this morning. Bun and soft drink in school. We gather downstairs EC school. "Hail to the Day, .... This is our Land's Great Dawning" we sang with gusto.
That night we went for a drive in town[4]. Lights. Banners. Frederick Street decorated for so. Then the Fireworks.
I was only approaching seven then, but those images stuck, almost hauntingly.
Who could have escaped the euphoria of that day? It was a birth and like any other, a time for celebration that no one had to put on.
Now, everything seems stiff and starched. Like we loss de spirit or what!
Well, perhaps I can console myself. This is only the first morning of Independence Season, August 31 to September 24. Maybe like all the other seasons we celebrate, it's off to a slow start.
Scanning the newspaper headlines of Sunday's Guardian, there on the front page "Mixed Views on Manning govt" and "US$25m loan for TT - Govt borrows from Republic for debt service"
Coincidental with the eve of Republic Season, the first headline tops a story about a survey on "how well the Patrick Manning government is managing" my independent country. Who is making such a survey. Well, well .... " a survey sponsored by the United States Information Agency" the article goes on.
What an insult!!! Can you imagine an agency of the T&T embassy in Washington or New York, London, or Bridgetown commissioning a survey on how the national government of that country is managing?
What ever happened to our sovereignty? Why are we tolerating this blatant interference in our internal business?
What we think about the Trinidad & Tobago Government is Trini business. No foreign government or embassy, Sally Cowal[5] or anyone else has any right to be sticking their nose in our business like that.
What patriotism is left when a "national newspaper", our Guardian of Democracy carries this insult without a whimper of protest on its front pages, two days before our Independence Day.
Or are we supposed to accept the fact that Massah Day Eh Really Done?
Perhaps, because Republic (sic) bank lends government $25m US to pay foreign debt.
After all who pays the piper calls the tune.
What a start to my Independence Season!
Well at least it keeps you facing reality. What we thought we had thirty-one years ago still remains an aspiration. Formal independence, declarations, anthems and flags mean very little if you depend on others for your finances and livelihood, allow meddlesome foreigners to dabble in your nation's business and attempt to shape public opinion with their surveys and polls.
I, for one will make my Season's resolution - The aspirations and hopes of August 31,1962 must be made a reality.
We must all rededicate ourselves, put all our energies into the struggle to have genuine independence in this land of ours, to be a sovereign people determining our future free from outside interference, owning and controlling our resources and putting them to the best use in the interest of our people. We na' give up!
1993:August:31
 
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Speaking-Out-Collection-Letters-Writings-ebook/dp/B07KSPL17M/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=clyde+weatherhead&qid=1599308678&s=books&sr=1-6

[2] The more things change, the more it’s the same thing

[3] Lance Doughty, a poet from San Fernando

[4] Port of Spain

[5] US Ambassador to TT at the time

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