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Speaker: The Honourable Basdeo Panday, Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
Date: May 30, 2000
Occasion: Address at the Indian Arrival Day Celebrations 2000 at the Divali Nagar site, Chaguanas, Trinidad.
My Dear Friends:
We have come to the end of the first 155 years of what some people are fond of referring to as "The Indian Presence" in Trinidad and Tobago.
We have also come to the end of the 20th Century, and the second millennium.
One year ago, as we celebrated the final Indian Arrival Day of the last century of the millennium just ended, I put a proposition to you.
I proposed that the context, the content and the character that we would attach to this first Indian Arrival Day in the first century of the new millennium be evaluated.
I proposed that Indian Arrival Day, each year, could be a day of dedication to the universal principles taught and practised by leaders whom we revere, leaders and teachers such as Rabindranath Tagore, Jawaharlal Nehru and "Bapuji" - Mohandas Gandhi, the Mahatma.
On the eve of India�s Independence, Jawaharlal Nehru called on his people to take a pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people, and to the still larger cause of mankind.
Rabindranath Tagore dreamed of a universe where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; where knowledge is free, where the world has not been broken into fragments by narrow domestic walls.
We knew what the Mahatma Gandhi stood for:
"I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed.
"I want all the citizens of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible".
My Brothers and Sisters:
I reminded you, a year ago, of Pearl Buck�s challenge to India:
"Oh, India, dare to be worthy of your Gandhi"!
My Brothers and Sisters:
I challenge you, now, as I challenged you then, to be worthy of Tagore and Nehru and Gandhi.
My brothers and sisters whose ancestors, like mine, came home to Trinidad 155 years ago, I dare you, now, to be worthy of Trinidad and Tobago.
Begin by making Indian Arrival Day a celebration of the Trinidad and Tobago that we, and our ancestors, have helped to build.
Begin, my brothers and sisters, by making this day, every year, the culmination of a season of thanksgiving for all that this land has given to all of us.
And begin, my brothers and sisters, by making this day, the 30th of May, a day on which we reaffirm our love for our nation, a day on which we re-dedicate our lives to serving Trinidad and Tobago and all of her people.
Much as we love India, my brothers and sisters, Trinidad and Tobago needs us more and Trinidad and Tobago has given us more, therefore we must love Trinidad and Tobago more.
My Brothers and Sisters:
On a personal note, I am nearing the end of my first term as Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
It has been my destiny to lead our nation into the 21st Century, and every day I have been in office, I have tried to do the very best for every citizen of our Republic.
I might not have succeeded in everything that I have set out to do, but I have tried, particularly the quest for national unity.
I have had some interesting experiences.
Quite recently, in Diego Martin, I spoke with a woman who told me that well before I began my term of office in 1995, she had seen, in a vision, that Trinidad and Tobago was to have an Indian Prime Minister.
Because that dear lady exuded such goodwill towards me, because she was so generous in the blessings she invoked upon me, I stopped myself from responding with the thought that immediately came to my mind, that, alas, her dream remained unfulfilled since Trinidad and Tobago does not have an Indian Prime Minister.
You see, my dear friends, the franchise on Indian Prime Ministers, in my view, belongs exclusively to India, in India.
If I recognise any absolutes, it is that I am absolutely certain of my birthright.
Where my navel string is buried, that is who and what I am, a Trinidadian.
A Trinidadian born and bred, and proud to be a Trini.
Indian Prime Minister?
No thank you.
Trinidad and Tobago has never, to my knowledge, had an African Prime Minister or an African President.
We never had a Chinese Governor General, for that matter.
You can call me West Indian.
I have no problem with that.
Yesterday, there were a lot of proud "West Indians" - myself included - throughout the Caribbean and across the West Indian Diaspora.
I shared the agony and the ecstasy of the final moments of the Third Test against Pakistan, at the Antigua Recreation Ground.
I am sure that you will join me in applauding the West Indies Cricket Team on that tremendous triumph over Pakistan.
Join me, too, as I take this opportunity to salute Jimmy Adams on his personal triumph, his resolute leadership and his heroic performance.
I also take this opportunity to salute the Pakistan Captain Moin Khan, whom we saw applauding the West Indians at the very moment that would have been excruciatingly painful for him and for his team.
Moin Khan has been widely commended for that extraordinary demonstration of sportsmanship.
To me, it was an extraordinary demonstration of character.
This was an exemplar.
Jimmy Adams and Courtney Walsh stood ten feet tall in victory.
In defeat, Moin Khan also stood ten feet tall.
My brothers and sisters:
There are many lessons for us in that Test Match, in the series, and in West Indies Cricket, generally.
Jimmy Adams was never the "Jamaican" captain.
Shivarine Chanderpaul was not the "Guyanese" batsman.
He certainly was not an "Indian" cricketer.
West Indies cricket is a telling example of the power that comes from the unification of discrete elements when they unite.
In the same way, when Trinis unite, we win.
Disturbingly, there are people at loose in our land who reject any thought, any call for unity among the major groups in Trinidad and Tobago.
We have polemicists whose only agenda is to drive a wedge between people who have lived together in this land for 155 years.
You recognise them by their persistent use of the labels, "African" and "Indian".
Those of us who trace our ancestral roots to India, and those of us who trace our ancestral roots to Africa, have helped, in equal measure, to build this nation.
Those of us who trace our ancestral roots to Europe, and to China, and to the Mediterranean, have also helped to build this nation.
We are not at war with one another.
My dear friends:
On this first Indian Arrival Day, in this new century, I submit that we must concern ourselves with one principal question:
How can we help to move our nation forward?
We must begin by recognising that the greatest obstacle to our nation�s progress is prejudice.
We must also recognise that there are people operating in our society whose agendas have chaos as their central objective.
Consider this, my dear brothers and sisters:
There were over 50 wars around the globe in the decade of the 90�s, the majority of them internal wars.
Most of those wars were the result of religious and ethnic divisions.
Those conflicts were largely the result of political ambition playing on ethnic and religious differences.
Those wars claimed millions of lives, the better part of 5 million.
Political ambition, lust for power, the destructive manipulation of diversity, these are the triple threat Trinidad and Tobago faces from within.
In the face of such agendas, we must manage diversity with sensitivity and astuteness, my brothers and sisters.
There is crucial need in plural societies for mechanisms to prevent discrimination amongst diverse groups.
In this context, one of the imperatives in every society is equality of opportunity.
Within this framework, my Administration has taken legislation to Parliament to prohibit discrimination against, and persecution or harassment of any group or person on grounds of religion, gender, ethnicity, political affiliation and disability.
Similar legislation has long existed in the most evolved countries of the world, as well as in many developing countries.
Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, we have the bizarre, macabre assertion by a mentor to a certain political leader that to publicly curse people, to publicly ridicule people or their religion constitutes the highest form of expression and respect.
That is the sort of danger that stalks the land my friends.
It is the worst kind of danger to be let loose in any plural society.
For all that we have to be thankful for in these two blessed islands, we must protect our country from those are bent on divisiveness, destabilization and chaos.
We have a great deal to protect in this country that we have helped to build.
Though infinitesimal by comparison with such countries as India, South Africa and China, Trinidad and Tobago is ranked way above them on the United Nation Development Programmes Human Development Index.
Simply put, our 1.3 Million by and large, lead better lives than do the more than 3 Billion people in China, India, South Africa.
Our National Minimum Wage of $7.00 an hour is more than the daily income of some 1.2 Billion people in the world, today.
This is to our great credit.
Still, in our country, there are thousands of people who are without jobs, who cannot make ends meet, who live in poverty.
If we agree that, as Bapuji has said, poverty is the worst form of violence, let us band together in Trinidad and Tobago to declare war on poverty.
The new education system is the most potent weapon in the war against poverty.
It is necessary that you all become involved in the new education system.
Independent school boards will supervise the country�s schools.
As parents, you will have a key role, a new role in the operation of your children�s schools.
In the democratisation of education that is taking place, every child will have the chance to connect with information technology.
So too, should you.
Should you look to India, today, you will be struck by the tremendous strides that country is making in telecommunications, in information technology.
By embracing the Information Revolution, India is producing large numbers of technical and science graduates.
Indian companies have become world leaders in software development.
India�s software industry is expected to grow to US$100 billion by the end of the decade.
There is a salutary lesson we can learn from India today.
One of India�s strategies we can adopt, that we can certainly seek to emulate, is what India is making of the convergence of Information Technology, the Internet and E-Commerce.
While we cherish our cultural links with India, let us use our connections to establish partnerships in the new electronic culture, the e-culture that is reshaping the world.
My brothers and sisters:
After 155 years in this land, we have the obligation to shoulder the responsibilities of protecting our country from those who would divide us.
We have the obligation to be soldiers in the war against poverty.
We have the obligation to protect our womenfolk and our children.
We have a particular obligation to counsel our teenage children about the dangers of promiscuous sex, which is as perilous as speeding on the roads.
We have the obligation to look out for our brothers and sisters in the national family of Trinidad and Tobago, no matter where their ancestral roots are buried.
This above all, my dear brothers and sisters, we have the obligation now, to look towards the next 155 years of helping to build this land, in a modern and unified nation.
Let us be vigilant that we are not hyphenated out of our birthright by anybody.
Let us all unite as true Trinis.
That is all I ever wanted to be.
I may have disappointed all who expected and wished for an Indian Prime Minister, or perhaps an Anglo-Indian Prime Minister, at least.
I make no apologies for that.
I could no more readily be an Anglo-Indian leader than I could be an Afro-Saxon leader.
If we all stand firmly on our birthright as Trinidadians and Tobagonians, as I have done, we will guarantee that Trinidad and Tobago will in time be indeed a place where every creed and every race does indeed have an equal place.
That is every citizen�s birthright regardless of roots.
Let me remind you however, as Gandhi has reminded us, you must, yourself, become the change you want to see.
Thank you my brothers and sisters, may God bless this, our beloved nation, Trinidad and Tobago.
Thank you.