Kamla: Freedom under threat

Persad-Bissessar hailed the will and spirit of endurance of the slaves who fought for their freedom and who remained unbroken by slavery. “While they made England wealthy, they never enjoyed the bounty they helped produce and today the memory of that period lives on as we celebrate Emancipation. While we have cast off the chains, we are yet to be entirely free of the scourge of man’s greatest indignity to man,” Persad-Bissessar said.

Saying slaves created the conditions for Emancipation, she said their resistance to brutality showed the strength, courage and perseverance of a people who refused to be treated as property.

“The conditions under which they were sold deprived them of an identity and the plantations robbed them of their humanity.

But inside each body was the soul of a survivor and that is the spirit that has made the African presence so strong in our society and in the world.

“We are richer because of the culture and values that they had to reconstruct in the post emancipation period.” She said all now share these people’s food, music and culture. Persad-Bissessar said this occasion requires all to reflect on where we are today as a society. “Today, we are faced with threats to our own individual freedoms, as criminals have become emboldened, with those in authority seemingly incapable of bringing about a resolution to this crippling problem.” She said crime affects all of us, and is impacting on our quality of life. “It cannot be the norm that people are afraid to leave their homes, that children no longer feel comfortable to go to the neighbourhood shop or walk to a friend’s house.” Likewise businesses, already hit by a limping economy and a lack of foreign exchange, are also hurt by rising crime.

“We are under siege from the criminal element and I call once again on the Prime Minister to look at the state of our country and come up with solutions to the problems facing us. “As I make this call to the Prime Minister, I also call on all citizens to come together – we must, each of us, do our part to make Trinidad and Tobago better, stronger and united.”